Scott McLaughlin says his friendship with his new-for-2022 IndyCar engineer Ben Bretzman has allowed the two to have a “very honest” working relationship.

The New Zealander spent his rookie, 2021 season working with Jonathan Diuguid, who would then be moved to Team Penske’s new Porsche LMDh programme.

The addition of the sportscar effort meant a downsizing of the IndyCar operation to three cars, hence freeing Bretzman to move across from the #22 entry steered by future Meyer Shank Racing driver Simon Pagenaud to McLaughlin’s #3.

Since then, the three-time Supercars champion has picked up his first two IndyCar race wins, first two pole positions, and a further three podiums, to sit sixth in the series standings with three events left this year.

According to McLaughlin, they started to gel as soon as he got on the Penske simulator for the first time.

“We’re definitely friends, which helps our relationship, I think because we’re just very honest with each other,” he said of Bretzman.

“Benny is a great guy; he is a people’s person, and he was one of the first Team Penske engineering employees that I met when I came to IndyCar to do my first simulating on the Chevy simulator.

“That was a lot of fun, and we’ve just sort of grown our relationship since then, played a lot of golf together over the last few years, and he was really my pick to be my engineer this year when I lost Jonathan.

“I think he’s enjoyed working with me.

“I think he has had a long relationship with Simon, which was a very good one – they’re still great friends – but I think he has enjoyed just a little bit more of a fresh perspective with me, and vice versa.

“We’re enjoying it, and we’ll keep working hard.

“He is a big team player, he is a big part of ‘Thirsty Threes’ [the moniker given to McLaughlin’s entry] – he is the one that came up with the hashtag – he is a good lad.”

The IndyCar season resumes this weekend at Gateway Motorsports Park, the last oval of the year.

Practice 1 takes place tomorrow from 03:00 AEST and Qualifying from 06:15 AEST, with both of those sessions live and ad-free on Stan Sport.