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Scott McLaughlin gives his take on a successful weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course via his exclusive Hired Gun column for Speedcafe.com.
Hey guys,
Well how about that then?!!?
Without being cocky – I had a really good feeling about Mid-Ohio all week in the lead-up.
I know our results the past couple of months haven’t been anything flash – in fact they’ve been well below what I’ve wanted – but I felt we were gaining momentum as a “team”.
So to knock it out of the park like we did across this weekend is unbelievably satisfying for all of us on the #3 car.
I’ve been blessed with the team assembled around me – they inspire me and drive me and give me everything I could ever want, so I’m so pleased to pay them back with a result this weekend.
To qualify on the front row is exactly what we were hoping for – we’d put so much effort into improving our qualifying, so Saturday was a big tick.
And that gave us the confidence for Sunday to get the job done – and make sure we finished on the podium and got ourselves a trophy.
In the end we had something that we haven’t had much of the past couple of months – and that was a slice of luck.
We’ve had mostly bad luck since the Indy GP – so to be on right side of luck on race day was a nice change.
We were lucky the full course caution wasn’t thrown until we’d pitted.
We got a little lucky with Pato O’Ward’s issues.
And we were lucky to hold off Alex Palou in the run to the end – which was a great challenge having the defending champ breathing fire down our neck.
To hold him off was huge for me – just like it was at St Pete at the start of the season, so I’m absolutely pumped.
And to have Mum and Dad by my side in victory lane was enormous.
It’s a proud moment for me.
To see them both in tears brought me to tears – and after so long apart, it was just wonderful to have them with me to see my new life here in the USA.
The only one missing was Karly – who was back in New York for the weekend with her family.
But we’ll make up for it with some drinks this week to celebrate!
I can’t wait to get home to watch the replay with the team – I’ve heard there were some good fireworks behind!
I guess July 4 is the perfect weekend for some fireworks!
So we get our second ever IndyCar win and move from ninth up to seventh in the championship.
To get our two wins at two of the great events – Mid-Ohio is such an awesome circuit, after our success at St Pete’s fantastic street track, is really rewarding.
We now join Josef as the only repeat winner this year – so even that is huge for us.
On our team, it was great to see Will Power have such a great run.
He is such a weapon at this place… and to hear how he carved his way from last through to the podium was just awesome.
So Will’s happy. Roger is happy. My folks are happy. I’m happy. All is good right now. I’m a lucky boy.
Next up for us after a week off is a trip to Canada – my first crack at the famous Toronto street circuit.
I’ll hit the simulator this week to ensure we’re at our best – it feels a lot like the street tracks I’m used to from Supercars so hopefully we hit the ground running.
Thanks for the support and messages, it means the world to me!
Scotty
