Premat rates McLaughlin as good as Hamilton

Alexandre Premat says he rates Scott McLaughlin as highly as seven-time Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton.

Premat was Hamilton’s team-mate at ART Grand Prix in the 2006 GP2 Series, which the Briton won in what was his debut season.

The Frenchman finished third in that year’s title race, winning one race to Hamilton’s five.

A year later, Hamilton contested his first season in Formula 1 with McLaren and put himself on the path towards breaking numerous records, including the all-time most race wins and equal-most drivers’ championships (level with Michael Schumacher).

After shifting away from single-seaters and into touring cars, Premat moved to Australia in 2012 to compete in Supercars.

Premat spent one full season with McLaughlin in 2013.

After his full-time exit from the category at the end of the year, Premat would join McLaughlin on five occasions in the Bathurst 1000, ultimately winning it in his last attempt in 2019.

Off the back of three Supercars championship wins, the New Zealander finds himself in the thick of it in IndyCar with Team Penske.

Recently, the 28-year-old claimed his maiden IndyCar race win on the streets of St Petersburg.

Speaking with Speedcafe.com from the 1000 Miles of Sebring event, Premat said McLaughlin is constantly spoken about, even at the very highest level of world motorsport.

“I am not surprised because I know what he is capable of,” Premat said of McLaughlin’s IndyCar success.

“I have a really good friend in Formula 1 with Toto [Wolff] and some other friend [Frédéric] Vasseur, every time that I speak to a person, it’s about Scott. I tell them, ‘Scott, what he does, it’s amazing’. Even in V8 Supercars, I was already telling them.

“For me, he is like Hamilton in the sense of qualities, in the sense of being close to the fans, also the way that he behaves with the mechanics around the team, around the people that are around him. He is very humble and I think that is why he is successful.

“I think all his processes about going through qualifying, never does any mistakes, it’s very rare.

“He is doing good. For me, it is the same kind of model as Lewis Hamilton. I’ve been a team-mate of Lewis, I rate him as much as Lewis Hamilton, for sure.

“It would be nice if one day he could have a crack in Formula 1, why not?”

Premat said the stocks of IndyCar drivers have gone up significantly with a heightened interest from teams in Europe.

Although a Formula 1 berth might seem stranger than fiction, he said that interest in the likes of Pato O’Ward and Colton Herta makes the prospect entirely possible.

“Everyone in the paddock, a lot of European people, I’m in Sebring with the WEC, when I’m talking about Scott everyone knows Scott, even in the WEC,” said Premat.

“Everyone knows who he is. What he did in V8 Supercars, win three championships, like [Jamie] Whincup, he is a big name in Europe because he has been so successful. With more media, I would say they are following V8 Supercars recently. They can see that.

“When you are an IndyCar driver, especially recently with Pato O’Ward that got the test in Formula 1, you can see there is more interaction with people who are fast in IndyCar. Because they say, ‘Oh, wow, they are fast. Can they be fast in Formula 1?’

“IndyCar is a dream in America, but the dream for every driver I think is Formula 1, even though maybe sometimes it’s not a dream because it’s not reachable, but I mean, there’s a lot that know Scott, for sure.

“Now he is in America with Team Penske, it’s great. He needs to keep pushing to fight for the championship this year if he can.

“It won’t be easy, because it’s only his second year, but when you look at St Petersburg, honestly, the last 10 laps, or the last 15 laps, or even the whole race, he was doing exactly the same thing as V8 Supercars.

“He was controlling the space, he was controlling everything, he was watching the mirrors, watching everything. That’s how good he is.”

McLaughlin continues his IndyCar Series campaign this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway for the Xpel 375.

Stan Sport’s live and ad-free coverage kicks in from 05:00 AEDT on Sunday with Qualifying at the Fort Worth circuit.

Coverage of the 248-lap race begins at 02:30 AEDT on Monday.