The Team Penske engineer with whom Scott McLaughlin worked throughout the IndyCar iRacing Challenge believes the areas they worked on will have a real-world carry over.

Jonathan Diuguid worked alongside McLaughlin during the New Zealander’s IndyCar test at the start of the year.

That relationship then flowed over to the virtual world, with Diuguid engineering and spotting for the two-time Supercars champion during the IndyCar iRacing competition.

Together the pair proved front-runners throughout, winning races at Indianapolis and Barber Motorsport Park.

“Scott is an experienced and successful racing driver, and that also extended over into the virtual world,” said Diuguid in the latest Penske Material column.

“We focused on communication that would directly transfer over to the real world and discussed race strategy, tyre management, fuel saving techniques, in-and-out lap performance and driving details on ovals.

“One positive about Scott working from Australia and myself in the US, is that each of us were able to put in work while the other was sleeping.”

For his part, McLaughlin credited much of the success of his IndyCar iRacing success to Diuguid’s involvement.

“Jonathan is a guru, and the strategy calls he’s made throughout the IndyCar Challenge were masterful,” he said.

“His calm demeanour and guidance have made a world of difference to me and how I have gone about my racing.

“Working with him in the real world during pre-season testing at Sebring, Circuit of the Americas and Texas Motor Speedway was awesome and I can’t wait to do more real-world racing with him.”

McLaughlin was slated to make his IndyCar Series debut on the Indianapolis road course last week, though the event was postponed until early July.

With Supercars his priority, and no updated calendar yet announced, McLaughlin’s IndyCar debut remains on hold.