Scott McLaughlin is back for the Indy 500 a year after his warm-up lap crash destroyed his car before the race began. Speaking about a moment he called the worst of his life, the Team Penske driver says he still doesn’t know what happened, but he has since lea
INDIANAPOLIS — The image is still hard for Scott McLaughlin to process: the man in the yellow firesuit crouched by his car. hands over his face. unable to look at what he’d done. It wasn’t the kind of crash that happens after hours of racing. It happened before the Indianapolis 500 could even properly start.
During the final pace laps for the 2025 Indianapolis 500. the Team Penske driver warmed his tires the way he’d seen everyone else do it—weaving his car back and forth. Then. as he approached Turn 1 on the warm-up lap. his car snapped around “without warning.” He lost control. careened toward the inside wall. and slammed into it. destroying his race car before a single lap could be run.
“I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,” McLaughlin told The Athletic. “It was absolutely the worst moment of my life.”
He says there wasn’t a moment of distraction or a lapse in concentration. He felt good, “laser-focused” in preparing to start the race. What he couldn’t explain was why it went wrong so fast. “To this day, I still have no idea what happened,” he said. “I felt like I was just warming up my tires. It was a little aggressive on the tire warm-up. but the way it just went like that (snaps his fingers). it was tough.”.
What made it feel even worse. he said. was the scale of attention—more than seven million people watching on TV and another 350. 000 in person. “The fact there was seven and a half million people watching that whole thing is what made it so hard. ” he said. “It was embarrassing, but there was also shock in there as well.”.
He described being pulled into a different kind of responsibility immediately after. As he tried to process what had just happened. he thought about the brands on his suit. the person he drives for. and “the guys who are hurting back in the pits.” He also had another thought that kept coming back: his then-infant daughter Lucy would eventually see the footage of how he handled the aftermath.
That thought. he said. pushed him toward control—toward the kind of emotional discipline his father taught him when he was a young go-kart racer. “If you’re going to cry. you go into the trailer and you do it alone. because you need to be strong for your team. ” McLaughlin said. “That was the closest I got to not being strong for my team.”.
While the day had been unseasonably chilly and the cars had been held due to persistent drizzle, no other driver spun. McLaughlin said he received texts from around the world—including fellow Indy 500 drivers who told him they nearly did the same thing. And yet, he was the one who crashed.
That contradiction—being prepared and still losing control—stuck with him. So did the part that still feels personal: the race he believed could have been his.
He had been set to start 10th in the Indy 500 in 2025 after leading 66 laps and finishing sixth the year before. In the span of months, he’d built momentum toward the event—promotion, sponsor appearances, days of practice, hours of interviews—until the warm-up lap stole it away.
When he looks back, he doesn’t talk about the crash like a highlight. He talks about it like a waste he can’t fully fix. “The hardest thing to look back on is I felt I wasted a 500,” he said.
The way he moved on after that day still surprised some people.
Ryan Blaney—the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion. and both a teammate and close friend of McLaughlin’s—described how quickly McLaughlin started rebuilding his mindset. “The worst moment you could possibly have is wrecking before the 500. ” Blaney said. “and he was bummed for a day and got over it. He moved on and learned from it and came back even stronger. You’ve got to respect that.”.
McLaughlin has carried that same approach since. After the 2025 season’s broader difficulties. he said the crash became part of something bigger he had to answer—unnecessary penalties. slipping results while leading. and the team mistakes he felt he couldn’t afford. “Even though I just wanted to roll into a ball and cry. ” he said. “I was trying to think about the brands who are on my suit. the person I drive for. the guys who are hurting back in the pits.”.
When Formula 1 driver Oscar Piastri crashed on the warm-up lap of this year’s Australian Grand Prix, McLaughlin reached out by text, telling him, “If anyone knows how that feels, it’s me.”
“I’ve just really attached myself to executing and knowing that what I’m doing is correct. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Just ride the wave,” McLaughlin said, reflecting on how he tried to steady his thinking after negatives piled up.
That learning curve matters again now. McLaughlin is back at Indy with a chance to redeem the moment that still feels like it shouldn’t have happened—and with a real possibility of finally taking the Borg-Warner Trophy.
For 2026, he qualified ninth. He finished a career-best sixth in 2024, and his return is built on the steady progress he says he’s made since switching from Supercars in Australia to IndyCar in the United States.
He doesn’t describe himself as “better” because of confidence alone. He points to an ecosystem of constant improvement. Before leaving Australia, he was one of the top Supercars drivers, winning three championships and 56 races. Now, he says, the level is raised in each category he’s joined.
“Because the level was raised in each category I’ve been with,” he said. “When you look back at Supercars, it was myself, Jamie Whincup and Shane (van Gisbergen, who is now a NASCAR driver).” He described it as a pyramid: when one driver improved, the others had to step up.
In IndyCar, he says it works the same way. McLaughlin has finished third twice in the IndyCar standings and has won seven races in six-plus seasons since leaving Australia.
Still, the car he drives now is different in a way that forces patience. Supercars are touring-style machines; IndyCar is open-wheel, with handling characteristics that demand an entirely new kind of adaptation. That steep learning curve is one reason Blaney’s praise landed: McLaughlin didn’t just switch series—he rebuilt the habits required to compete.
“Scott has always impressed me,” Blaney said. “He came from being the best in Supercars, took a chance and came over to IndyCar — which is a complete 180 — and learned a completely new thing.”
“It’s been really cool to see his talent level, and then as a person, he’s one of the most genuine human beings ever.”
Back in Indianapolis, the thoughts he described during last year’s crash haven’t disappeared. They’ve simply changed shape into something more controlled—more focused on what happens in the next laps and the next pit stop.
McLaughlin believes he has a path to winning if he can get near the front when it matters most. He said that if he can be among the top three drivers at the final pit stop, he’ll have a good chance to win.
At the same time, the hardest lesson from the warm-up lap still lingers right at the start line.
“There’s going to be a point at the start of the race where I’m going to be holding the wheel like, ‘Don’t f— this up,’ ” McLaughlin said. “But look, I’m just human. The hardest thing to look back on is I felt I wasted a 500.”
Then he makes the stake personal again—turning a global event back into a smaller circle of people who depend on each other. “It makes me realize how important this race is to me and the 33 people who start it, and I’m privileged to be in it. If anything, it will lock me in a little more.”
Scott McLaughlin Indy 500 Indianapolis 500 Team Penske IndyCar Borg-Warner Trophy 2026 Indy 500 warm-up lap crash Ryan Blaney Oscar Piastri Lucy