McLaughlin in war of words after bizarre clash
Scott McLaughlin has been caught up in a heated war of words with Devlin De Francesco after they clashed on the formation lap of the IndyCar race at Thermal Club.
As Alex Palou drove to another victory, McLaughlin was 27th and last as the only retiree after a MGU issue slowed the #3 Team Penske machine.
However, the Kiwi’s race took a turn from the worse before it even started.
Lining up down in the 13th row, both De Francesco and McLaughlin were rotated two corners before the green flag.
As the field took Turns 15 and 16 on the formational lap to get set for the rolling start, De Francesco appeared to understeer into McLaughlin and send the former Supercars star into a spin.
The #30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver was apportioned blame from the stewards and received a drive-through penalty.
Scott McLaughlin had a tough day at Thermal Club. Image: Supplied
However, the pair were not done coming to blows yet as they were seen having some heated words post race.
Both drivers pointed fingers and swore at each other over the clash before going their separate ways.
“What are you doing? We are supposed to be side-by-side into Turn 15. You turned into me and closed the f*****g door,” screamed De Francesco.
“You drove into me. I was on the outside. You got a drive-through for a reason,” replied McLaughlin.
“I will show you the video,” quipped De Francesco.
“Okay then, show me the video. We were not even green yet. You got a drive through for a reason,” said McLaughlin.
The incident sent McLaughlin down to 10th in the championship and he is just focused on regaining ground in the next race at Long Beach on April 13.
“Not the day we wanted for the XPEL Chevy. Tough weekend all around, really, but I was very confident going into today that we would have good race pace,” he said.
“I’m confident that we could have moved up through the field like Will (Power) and Josef (Newgarden) were able to do. “Unfortunately, the issue we had with our MGU (motor generator unit) caused it to go into critical mode and we had to sit on pit lane for several laps while draining the battery and resetting everything.
“Very thankful that we got a solid finish to start the year at St. Pete. We’ll just go about climbing back out of this points hole.”
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