Scott McLaughlin angrily defensive, utterly motivated after Team Penske penalties ahead of Indy 500

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Scott McLaughlin will have a new strategist and engineer for the Indianapolis 500 because of a rules infraction that concerned a part on Team Penske cars other than his own, and that has left him both angrily defensive and utterly motivated.

Perhaps doubly so, given the part in question that led to such serious repercussions for one of the most powerful teams in auto racing appears to have done nothing for performance, but was rather an alteration to a spec part primarily for aesthetics.

"Smart people in the paddock know there was no gain, you know? It’s frustrating that this is blown up like it has," McLaughlin said during the Indy 500’s annual media day Thursday, "and it’s cost three people that I’m very close with their jobs. But overall, my view on it right now is just to focus forward."

He has no choice. The race is Sunday.

That’s one week after Team Penske drivers Josef Newgarden and Scott Dixon had their cars pulled from the qualifying line over modifications to the attenuator, a safety part that cannot be changed for any reason. IndyCar has since said there has been no evidence that the seams filled on the piece provided a competitive advantage, yet the series nevertheless responded with serious penalties: the cars were sent to the rear of the 33-car field, they were stripped of points and handed heavy financial penalties.

McLaughlin, who had crashed in a practice session ahead of qualifying, was spared the sanctions given to his teammates when the attenuator found amid the wreckage of the No. 3 car had not been altered. He will start 10th.

He was still penalized, though, when team owner Roger Penske - who also owns IndyCar, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy 500 - fired team president Tim Cindric and Team Penske officials Ron Ruzewski and Kyle Moyer on Wednesday.

Moyer had been serving as the strategist on McLaughlin’s car.

"Ultimately, those three guys are friends of mine and have done a tremendous amount in my career,” said McLaughlin, who drove for Penske in Supercars in Australia and New Zealand before coming to IndyCar. "I guess you could say there's a sadness from my perspective. At the end of the day, I drive for Roger Penske. I respect the decision.

"I'm disappointed in some of my peers and people in this room," McLaughlin added, growing a bit heated, "just how it was taken out of proportion in some ways. At the same time, I think people forget just what Roger's done for this sport in general, and that definitely gets thrown to the side a little bit, which I find a hard time not being passionate about that."

McLaughlin will have Ben Bretzman as his strategist and Malcolm Finch as lead engineer on Sunday. They are plenty familiar with each other, but they will be serving in new roles, and they don’t have a whole lot of time left to finish preparing the backup car after McLaughlin put his primary into the Turn 1 wall during practice Saturday.

They have one 2-hour practice on Friday - known as Carb Day - before McLaughlin tries to win his first Indianapolis 500.

"It's a brand-new car, brand-new chassis, brand-new speedway car. It's a purpose-built speedway car," said McLaughlin, who did practice with it a bit Monday. "Just bolted my race motor, all the race uprights, everything that I had on earlier in practice.

"Honestly," he said, "Monday felt very close. We just had a couple things not quite at upright that affected some setup and stuff. Ironed that out, had a good week to prepare, and things should be just as fast."

As for the rest of the drama encircling his team, McLaughlin is done talking about it.

All he wants to do now is race.

"What's done is done. This happened. We have to move forward. The penalties are accepted," McLaughlin said. "I tell you what: There's that much motivation in our garage, within the team and within my stand.”