Three-time Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin is a “very special” talent who deserves a Formula 1 test, according to ex-F1 driver Romain Grosjean.
McLaughlin won three Supercars titles in 2018–20 before moving to the United States to join the IndyCar series with Team Penske, where he has rapidly established himself as a protagonist.
After a workmanlike debut season, the Kiwi burst from the blocks in his-follow up 2022 campaign with a first-round victory. He won two more races and collected a further four podiums in the 17-round season to finish fourth in the championship just 50 points behind title-winning Australian Will Power.
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It was an attention-grabbing performance, particularly for former Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean.
Grosjean, a GP2 champion and 10-time F1 podium getter over 179 starts, moved from Europe to IndyCar at around the same time as McLaughlin but is yet to finish higher than 13th in the series, albeit having raced for the comparatively less competitive Dale Coyne and Andretti teams.
Having seen first-hand McLaughlin’s seamless switch from touring cars to single-seaters, Grosjean has no doubt his rival has what it takes to have a crack at Formula 1 given how much he’s flourished in the “tough” world of IndyCar.
“The guy that amazed me the most is Scott McLaughlin,” Grosjean told Motor Sport Magazine. “I think he should have a test in F1. He would be fast. That guy is very special.”
“If you think he did V8 Supercars for so many years and is doing so well in IndyCar now, it’s very natural.
“IndyCar works a little bit different than F1 in the way you need to have experience in the races, and that’s why you see the old guys doing pretty good. But the racing is tough and the competition is up there.
“You can’t go on a quali lap thinking, ‘Okay, I’ll do 95 per cent because I know I’ve got a good car’. It won’t be enough; you need every single lap to be 100 per cent, and that’s a challenge. But it’s pretty fun.”
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Code hops from IndyCar to Formula 1 have gone in and out of vogue over the decades, but the potential of a trans-Atlantic jump has been given a considerable boost by McLaren and team CEO Zak Brown in recent years.
McLaren runs teams in both Formula 1 and IndyCar, and Brown has given several young Stateside stars a spin in F1 machinery.
IndyCar drivers Pato O’Ward and Alex Palou both got FP1 outings, while Colton Herta was also treated to some private testing in a year-old car.
For a time Herta appeared to have the momentum to make his F1 debut in 2023, but a bid to join AlphaTauri was scuppered by the FIA’s unwillingness to pardon his lack of superlicence points. O’Ward is similarly ineligible to race in Formula 1.
Only Palou, having won the 2021 IndyCar title, would qualify to race in F1.
IndyCar’s lack of recognition in the superlicence system — the series is rewarded with fewer points than both Formula 2 and Formula 3 — has long rankled Grosjean, who says the depth of talent in the American series is obvious.
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“One of the best examples was when Palou came to COTA to do FP1 for McLaren and on the same tyres as Lando (Norris) was just two or three tenths off, which is very, very good,” he said.
“For Colton the picture was bigger. He has got the capacity and speed to be in F1. But if you look at his career, he has never won a championship in Indy Lights or IndyCar. So I also understand why he doesn’t have the points for a superlicence.
“What I think is wrong is the amount of points we get in IndyCar. I think it should be at least at Formula 2 level, maybe more because the level is up there. There are some very fast drivers.”
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