Scott McLaughlin and Devlin DeFrancesco engage in war of words after IndyCar clash

Scott McLaughlin and Devlin DeFrancesco were involved in a heated conversation after colliding on the formation lap of Sunday’s IndyCar race at The Thermal Club.

Penske driver McLaughlin was hit by the Rahal Letterman Lanigan car of DeFrancesco at Turn 15 as they navigated the final parade lap before the start of the race, with the contact sending both cars spinning off the track.

The duo were able to take the start later, but neither could recover from the early setback.

McLaughlin had to complete a long pitstop due to an overheating hybrid system and eventually retired from the race after completing 53 out of 64 laps.

DeFrancesco, meanwhile, finished a lap down in 20th after picking up a drive-through penalty for causing the collision.

The two drivers subsequently had an altercation in the paddock, which was caught by TV cameras.

“We’re supposed to be side-by-side, you f*****g moron,” said DeFrancesco. “You turned in at me. You closed the f*****g door.”

McLaughlin replied by saying: “You drove into me. You got a drive-through for a reason.”

The Canadian then offered to show a replay of the incident.

Sunday’s retirement leaves three-time Supercars champion McLaughlin down in 10th place in the standings, 61 behind championship leader and Chip Ganassi rival Alex Palou.
 
“Not the day we wanted for the XPEL Chevy,” he said. “Tough weekend all around, really, but I was very confident going into today that we would have good race pace. 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 the 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.”

Driver DeFrancesco, now in his third full season in IndyCar but first with RLL,  sits 21st in the drivers’ standings on 18 points.

The 25-year-old feels the penalty he received for the incident was not warranted, as he blamed McLaughlin for leaving him no room.

“I got hit before the green flag even started,” he said. “McLaughlin closed the line as we were supposed to be running side by side through 15.

“He left me no room and turned down on me, which caused us to have a drive-through. 
“So not only did we start last, we started 30 seconds behind everybody else. The No. 30 Mi-Jack Honda was strong, especially on alternate tyres. We seemed to really be able to carve our way through.

“That last stint on primary tyres, we just bottomed on the out lap and lost it but you know, where I would have started, we would have probably been around 14th considering the drive-through.

“It made somewhat good of a bad day but we need to go review it with the INDYCAR stewards now because in my opinion that drive-through was uncalled for.”