SALINAS, Calif — Scott McLaughlin knew what was at stake coming into Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey. He trailed teammate and Bus Bro Josef Newgarden by 22 points for the distinction of being the top Penske driver for the 2023 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season.

With the championship already locked up by Alex Palou last week, this was the next best goal.

“No, I’m very aware of that,” McLaughlin said of the stat on Saturday after qualifying. “The best thing I can do tomorrow is win. That’s my deal, so… I just got to focus on that. If I can beat both of them, win the race maybe, that’s going to be the best I can do.

“Yep, for me, I’d love to finish. I was fourth last year. I’d love to equal that. Another top five would be fantastic. Third would be a bonus. I think we’ve shown really good potential towards the end of this year.”

He started 2nd and Newgarden in 4th. However, he not only got his goal, he got his bonus despite a wild day that saw him punted on Lap 1 and penalized twice before we even got to the midway mark of the 95-lap season finale.

“Yeah, I think I hit everything but the pace car today. Certainly one of those crazy days, peak INDYCAR days,” McLaughlin quipped.

McLaughlin accidentally got into Santino Ferrucci on the Lap 37 restart. He was assessed an avoidable contact penalty a lap later and forced to restart at the back of the field. However, they pit under that caution which set forth another penalty for pitting after a repositioning penalty. That was a drive-through penalty for which he did on Lap 43.

That set him back. He was outside the top 15. Then, he got lucky with some late race cautions and would pit on Lap 64 with Scott Dixon.

He would restart on Lap 72 in 11th but good until the end on fuel. But with chaos in front and others needing to pit, he would find himself second on the final restart.

“I think you just never give up,” he said. “You just got to keep fighting and keep moving forward. I said to the guys after we got hit off the start, We’ll make something of it somehow. It was always going to be a bit weird with the fuel, who would two stop, who would three stop, blah, blah, blah.

“I knew we had a fast enough car, if I made some moves on restarts and whatnot, we’d be okay. Yeah, it was perfect.”

Without anything for Dixon but Josef Newgarden in the back after a rough day that saw him collected in the opening lap crash and then crashing on Lap 8, all he had to do was maintain and not only was he going to be the top Penske driver, but the top driver in the Chevy camp too.

That’s exactly what he’d do. Despite finishing 7.3180-seconds behind Dixon, he took P3 in points in just his third full-time season.

“Yeah, super pumped,” said McLaughlin. “Things that didn’t go my way, things I probably shouldn’t have done either, but we just kept our heads down and kept working. Yeah, took the fuel when we needed, pitted when we needed to. Just slightly came back through.

“I think I had one really good restart where I picked off sort of six or seven cars. I was just hauling. So much fun. Thought I maybe might be able to have a crack at Scottie at the end. He was just too fast. I knew if I finished second, I was most likely going to be top three in the championship. That ultimately was my goal coming into this weekend.”

He was 14th in 2021 and 4th last year.

To be third this year he says could lead to a better bump in prize money and things like that, but he’s more pumped as a pride thing.

“For me it’s just a pride thing,” he said. “More importantly, we wanted to be the top Chevy team, beat McLaren, and we did that. I wanted to beat my teammates. Ultimately ticked both those goals.

“I talk about beating our teammates. We had a serious good camaraderie between the three of us. It’s very competitive. It gets tense at times. That’s what you want in a relationship. I think we all push each other to new levels. To beat those two is a proud moment.

“Yeah, super pumped.”

Next up is a championship. In order to do that, he has to improve at Indy.

Really, the Month of May is what kept him from being even more of a contender this season. He was 16th and 14th in both races. Outside of that, he had 14 top 10 finishes in 15 tries.

Since May, he’s finished 7th, 8th, 5th, 6th, 2nd, 5th, 2nd, 8th, 5th, 9th, 2nd.

His second half run to the finish was all predicated by qualifying.

This season, McLaughlin’s started in the top six 10 times including 8 on the front row. 7 of his last 8 races have been on the front row at that.

His average starting spot in the first 9 races was 10.22. Over the last 8? 2.87.

That’s an 8-spot improvement. However, it’s not led to wins either.

McLaughlin’s finishes from the front row have been 7th (Detroit), 6th (Toronto), 2nd and 5th (Iowa doubleheader), 2nd (Nashville), 5th (Gateway – 10 spot grid penalty), 9th (Portland), 2nd (Laguna Seca). He rides a 13-race winless streak into 2024.

The key next year is better success at Indy and turning those top 10s and top 5’s into podiums. Despite all those top 10’s from June on, he had just three podiums in the process. All runner-ups.