'Moron': IndyCar drivers square off in ugly post-race clash
Updated . First published at
Scott McLaughlin and Devlin DeFrancesco squared off in an ugly altercation after their costly IndyCar collision at The Thermal Club in California.
The New Zealander and Canadian spun out before the race had even started with DeFrancesco hitting McLaughlin during the formation lap on Monday (AEDT).
DeFrancesco received a drive through penalty for the incident and also left McLaughlin playing catch up.
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"Everything's fine, he just drove into my door," McLaughlin told his Team Penske crew on his car radio.
Things then went from bad to worse for the 31-year-old, whose hybrid system overheated in a motor generator unit failure.
McLaughlin tried to complete the race but the Dallara-Chevrolet was eventually retired on lap 53.
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IndyCar drivers Devlin DeFrancesco and Scott McLaughlin after the race at Thermal. Twitter
DeFrancesco finished 20th and went at McLaughlin again post-race.
"We're supposed to be side-by-side, you f---ing moron," a furious DeFrancesco said.
"What are you doing? We're supposed to be side-by-side. You turned in at me. You closed the f---ing door."
McLaughlin begged to differ as he pointed his finger in DeFrancesco's face.
"You drove into me. You got a drive-through for a reason, Dev," he said.
Reigning series champion Alex Palou of Spain won the race to make it two-from-two in 2025.
McLaughlin is 10th in the standings and Penske teammate Will Power of Australia is 14th.
"Not the day we wanted," McLaughlin 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 and Josef (Newgarden) were able to do.
"Unfortunately, the issue we had with our MGU 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."
