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Scott McLaughlin, Devlin Defrancesco get into heated NSFW exchange after IndyCar Thermal GP

JHby:Jonathan Howard•03/23/25•

Jondean25

Scott McLaughlin IndyCar
Andy Abeyta/The Desert Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Today the NTT IndyCar Series raced at Thermal Club. After the race, Scott McLaughlin and Devlin Defrancesco got into quite an argument. The two drivers got into an incident prior to the start of the race at Thermal this afternoon.

Scott McLaughlin has an extensive and successful motorsports resume. Coming from Supercars, the Kiwi has made a home in IndyCar.

It appeared that Defrancesco just drove into McLaughlin as the field was coming to the start. McLaughlin would go on to only run 53 laps and retired early from the race. Defrancesco finished 20th in the 27-car field.

After the race, Scott McLaughlin confronted Delvin Defrancesco. The two exchanged more than a few words and a lot of expletives.

“Are you a f***ing moron, really?” Defrancesco said to McLaughlin. Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports was there to capture the scene.

“Yeah, I am. You fucking – you drove into me,” McLaughlin responded. “You drove into me.”

“We’re supposed to be side-by-side in Turn 15 but you closed the fucking door. Why? We’re supposed to be side-by-side,” Defrancesco fired back.

Then McLaughlin brought up a good point. IndyCar gave Defrancesco a drive-through penalty. That was done for a reason, right?

“You got a drive-through [penalty] for a reason,” McLaughlin said. He walked away soon after.

A fiery start to the IndyCar series. Alex Palou is keeping things pretty stale in regard to who is winning early on. Pato O’Ward used up his tires and didn’t have enough rubber to hold off the three-time champion at the end. It looked nice for O’Ward while he had his big lead, but it didn’t pay off as he came away with a runner-up finish.

Scott McLaughlin will try to move on from this. With a limited schedule of races, a couple of finishes like this can sink a team’s season.

Scott McLaughlin and Shane van Gisbergen representing for New Zealand

It is not a mistake that Scott McLaughlin and Shane van Gisbergen have made careers in American motorsports. Both are three-time Supercars champions. They have shown that they are two of the best drivers to come from that region of the world.

For McLaughlin, it has ended up in an open-wheel career. Quite a turn from the full-bodied cars in the Supercars series. Meanwhile, SVG couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity with the Next Gen Cup Series car. It is very similar to what he spent almost two decades of his life racing professionally.

The two Kiwis teamed up earlier this year in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. They raced for Trackhouse along with Connor Zilisch and Ben Keating. While they didn’t finish as well as they had hoped, it was quite a moment for the former rivals.

Tough day for Scott McLaughlin at Thermal. It was a tough one for SVG at Miami, too. He doesn’t know that track as well as the Cup Series regulars and struggled to find speed.