McLaughlin ‘making the rest of us look stupid’

Scott McLaughlin is the only driver in the Supercars field consistently finding the ‘sweet spot’ with his car, says Tickford Racing boss Tim Edwards.

McLaughlin has raced to a 158-point championship lead with a quartet of victories across the Phillip Island and Barbagallo weekends.

During those two events, McLaughlin scored three-straight ARMOR ALL Pole Positions, before a 19th-place grid slot on Sunday failed to stop his charge.

While Shell V-Power Racing is clearly producing a fast Falcon for the 24-year-old, Edwards says that McLaughlin must be given full credit for his performances.

Tickford has had a rough start to the season and, although Mark Winterbottom scored the squad’s first podium of 2018 on Saturday, its fortunes across the weekend were mixed.

Asked about his team’s fluctuating form, Edwards noted McLaughlin is the only one not suffering from similar woes.

“The reality is, for everyone in this category, it’s about finding the sweet spot,” he told Supercars.com.

“There’s only one bloke who is just making the rest of us look stupid, to be frank.

“Everyone else is struggling to find the sweet spot with their car, that’s why you see such oscillation in the results at the moment.

“Someone who finishes 20th one day finishes fourth or fifth the next

“We’re all so damn close, all trying to find something, and because you’re trying to find utopia it sometimes moves you out of the window.”

Asked if the “one bloke” he was referring to was McLaughlin or his much-lauded engineer Ludo Lacroix, Edwards stressed that the driver is “in the zone”.

After his run of four-straight wins, McLaughlin is now eight places and 438 points ahead of team-mate Fabian Coulthard.

“Scott is just unbelievable at the moment,” said Edwards. “How on earth did he go from 19th to the lead like that?

“There’s a bit of strategy in it, but he made positions and he’s the one driving the car to make those stint lengths that he did.

“It’s a credit to him and we’ve seen it in the past. We’ve seen periods where [Jamie] Whincup was just in the zone - call it what you will - and he just dominated.

“It’s incredible what Scott is doing at the moment.”