Scott McLaughlin is determined to show in 2014 he can also develop a racing car.
Having proved his credentials as a V8 Supercars driver in 2013, McLaughlin was last night awarded the Mike Kable Young Gun award, recognising the standout rookie of the year.
McLaughlin finished 10th in his rookie season in the V8 Supercars Championship in his GRM Fujitsu Holden Commodore VF, claiming two points-paying wins along the way.
But for 2014 it is all change with Garry Rogers’ privateer team transforming into the factory-backed Volvo Polestar Racing.
The chassis of the S60 V8 Supercars McLaughlin and an as yet unannouced teammate will use to contest the 2014 Championship are currently under construction in Garry Rogers’ Dandenong (Vic) workshop, while the narrow angle B8444S V8 engine is being developed in New Zealand by Volvo’s global motorsport partner, Polestar Racing.
As an apprentice fabricator at GRM, the 20-year old Kiwi has helped build the car he will race.
Shakedown runs – possibly using the team’s stock of Chevrolet V8s – should start this month, parity aero testing in January and final homologation by February.
The engine, which was unveiled in mock-up form at the Sydney NRMA Motoring & Services 500, won’t make it into the cars until late January.
“We have had an awesome year this year and I have had a chance to show what I have got in terms of driving pace,” McLaughlin declared. “Now I get the chance to show I can develop a car and do it with this team of guys.
“The boys have really built an awesome car and I have been working on it myself and is really fantastic to see it come to fruition.”
McLaughlin is encouraged by the bullishness of the Polestar Racing team, who have consistently insisted the engine will be competitive with the established pushrod V8s employed by the Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore. But he also admits he won’t really know until he gets behind the wheel and presses the accelerator pedal.
“If they are (right about the engine) I am going to be a happy bloke,” he said. “I am a bit nervous about where we are going to be at, but we could surprise a lot of people. We could surprise me. But I am really looking forward to it and bringing Volvo to the field.
“It is going to be tough going obviously,” he added. “I am realistic about it and I think they are not expecting to win straight away.
“But they want to win and that’s what makes me so confident, because they want to do it as much as we do. I am just looking forward to it.”
McLaughlin, who won the Dunlop series in 2012, revealed he had improved as a driver in several ways throughout a hectic season.
“I have got a lot more aggressive on bumping people,” he revealed. “Rubbing is racing, and I think I have just grown up a little bit more.
“I feel more respected in the paddock as well, and probably at the start of the year I didn’t want to push that for them to have first thoughts of me as an idiot. Now I have a little more respect and a I play a little bit harder.”
An obvious example of that was on the opening lap of the final race of the Championship at Sydney Olympic Park where Red Bull’s Craig Lowndes was complaining about him blocking.
“I was blocking definitely,” said McLaughlin. “I wasn’t letting him through. A few people said I probably should have got out of the way for the Championship, but at the end of the day it is no different to when I was racing him at round one and we had zero points. I respect Lowndesy immensely, but I have got to hold my own.
“Early in the year when he was pressuring me, when he was going to dive up the inside, I would have braked earlier and let him go. Now I am braking even deeper and turning in. I am not trying to be an idiot, I have just grown up and learned to race.”
