Photo: supercars.com

Scott McLaughlin: ”I genuinely didn’t mean to push him into the wall”

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Scott McLaughlin’s 2017 Supercars championship title hopes ended in a nightmare in the Newcastle season finale with three penalties that handed the title to main rival Jamie Whincup.

“To all our fans that stuck by us, our sponsors, I’m so sorry. I wish I could get it done for them but at least we got the teams’ championship. I’m 24 years old, I’ll have another crack yet,” said McLaughlin.

The DJR Team Penske driver won the penultimate race yesterday and headed the Triple Eight Race Engineering rival by 30 points, needing only to finish eleventh no matter where Whincup finished, starting the race from pole position.

But three penalties, one due to speeding in pit lane, one for turning Simona De Silvestro around and ultimately his incident with Craig Lowndes on the last lap when he was in eleventh position ended his day in a nightmare.

“I lost my left-hand mirror so early. I knew we were close, but I didn’t think we were that close, I just defended the line into Turn 2 and we got interlocked and I genuinely didn’t mean to push him into the wall. To get pinged like that… I shouldn’t have even been there in the first place. That’s hard,” said McLaughlin.

The Kiwi ended up in second position on 3021 points, 21 points behind Whincup who went on to win his seventh title.