Newly crowned Bathurst 1000 winner Scott Scott McLaughlin has vowed not to back off the throttle as he closes in on successive Supercars series triumphs.
Sunday’s victory at Mount Panorama pushed the 26-year-old Ford driver a whopping 622 points clear of fellow Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen with three rounds remaining.
He suggested he wouldn’t be driving conservatively in the Gold Coast 600 enduro event in just under two weeks.
”Now you don’t want to back off the throttle. At the end of the day I think that’s when you get yourself in trouble,” McLaughlin said on Monday in Sydney.
“We’ll just go about our business the same; attack qualifying, try and get a great qualifying spot and just a smooth race.
“We know that everything can happen at the Gold Coast, but I think we just really have to beat Shane and we can sort of half wrap it up which is obviously going to be our goal.
‘If we don’t do that at the Gold Coast, get some good points and then hopefully wrap it up before Newcastle and Sandown.”
McLaughlin appears to be entering his prime.
“There’s always a lot of improvement but I’m definitely at the point now in my life where I’ve been through it all and been through the ups and downs and learnt from those,” McLaughlin said.
“I certainly feel like, at the moment, I’m probably driving the best I ever have.”