Supercars

DJR confident McLaughlin will return for the Bathurst 1000

Dick Johnson Racing boss Ryan Story is confident Scott McLaughlin will race for the team at this year's Bathurst 1000.

Andrew van Leeuwen

Edited: Aug 3, 2021, 9:39 AM

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Scott McLaughlin Team Penske Chevrolet

Despite agreeing on a Great Race deal with DJR as part of his full-time IndyCar switch late last year, McLaughlin was set to miss out on his Bathurst drive due to a tweak to the 2021 IndyCar schedule.

The revised date for the IndyCar finale on the streets of Long Beach meant he wasn't going to have time to complete the two weeks of mandatory hotel quarantine needed to get through's Australia's closed border ahead of the original Bathurst 1000 date.

Alex Davison, brother of full-time DJR driver Will, swiftly emerged as the back-up plan in the four-driver enduro line-up, along with Tony D'Alberto.

However, with the Bathurst 1000 now pushed back to early November, McLaughlin now has the opportunity to fly down under, complete his fortnight in managed isolation and be out in time for the Great Race.

The Kiwi wasted little time telling the world that Bathurst is back on his radar, tweeting as much immediately after the revised Supercars schedule was announced.

DJR is equally forward about the renewed hopes of having McLaughlin in one of its Shell-backed Mustangs come the first weekend of October.

"Absolutely," DJR chairman and CEO Story told Motorsport.com when asked if the team is already working on getting McLaughlin back into Australia.

"We never stopped. We're fortunate to have Alex Davison as our sub, but any opportunity to get the three-time reigning champ back to play second fiddle as a co-driver at Bathurst, you'd be mad not to take it.

"When we did the deal after Bathurst last year for Dick and myself to take over ownership, a key part of that discussion between Roger Penske, Tim Cindric and myself was that Scott would come back to do Bathurst.

"The only thing that could potentially jeopardise it is no different to before, and that's the COVID situation here locally. As we've seen over the course of there last month, or even more now, in New South Wales in particular it doesn't seem to be abating as quickly as we hoped.

"But save for that condition in New South Wales not improving the way that we desperately hope that it does, I think there's every likelihood that we'll be able to get him out here."

It's not an entirely straightforward process, with recently-introduced caps on international arrivals meaning McLaughlin will have to fight for a spot in the hotel quarantine programme.

Seats on international flights to Australia have also proved hard to come by during the pandemic.

"We'll go through all the right processes, go through the right channels and do everything the right way to ensure that we get the right approvals," addd Story.

"We want to respect all of those processes. But it would be an absolute pleasure to have him there and I know that he's champing at the bit to do it."

What isn't entirely clear is how DJR will pair its drivers should McLaughlin be able to make the trip.

An Anton De Pasquale/D'Alberto and Davison/Davison line-up was all but a lock without McLaughlin, but with him the picture is more complicated.

It could well be that the three-time series champion is paired with De Pasquale in the #11, with D'Alberto then partnering Will Davison in the #17.

According to Story the combinations are yet to be determined.

"That hasn't been decided yet," he added.

"There's a couple of interesting pieces to that puzzle; [McLaughlin] has a close affinity to the #17 and as carryover champion he kept that number in the Dick Johnson tradition.

"But Anton in the #11 has Ludo [Lacroix] as his engineer and he was Scott's engineer.

"So it's an interesting one. Either way, we'll be very well served no matter what ultimate combination we decide on."

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