'Blown out of proportion': Nolan Siegel's radio rant no biggie for Team Penske's Scott McLaughlin

Indianapolis Star

20-06-2025

Nolan Siegel took responsibility for an expletive-laden rant on his in-car radio following a penalty for blocking at World Wide Technology Raceway.
Scott McLaughlin and Siegel spoke privately after the incident, and the Team Penske driver said he believes Siegel's radio comments were "blown out of proportion."
ELKHART LAKE, Wisc. — Nolan Siegel 's visit to Road America a year ago 'changed the course of (his) career.' Starting with Friday afternoon's practice at the National Park of Speed, the Arrow McLaren driver hopes he can put what's proved to have been a tough week behind him.
The 20-year-old competing in his first full IndyCar season was caught unleashing an expletive-laden rant on his radio during Sunday's race at World Wide Technology Raceway in reaction to being given a drive-thru penalty for blocking race leader Scott McLaughlin as Siegel tried to hang onto his spot on the lead lap.
Though it's certainly not uncommon for drivers to use their own colorful, inventive combination of four-letter words directed at drivers who've irked them or express their frustration or disagreement with a call from race control, Siegel took it one step further, yelling through his helmet for 'Penske to go (expletive) themselves' mixed into a series of repetitions of a two-word phrase — one of which starts with an "f" and the other a compound word whose literal definition is a male bovine's excrement.
The aftermath of Siegel's tirade culminated with statements from both he and Arrow McLaren on Wednesday. The team noted it had addressed Siegel's radio communications with him privately and that 'the language expressed over our radio … does not reflect who we are as a team. We do not condone this behavior.' In his own apology, Siegel said there was 'no excuse for what (he) said and that he 'regrets letting down the incredible group of people who support me both on and off the track.'
Hours ahead of stepping on track at Road America for the ninth race of the 2025 IndyCar season, Siegel said he felt he'd 'made everything right' over the last couple days and is working to maintain his composure in the cockpit moving forward — a trait he feels is important for any great racecar driver.
'What we're doing is extremely high-pressure, and there's moments that are extremely frustrating, and I think ultimately a big part of being a good racecar driver is staying strong in those moments,' he said. 'At the same time, if you look at any pro athlete, they have their moments of frustration, and unfortunately for me, it was caught on the broadcast.
'It's not something I can let happen again, and I will in the future work to stay more calm and not press the radio button. It was a culmination of a lot of frustrating things and a frustrating couple months. I need to not let that get to me.'
The incident with McLaughlin was the pair's second tangle in as many races, following the Team Penske driver getting into the back of Siegel early on in the Detroit Grand Prix and spinning out McLaughlin, who was given a stop-and-go penalty at Detroit for the contact, contended Siegel broke incredibly early and played some role in the incident, sparking a back-and-forth on Twitter between McLaughlin and Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan.
Not long after Sunday night's race at WWTR, Siegel and McLaughlin met privately off to the side in between Arrow McLaren's transporters and 'cleared the air.' Though he hadn't heard Siegel's radio statements at the time of their chat, McLaughlin said he continued to believe Siegel's apology was honest and said he believed doing so publicly was unnecessary.
'It gets heated all the time. I'm no angel. It is what it is. I've blown up many times,' McLaughlin said. 'I just back the guy on what he said to me, face to face, before I heard (the radio comments), cause we all say stuff in the moment that doesn't necessarily mean that it's true, right?
'I think we should be very careful on how we (judge) outbursts on the radio. I get that it's important to be sportsmanlike and whatever, but I didn't take offense to it. You do get heated, and it's a thing that happens, but I thought it was blown out of proportion a little bit for what it was.'
Siegel said Friday he had no recollection of the comments until it was replayed to him after the race, noting that by no means were the colorful comments 'a conscious thing,' but it also 'wasn't something I'm proud of.'
'No matter what, the penalty happened, and the stewards made their decision, and I have a lot of respect for (IndyCar stewards) Max (Papis) and Arie (Luyendyk) and have talked to both of them,' Siegel said. 'It was a mistake how I reacted in frustration in the moment and not something I should've done and not something I'm proud of.
'I have a lot of respect for Scott. I have a lot of respect for Team Penske. I have a lot of respect for the stewards and everyone who works in IndyCar. But to anyone saying how unacceptable it is, you're probably right, but at the same time, think back on everything you've done in your life, and maybe there's been a time when you've been upset and said something you didn't mean. I don't think there's anyone that can honestly say that that's never happened to them in life.'
A year ago at Road America, Siegel was in the heat of an Indy NXT title battle while still moonlighting as an IndyCar driver for a couple weekends that year with Dale Coyne Racing before being given an opportunity to jump into the No. 78 of Juncos Hollinger Racing for the weekend, with team officials deciding Agustin Canapino was not mentally fit to compete. In doing so, he vacated his Indy NXT ride with HMD Motorsports for the weekend.
In his off IndyCar weekend, he went and won Le Mans in his class for United Autosports — the sportscar team co-owned by McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown. In the interim, Siegel and his father Mark decided that with the Indy NXT championship unlikely to be achievable, the then-19-year-old would instead seek out a more robust IndyCar calendar for the remainder of 2024 and beyond. Though the team had only a month prior committed to having IndyCar rookie and ex-Formula 2 champion Theo Pourchaire race its No. 6 for the remainder of the season, Arrow McLaren opted to boot the young French driver for Siegel days ahead of the Laguna Seca race weekend.
Now with a season's worth of races under his belt with the front-running team, Siegel continues to search for a level of consistency and performance expected of a team that has its other two drivers sitting second and fourth in the championship. Even more important though, Siegel said, is focusing on "the process" and execution and letting the chips fall where they may.
Despite questions around Siegel's future, Arrow McLaren officials told IndyStar last weekend the team will maintain its full-time driver lineup for the 2026 season and has no plans to consider the possibility of luring away IndyCar's most valuable free agent: Team Penske's Will Power.
Entering Road America, Siegel sits 21st in points with just one top 10 and three finishes of better than 19th, including a 13th-place finish at the Indy 500 that saw him crash on the last lap.
'It's fun looking back on how far I've come and how different I feel coming into this weekend,' Siegel said. 'I'm very much looking forward to getting back here under different circumstances in a stable environment in the Arrow McLaren car.
'We're gonna continue to focus on the process and not the results. We've had a lot of weekends where the result has been bad, but there's been a ton of potential. We've had really good pace and really good racecars. We've worked together well, and it just hasn't come together, so for me, I'm continuing to focus on doing everything in my power to make it a good weekend, and if it doesn't come for some other reason, then it is what it is, but if I can leave every weekend feeling like I did everything I possibly could to get a result, then I'm gonna be happy with that, and we're gonna fix whatever it is that's not allowing us to get it.'