IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETERSBURG
STREETS OF ST. PETERSBURG
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
MARCH 24, 2013
MICHAEL ANDRETTI, ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT – WINNING TEAM OWNER
YOUR CARS WERE FIRST AND THIRD AND WE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE TOUGH TO TOP LAST YEAR BUT YOU GUYS HAVE DONE IT HERE IN THE FIRST RACE:
“What a great weekend. James just did a hell of a job all weekend and Marco had a great race there and I feel bad for Ryan (Hunter-Reay) because he had tough luck with a sticking throttle and EJ did a great job of coming back up through there so yes, aside from Ryan it was a great day.”
ASIDE FROM RYAN HOW BIG IS THIS FOR THE TEAM AND WHAT A WAY TO START THE 2013 SEASON
“It’s really huge and we did lose with Ryan but Will (Power) had a bad day too so it will be interesting for the championship. But all-in-all it was a great day and so, so happy for GoDaddy as they have been such a great supporter of ours and to finally get them to victory lane……I am just ecstatic about that as well as for RC Cola to get on the podium as well. So it’s just a great day.”
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY.COM ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET – WINNER
WHAT A FANTASTIC DRIVE WE JUST HEARD FROM CRAIG HAMPSON (ENGINEER) HE CALLED YOU JAMES HINCHCLIFFE 2.0:
“We talked before the race and he was like ‘I’m really excited for this race and I’m excited to see James Hinchcliffe 2.0’ and I said well what is 2.0 want to do better than 2.1 he said ‘better restarts, more aggressive passes on track and save fuel when you need to. We put it to the test today. GoDaddy in Victory Lane in IndyCar I have to thank Bob Parsons. Chevrolet all the work they have done over the off season to grab the first one here in St. Pete. This one I’m throwing out to Dan (Wheldon) this is his hometown; this is his car and knowing that my face is going to be on that memorial that is really special.”
IN THE FIRST SEGMENT WHEN YOU HAD THAT BIG VIBRATION DID YOU THINK YOU HAD ANY SHOT OF STANDING HERE?
“Well, we knew that was it for us on reds (tires). That was our sticker set. We knew it was going to be tough to put the old ones back on and after that last restart everybody else was on reds we knew it was going to be tough. Everyone was asking me what it was going to take to finally become a winner. I just said minimizing mistakes, no mistakes in the pits, no mistakes on the track and we capitalized from Helio (Castroneves) making some mistakes. Just put our heads down and did it. Man it feels so good I can’t thank Andretti Autosport and GoDaddy, everybody, my family, my girlfriend, this is awesome.”
JAMES, I DON’T KNOW IF IT GETS MUCH MORE SPECIAL THAN WIN NUMBER ONE. CAN YOU BOTTLE UP THOSE EMOTIONS? “I don’t think you can because as soon as I crossed the line I burst into tears and I never thought that was going to happen when I won my first one. But that was a hard battle in fighting off those Penske cars because they were strong and to get the GoDaddy Chevrolet to victory lane and the first win in IndyCar is just so special. Everybody at GoDaddy is so incredible and everybody did such a good job. I am exhausted but just elated at the same time.”
HOW WIDE DID THOSE EYES GET WHEN HELIO WENT WIDE GOING INTO ONE? “Well, I knew he was on reds and not sure if I was going to be able to hold him but we just didn’t make any mistakes and that was the key and we capitalized on that and man, god it feels good.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED SECOND: I THINK YOU JUST SAID THAT IF THEY HAD TOLD YOU THAT YOU ON FRIDAY THAT YOU WOULD HAVE FINISHED 2ND YOU WOULD HAVE GONE FOR IT, BUT I SEE A BIT OF DEJECTION ON YOUR FACE NOW: “Absolutely. The Hitachi Chevrolet was just awesome. Everything was so good and the team did a hell of a job. Jonathan and John and especially running your first race with me and not bad for second place but I feel terrible for just a small mistake. And no pun intended but Hinch was pretty good toward the end and he was pushing very hard and I was pushing him on the reds and hell of a job for him. This second place feels a little bit better.”
FINISHING SECOND HAS TO FEEL GOOD AS COMPETITIVE AS THE SERIES HAS BEEN AS OF LATE AND LOOKING BACK AT YOUR CAREER YOU HAVE TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT THE START: “Oh, no question about it. I am happy inside obviously but when you have competitive car like that sometimes you can’t miss those opportunities because the series is so competitive. In qualifying we made a little mistake that put us behind in fifth so I said that is it and now we just have to keep going. And unfortunately there was another one but we just have to keep pushing and like I said, for the championship this is great points.”
MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 25 RC COLA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET – FINISHED THIRD
THOSE LAST FIVE LAPS WERE ABSOLUTELY SPECTACULAR. I KNOW TWITTER WAS LIGHTING UP AND THEY SAID THIS IS THE MARCO ANDRETTI WE HAVE BEEN WAITING TO SEE SINCE INDIANAPOLIS OF LAST YEAR:
“I have been working so hard in the off season. Not just physically but really just working on where I have been lacking. These places were real weak points for me. It feels good to reap some of the benefit. Congratulations to James (Hinchcliffe) the whole Andretti Autosport team is gelling so well. We’ve got to keep this momentum going. Also, credit to Simona (de Silvestro) she drove a hell of a race.”
YOU PUT A LOT OF PRESSURE ON SIMONA (DE SILVESTRO) THERE IN THE FINAL GOING WERE YOU AWARE OF HOW MANY PUSH TO PASSES THAT SHE HAD LEFT?
“I just knew that her tires were going off. I felt for her, as I said, she drove great. I had to muscle her a little bit. It’s a selfish sport; I needed a podium (laughs).”
YOU SNUCK AROUND SIMONA (DE SILVESTRO) THERE AT THE END TO GRAB A PODIUM FINISH, HOW BIG IS THIS FOR YOU GUYS?
“Well, congratulations to James first and foremost. For me it feels like a win because of the struggles I have been having and all I can say is that it feels great to have the hard work pay off for sure.”
HOW BIG IS THIS FOR YOUR TEAMMATE JAMES HINCHCLIFFE LEADING THE WAY AND PICKING UP THE RACE WIN TODAY?
“It’s a good start and looks like we are going to beat him this year. It’s good.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 HYDROXYCUT KV RACING TECHNOLOGY/SH RACING CHEVROLET – FINISHED FOURTHL “It’s definitely a good start of the season for everyone at KV Racing, finishing fourth and sixth. My car was flawless while on track, the only problem we had during the race was that I couldn’t shift into neutral during my last stop. That cost me three spots on track and made me work a bit more for this fourth place finish. I was impressed that my last set of scuffed red Firestones lasted that long and I can’t say enough about my Chevy engine. It’s unfortunate that Simona couldn’t hold off that third place, she was running strong up front until she had no more tires. She deserved the podium. I guess Marco had a newer set of Firestones than both Simona and I, so it was a matter of time for him to get by us.”
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET – FINISHED SIXTH
“It’s been a good weekend for us. Unfortunately we lost a few positions at the end there. We kind of ran out of tires at the end. I think we can be pretty happy with sixth. Now we know what we have to work on for the next race. It was really cool to be up front all day with Will, Hinch and everybody; it was awesome. I think we can learn a lot from this weekend to have a better result at the next race. I really want to thank Chevy and my Nuclear Clean Air Energy sponsors for all their support. I’m really e
xcited to get to Barber and see what we can do there.”
E.J. VISO, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA PDVSA CITGO ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED SEVENTH:
I am extremely happy finishing seventh after a very difficult beginning of the weekend with so many mechanical issues in the practice and qualifying. It’s been tough to survive and make it to here, but the team did a great job to get me a very competitive car and give me all the tools to stay battling in the field. I’m feeling good about this year; I think we will be able to achieve good positions. Congratulations to my teammate, James, on his first win in the IZOD IndyCar Series.
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 MCAFEE DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 11TH: “We’ve been fighting car behavior and brake balance – front to rear and left to right evolving runs and massively… I really don’t know what is going on, but every time the brakes start to stabilize, the car comes back to life. I’ve just been fighting a ghost that moves around in the car. It makes it difficult on the restarts because never know what you are going to get. It’s the hardest 11th place I’ve ever had to fight for.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 14TH: “ It was a survival today. We had a busted front wing and it took us awhile to figure it out. So we ran most of the race with a broken front flat (of the wing). It was tough to hang onto. When we replaced the front wing late in the race, the Fuzzy’s Chevrolet was much better. I think we got up to tenth at one point. But our red Firestones were pretty worn out by then. In fact, we ran many more laps with them than we would in a normal stint. But the race was improvement for our ECR/Fuzzy’s team. It was not pretty but we survived to the finish. Way better than last year here when we finished a couple of laps down due to some contact. It was a great day for Team Chevy and to have (James) Hinch (cliffe) get his first IndyCar win. Team Chevy swept the podium and the weekend that is very cool.”
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – FINISHED 16TH
“Yeah, that’s a tough finish for us in 16th. It’s too bad because the Verizon car was definitely fast. (On the incident with JR Hildebrand) He came over and apologized after the race. He said he was just looking down at his steering wheel and he just ran over the top of me. It’s just a mistake but that happens in racing. Then I made another mistake there at the end and it cost us four more places. Tough day but we just have to move forward and look ahead to Barber.”
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 22 MECUM AUCTIONS PANTHER DRR CHEVROLET, FINISHED 17TH: “At least we showed what we’ve been saying – the team has improved so much over the winter. We showed we had the pace. First we had bad luck, there was a crash in front of us and I broke the front wing. We were on a different strategy after that, but it gave us the lead. The car was great; I was really happy to be able to maintain and to keep that gap in front of Castroneves, Power, and Hinchcliffe. I think the race was going to play out in a way that would have had us finish in the top five the way we were running. It was unfortunate – we came into the pits, the clutch wouldn’t disengage and we lost several laps fixing the problem. However, I am still very happy with how we ran today.”
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 18TH :
It wasn’t a great day. We couldn’t get our car into first gear on a pit stop for whatever reason. I don’t know if that had anything to do with the stuck throttle that we ended up having, but that’s what sidelined us in the end. I’ve heard some other guys have been having that issue so everyone is scratching their head right now, and trust me, on a street course it’s not the thing you want – it’s pretty scary to have one. That’s racing. You can be on the highest high and then next weekend you can be on the lowest low. We just have to ride it and we’ll come out swinging next week; it’s all a part of it. It’s a great win for James Hinchcliffe and Andretti Autosport.
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET – FINISHED 19TH: “I was just getting ready for the restart and talking to the team while dialing my knobs back and the field checked up in front of me. It was totally my fault and I feel super sorry for Will and Team Penske. The National Guard guys gave me a great racecar today and I hate that it ended this way.
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 6 TRUECAR DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET – FINISHED 20TH:
TELL US WHAT HAPPENED:
“We had a good start. I think we were maintaining, but those reds (tires) went fairly quick. We were struggling big time. We came in, great stops, but I think the yellow came in the wrong time for us. From then on we just tried battling back. Tried to keep safe, unfortunately, that last restart I clipped (E.J.) Viso and broke my front wing. I was for 20 laps driving without the front wing holding on for dear life trying to get into the pits and change it, but was not enough unfortunately. Very bad day for the guys that do a good job, we will see next week.”