CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
FIRESTONE GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETERSBURG
STREETS OF ST. PETERSBURG (FLORIDA)
QUALIFYING RECAP
SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 2016
Will Power Puts Chevrolet on Pole for Verizon IndyCar Series Season-Opening Race on Streets of St. Petersburg
· Five Chevrolet IndyCar drivers transfer to Firestone Fast Six for season-opening race
· Team Chevy drivers claimed top five starting positions, and six of top-10
· Will Power broke his own track record lap of 1 minute, 0.6509 seconds set in 2015 with Saturday time of 1 minute,0.0658 seconds to capture his sixth St. Petersburg pole and 43rd career Verizon P1 Award
· Power’s pole is the fourth for Chevrolet at St. Petersburg, second consecutive at St. Petersburg for the Chevrolet IndyCar Aero Kit with fully integrated 2.2 liter direct injected twin turbo charged V6 engine fueled by E85
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (March 12, 2016) – For the sixth time on the Streets of St. Petersburg, and the 43rd time in his career, Will Power will lead the Verizon IndyCar Series field to the green flag. With a record-setting lap of 1:00.0658 in the second session of knock-out qualifying, Power finessed his No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet into the Firestone Fast Six and held on to the top spot around the 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary street course through downtown St. Petersburg.
Power’s Team Penske teammate Simon Pagenaud, No. 22 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Chevrolet, qualified second to make it an all-Chevrolet front row for the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
Row two will also feature a pair of Gold Bowtie drivers. Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet and Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 2 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet will start third and fourth respectively.
“Congratulations to Will Power and the No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet team on capturing their first Verizon P1 Award of the season,” said Mark Kent, Chevrolet Director of Motorsports Competition. “Congratulations also go to his teammate Simon Pagenaud for making it an all-Chevrolet front row for the opening race for the 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series season. It is certainly rewarding to see the long offseason of hard work result in solid qualifying efforts for all of our teams as competition gets under way. Tomorrow’s race will be extremely competitive as our teams have the first real opportunity to maximize the upgrades to both the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 engine and the Chevy Aero Kit. It will be an exciting start to the season.”
Four-time and defending Verizon IndyCar Series Champion Scott Dixon, No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, qualified fifth to give Chevrolet the top five in the final results of the Firestone Fast Six.
A total of 10 Chevrolet Aero Kit IndyCar V6 drivers qualified for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
You can catch all the action of the 110-lap/198-mile Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on: TV Broadcast: Live ABC Network at 12:30 p.m. ET; Radio Broadcast: XM 209 and IMS IndyCar Radio; Online: IndyCar.com and Verizon IndyCar 15 app
POST QUALIFYING DRIVER QUOTES:
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, POLE WINNER: “What a great run today for the Verizon Chevy team. It’s an awesome feeling to be able to put the new-look Verizon car on pole again here at St. Pete. Unfortunately, I’ve been feeling pretty ill all day. It was a struggle to get through qualifying, honestly, but we were able to do it and after the Verizon P1 Pole Award presentation I just started feeling a lot worse. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be at the press conference afterward. The car was great today and a big credit to the guys for doing a terrific job in qualifying. I’ll try to get some good rest tonight and come back ready to race on Sunday.”
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2ND: “It was a good day. It was a really good day. It’s been a good weekend so far. You can feel a good difference in our group, on the 22 side, in our second year together. It’s a lot of fun actually. The lap time shows. It’s all good at the moment.
“Qualifying was super, super intense. I had a blast out there. The car felt really good. It’s just about getting those last little bits everywhere you can.
“But, yeah, super happy about the performance so far. I think in race trim we will be in probably a little bit better shape, so I’m excited about that.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 3RD: “Yeah, the car was pretty good, man, I have to say. At the beginning we were not that strong on the qualifying (set-up), but we were able to dig in. My engineer and Roger (Penske) and the entire No. 3 team did a phenomenal job. They were working during qualifying. Great job. Every step of the way we were making improvements and the car was getting faster and faster.
“In the end we took a big gamble. It almost paid off. Unfortunately it was a little bit too much. But great effort for the whole organization. To have 1-2-3-4, again, it shows we’re really working together as a team, we want to win as a team, and we’re going to keep pushing. Great effort for Team Penske.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 4TH: “It was OK. We struggled. We were really good this morning. I was really happy. We only ran one set of new tires. On red tires we were not as good as we needed to be. I think the track went off a little bit. Didn’t adjust the car enough for qualifying, so we were a little bit behind. Overall it was good. Last year I won the race, so I don’t mind.”
SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 5TH: “We had a pretty poor session this morning just with traffic and not being able to get a clean run. The No. 9 Target Chevrolet has been strong for most of the weekend and it’s good to see those top five spots in the Firestone Fast 6 being Chevy-powered. It’s tough to see all four Penske cars walk off in those top four spots, but at least we made some big improvements over last year’s car. I know we’re going to race well, so hopefully we’ll have a good strategy to gain a few spots and make it to the podium tomorrow.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 11 TEAM HYDROXYCUT KVSH RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 8TH: “Obviously, not as good a qualifying session as last year, not as competitive as the Hydroxycut KVSH Racing team would have liked. Everything came back together very late so we didn’t get in all the work we needed. We will just keep digging. That is what we do. It’s tough, there are big teams with a lot of resources and we go out there with are limited tools and try and give them a run for their money. Eighth is not where we wanted to start, but we are looking forward to a good race tomorrow.”
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 21 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 12TH: “I felt pretty positive all day, but it’s perplexing why we didn’t have the speed there in qualifying. Sometimes this is a perplexing track! You can have good balance, the car can feel like it has good grip but you just don’t have the speed. We’ll try and get it sorted for tomorrow and have a good racecar. We’ve got a great crew here with the Fuzzy’s Vodka boys, I’m not worried about doing a good job and executing during the race tomorrow. I feel confident still, it’s just a shame we couldn’t be a little bit quicker. I felt like we had more performance than what we showed, the car was really good and it felt good, it just wasn’t quick enough.”
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 83 NOVO NORDISK CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 14TH: “It was disappointing to not transfer through to the Firestone Fast 6 – it’s just so competitive here in the Verizon IndyCar Series. The No. 83 Novo Nordisk Chevrolet was good, we just didn’t quite get it done. We’ll bounce back and get it ready for tomorrow. I think we have a little bit to learn over night from Scott and the Target team – he did a great job getting into the Firestone Fast 6. We’ll learn from what he was able to do and develop a strategy and be ready to go racing tomorrow.”
MAX CHILTON, NO. 8 GALLAGHER CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 17TH: “It was a difficult morning for sure. We made a change during the first practice session that was just too much and ultimately didn’t really work. We went back to the way we had originally set up the car for qualifying, but it seemed to have the same balance issues we saw this morning. It’s not as high as we would’ve hoped to qualify, but I came out as the top rookie and I don’t think I did too bad of a job today. We’ll regroup tonight and be ready for the race tomorrow.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 10 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 20TH: “We’re obviously not happy with our qualifying effort today. We’ve struggled this weekend to get the car where it needs to be and get the times that we know we can get. It just wasn’t there today in qualifying for the No. 10 NTT DATA Chevrolet, but we’ll bounce back tomorrow.”
FIRESTONE GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETERSBURG
STREETS OF ST. PETERSBURG, FLA.
SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 2016
PRESS CONFERENCE WITH JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, HELIO CASTRONEVES, SIMON PAGENAUD AND SCOTT DIXON
THE MODERATOR: We’ll go ahead and get started with the first drivers joining us for the Firestone Fast Six. We are joined by Scott Dixon, who qualified fifth today. Next to Scott is Juan Pablo Montoya, qualifying fourth. Scott, could you give us a recap of how you’re qualifying session went today.
SCOTT DIXON: Generally not too bad. I think as far as our cars, we made pretty good improvements. This track typically for us has been a bit of a bother.
Qual one, the track was really dirty. Might have been those trucks or something. There was crap everywhere. Definitely slippery for the first few laps, especially on the blacks.
Each lap just got better and better as the track got cleaner and cars ran through. Messed up a little bit on the last qual. Probably a little too cautious into turn one, into 10, a little bit into 13. All those would have given us a 10th or a 10th and a half.
Good to see Chevy in the top five. Sad to see the first four being Penskes. That’s the way it is.
THE MODERATOR: Juan, if you could talk about your session today.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: It was OK. We struggled. We were really good this morning. I was really happy. We only ran one set of new tires. On red tires we were not as good as we needed to be. I think the track went off a little bit. Didn’t adjust the car enough for qualifying, so we were a little bit behind.
Overall it was good. Last year I won the race, so I don’t mind.
THE MODERATOR: Next to Juan is Helio Castroneves, starting third.
Helio, talk about your qualifying today.
HELIO CASTRONEVES: Yeah, the car was pretty good, man, I have to say. At the beginning we were not that strong on the qualifying, but we were able to dig in. My engineer and Roger and the entire No. 3 team did a phenomenal job. They were working during qualifying. Great job. Every step of the way we were making improvements and the car was getting faster and faster.
In the end we took a big gamble. It almost paid off. Unfortunately it was a little bit too much. But great effort for the whole organization. To have 1-2-3-4, again, it shows we’re really working together as a team, we want to win as a team, and we’re going to keep pushing. Great effort for Team Penske.
\THE MODERATOR: Next to Helio is Simon Pagenaud, starting second. Simon, talk about your day.
SIMON PAGENAUD: It was a good day. It was a really good day. It’s been a good weekend so far. You can feel a good difference in our group, on the 22 side, in our second year together. It’s a lot of fun actually. The lap time shows. It’s all good at the moment.
Qualifying was super, super intense. I had a blast out there. The car felt really good. It’s just about getting those last little bits everywhere you can.
But, yeah, super happy about the performance so far. I think in race trim we will be in probably a little bit better shape, so I’m excited about that.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. Scott, there are a couple of rookies that have Formula One experience and maybe they’re not used to some of the IndyCar policies about getting out of other people’s way when they’re on their hot lap. We have three new stewards. Did you run into any issues or anything you think they should be aware of?
SCOTT DIXON: I don’t think it’s a newcomer thing. I think we have kind of a lot of veterans that do the same thing, too (laughter).
It’s tough. This is one of the shorter tracks we come to. Getting up to speed takes at least a lap or two. So you are easy pickings if you’re just coming out of the pits, the way you exit the pits here.
No, I think everybody has been doing a fairly good job. We haven’t seen too many reds with people crashing into the fence, runoffs. Definitely a steep learning curve coming to an Indy style of street course for the first time.
Yeah, it all kind of figures its way out.
Q. Will broke last year’s track record in the first segment. In the second segment, all six of you went quicker than Will in the first segment. What is the difference this season that speeds are even faster?
SCOTT DIXON: All the extra energy from not doing the autograph sessions (laughter).
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: Being realistic, the track gets quicker and quicker. Remember, we haven’t been on red tires since Sonoma qualifying, so…
SIMON PAGENAUD: It’s a big adjustment when they put the reds on at St. Pete. Again, we haven’t been qualifying for six months. We haven’t run on the red tires for a long time. The car feels different. The grip level is up. You got to push harder. We have a new aero kit which provides a lot of grip on the Chevy side, a lot more stability as well. You have to push it, find the limit. You only get two, three laps, so it’s not much.
HELIO CASTRONEVES: I think the track is great. They shouldn’t change the track. I heard they going to pave next year. The mayor do a great job and should not spend the money on repaving the track. If you want to spend money, there are other places to spend money. You can give prize money to the drivers (laughter).
But in the end of the day, as I said, the track is phenomenal. You see the fans out there. The cars are much better. Firestone also did a great job during the off-season to make the tires better. It’s a combination of little details. That’s why we’re going faster.
Q. Scott, Will Power’s 43rd pole (indiscernible).
SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, it’s obviously a big step. Converting them is obviously what we all try to do no matter where you start from.
But, yeah, you know, qualifying is one thing, racing is something else. He’s obviously won a ton of races in a short career, too. He’s well-accomplished. Does a really good job.
HELIO CASTRONEVES: Every driver has his quality and he certainly likes the way the car is set up, takes the best out of it.
It’s good and bad to have him as a teammate. In the end of the day, I think it’s more on the positive side because it makes all of us find different areas. I feel all three of us contribute as well.
It’s great. He definitely is a quick driver. That’s what he’s showing out there.
Q. Now that we’re in year two of the aero kits, what makes the cars different to drive this year than last year? What are the changes?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: Who said it was more difficult?
Q. Different.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: Different, oh. I don’t know, I’m ready. Let’s go, I’m ready.
HELIO CASTRONEVES: What was the question? I didn’t hear it (laughter).
Q. Now that we’re in year two, how different are the cars to drive this year and what makes them quicker this year?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: I think it’s just more downforce. With the upgrades of the aero kit, Honda has a lot more downforce, we got a little more. But it’s OK.
HELIO CASTRONEVES: In sixth place, you can come to the party, no problem (laughter).
Q. Helio, you’d like to see the track be the same. It looks like it’s pretty rough, the bumps. What is it actually like in the cockpit? How are you going to feel by the end of this race? How tired will it make you feel?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: It’s bumpy.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: Does it really feel bumpy?
HELIO CASTRONEVES: I feel bumpy. Actually, it’s a street course. Every street course, always there is some bumps. Like I said, I was not joking about the paving. Every year, even a little bit more, a little bit less, it’s characteristic of a place. It’s becoming very different.
It’s fun to drive.
SIMON PAGENAUD: Same. I don’t see why we would change it. Bounce makes it more difficult. That’s the sense of racing.
We’re not jumping off the racetrack. We’re not going through railroad tracks. I think everything is going pretty well. It’s a great track, really good.
THE MODERATOR: Will Power will not be participating in today’s post-qualifying press conference. He’s been battling a stomach bug all day that got worse after qualifying.
We hope he feels better and will be ready to race tomorrow. Thank you.