CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
HONDA INDY GRAND PRIX OF ALABAMA
BARBER MOTORSPORTS PARK (ALABAMA)
CHEVROLET DRIVER POST RACE QUOTES
APRIL 24, 2016
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 PPG AUTOMOTIVE REFINISH TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, won his second straight race in the Verizon IndyCar Series on Sunday by capturing the Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park.
Pagenaud led a vast majority of the 90 laps and beat Graham Rahal by 13.7 seconds in a late-race exchange for the top spot. Pagenaud led a group of four Team Chevy drivers in the top-five and eight in the top-10.
IT WAS A NEAR PERFECT RACE AND THEN THINGS GOT REALLY INTERESTING. BUT BACK-TO-BACK WINS IN THE VERNON INDY CAR SEASON. “I tell you, that was impressive. Thanks to everyone. We are just on a roll. The car is amazing. I’m so comfortable driving the PPG car. Chevrolet… I always tell Jim Campbell (Chevrolet U.S. Vice President, Performance Vehicles and Motorsports) after a good race that it’s the best equipment they can give us. Thanks so much for that. I’m just so excited. OK, it was another green flag race. But we made it exciting at the end for the fans, which is great. I’m happy there was some action.”
TELL US WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU WERE ABLE TO REPASS GRAHAM RAHAL: “I was dealing with traffic pretty much all the way through the race. It’s so hard in with this aero to pass
people, especially (Connor) Daly. He was pretty fast so it’s not like I was two seconds faster a lap. We’re talking eight-tenths of a second so that’s not enough to pass him. Then Graham (Rahal)… that was a good piece of driving from him, but that was a late pass. It’s not a corner where you can pass. I went off but in the end it made me really upset, I have to say. I said I was going to pass him back, and that’s what we did.”
HOW WERE THE FIRESTONE FIREHAWKS TODAY? “Amazing. A lot of people were expecting tremendous degredation but our PPG car was so good that we could keep going and I barely had any degredation whether it was red tires or black tires. They were amazing tires to be on.”