CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
100th RUNNING OF THE INDIANAPOLIS 500
INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE QUOTES
MAY 29., 2016
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 21 PREFERRED FREEZER ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 3RD: WHAT WENT THROUGH YOUR MIND AS A GROUP IN WHETHER TO GO FOR IT OR SAVE FUEL? “Yeah it was a tough day. I think we were trying to trim out towards the end to see if we could win the thing. I really think we had a shot. First and foremost I am just thankful to my team owner and all the other owners and everyone at ECR that puts me in a car. We have amazing supporters in Fuzzy’s Vodka and Preferred Freezer and I think we had a car that could win today and J.R. did too, it just didn’t fall our way. Ed would have been there with us I think. It’s a tough pill to swallow but I just want to thank everyone who is here today to support us. It is a big deal to be here but we just didn’t have enough at the end, tried to trim like I said, but it just didn’t fall our way with all the fuel.”
YOU HAD A FAST CAR, BUT WHEN DO YOU MAKE THE DECISION TO GO, GO, GO, OR SAVE, SAVE, SAVE? “Yeah, it’s Indy and you have to go for it. Especially with as good of a car that I had. Each one of our cars at ECR was capable of winning so you are not going to go for something that is low risk. If it pays off, and it paid off today, but you have to go as strong as you can and try and win the thing. That’s what we were doing the whole race was trying to trim out and go as fast as possible. I knew we could out race people today and I was so excited for that last 10 to 15 laps and I really wanted to have a shootout. You know battle to battle with someone. I didn’t get that opportunity today but I hope that I can come back one day and have that chance. If we have cars like we had today we will have an opportunity to win this thing.
“I wanted to win the thing man. I had the car to win the thing man. I was ready to go at the end. So disappointed for my guys, I wanted a chance to do something there at the end. They gave me everything I needed today, it just wasn’t in the cards for us this year. That is how it works out. But I am proud of everyone. We have a great team – the Boss (Ed Carpenter); JR Hildebrand, the guys. I didn’t have enough for the Preferred Freezer Chevy today.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 10 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 4TH: YOU TOLD THE CREW YOU WERE SORRY, HOW WAS THIS YOUR FAULT? “It’s not, but I just feel bad. You know I have raced a lot of times here and I am not the kind of guy that brags about anything but this was the best race of my life. Probably even better than when we won in 2013. It’s never been fair, and never will be fair. But I will take it and I am humbled to be able to participate in this race, I am humbled to experience this atmosphere today at this place that is packed. This is a lesson that I will take. I will take the good out of it and will work on it for next year.
“I’ve raced many times here at IMS and I’m not one to brag, but this was the race of my life. It really was one of the best races I’ve ever driven, probably even better than the race I won here in 2013. This is just Indy for you. It’s never been fair and it never will be, but I’ll take it. I’m just humbled to be able to participate in this race and humbled to be able to experience this atmosphere here today with this place so packed. This is a lesson that I’ll take the good out of and use it to get better.”
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 42 TRESIBA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 5TH: TELL US ABOUT YOUR RACE: “Well, we went through a lot with the 42 car but this Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing team never gives up. I hit a really big piece of debris and it actually got lodged in the suspension in one of the earlier accidents. We finished with a back-up front wing on the car, had a hole in the floor, came in multiple times to get debris out of the side pods. I am really proud of these guys because they kept fighting. At the end they kept giving me fuel numbers that I had to hit and I don’t know how I did it frankly. I don’t know how the 98 made it to the finish but the Hondas were a little back on mileage all day. We will learn from that and I think we will be better moving forward.
“Obviously we wanted a better finish than our third-place finish last year but we’ll definitely take a top-five here at IMS, especially after having some issues earlier in the race. We had some bad luck earlier in the race after picking up some debris from a crash and needing to make a front wing change, but we just put our heads down and started working our way back up one at a time. The No. 42 Tresiba® Chevrolet was strong today as were the Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing guys. Even though it’s not the win we wanted, this is solid momentum leading into the doubleheader next weekend in Detroit.”
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 6 PREFERRED FREEZER FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 6TH:
SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 8TH: YOU GUYS SEEMED CONFIDENT, BUT YOU STRUGGLED TO GET IT IN THE TOP 10: “We could never really get track position which was kind of tough. We started the day kind of light on downforce and over the course we started putting some wing into it and I don’t know what lap it was, maybe 80 or 90, but I hit the fence pretty hard in (turn) four and bent the suspension. So then we just tried to get what we could out of it. The car was not very well balanced and we had a lot of understeer to start with. Then we put in quite a bit of front wing and got it a little bit better but on the second to last stop we didn’t take tires and that kind of put us in a hole. Obviously you should take tires on the last stop just because the speeds get so slow. Whatever we did, just didn’t work out.”
ALL THE PIT STOPS IN THE END SEEMED TO BE IN YOUR FAVOR BECAUSE IT GOT YOU IN THE TOP FIVE: “Yeah, but we didn’t take tires. I think we had seven or eight laps on them and then the last part of the stint there the car just got so loose. I think we burnt the right rear off and I had over 40 laps on it. Then we were kind of riding along.”
WHAT DOES IT SAY TO YOU ABOUT ROSSI WINNING? “The thing about today’s formula is that it’s really hard to get away. Obviously they did a fantastic job with strategy and fuel mileage. It was definitely a split strategy with I don’t know how many cars at the end. Obviously a couple of our team cars did the opposite as well and I know that Charlie (Kimball) finishes well. So in hindsight we would have taken tires on the second to last stop and saved fuel.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 11 TEAM HYDROXYCUT KVSH RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 9TH: “It was a very interesting day for the Hydroxycut – KVSH Racing Team. A very strange race for us. We unfortunately could not run what we wanted to run during the last practice on Friday and that was detrimental because it was very powerful to adjust understeer in traffic and we ran out of it the last third of the race. The car was pretty decent compared to most in traffic toward the end, once I got it figured out, but I was maxed out on the adjustments. There was a lot more potential in the car and we could have adjusted a couple more things, but we had a bad second to last pit stop. We went from a possible top-five finish to a top-10, which is always disappointing. However, we still recovered from 20th to ninth, so we have to look at the bright side of the story, but for sure it is disappointing when you feel like you left something on the table.”
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 10TH : “Tough day for the Verizon Chevy. It was pretty hectic as we went to the back and then the front again. We tried to save fuel at the end. We were on the same strategy as Rossi but he was getting better fuel mileage and quicker lap time. It was really tough trying to save fuel those last 15 laps and keep our speed within the traffic. We made it as best we could. Despite the penalty, we still made it back to the front, but it just didn’t go our way towards the end.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 PENNZOIL TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 11TH:
MAX CHILTON, NO. 8 GALLAGHER CHEVROLET, CHIP GANASSI RACING, FINISHED 15TH: “It was a long race. It feels like three races in one. I learned so much out there today. It’s the craziest start of a race I’ve ever done in my life. There are moments where you’re hanging on for your life. There are also moments where you are absolutely flying and I wish I’d had another 100 laps to go. The Gallagher team did a great job with all the pit stops. I don’t think we were ever in a position to fight for the lead but I learned a lot and will come back stronger next time.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 31ST: “I’m so proud of him. SO SO SO proud of him. He did a great job. We had issues with the No. 20 car, but when I was out there, still running around, I was watching his number on the pylon. He has what it takes to win the 500; this team has what it takes to win the 500. Just wasn’t our day. This place is tough. I know Josef is upset right now, but that is the way the Speedway is. You just have to take it for what it is and be proud of the job the team did, the job that Josef did. We will be back next year.”
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 MENARDS CHEVROLET, TEAM PENSKE
STEFAN WILSON, NO. 25 DRIVEN2SAVELIVES CHEVROLET, KV RACING TECHNOLOGY
MATTHEW BRABHAM, NO. 61 PIRTEK TEAM MURRAY PIRTEK TEAM MURRAY,- KVRT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 30TH: “It is incredible to think that we finished this race, out there was a little surreal to be honest. It was an amazing experience to be in the 100th Indy 500 race and now I can say that I have finished the Indianapolis 500 and I am the third generation of Brabham to do that.
“It is special to think that there have only been three families during the 100 year history of this race to do that.
“The PIRTEK Team Murray Chevrolet was good all day. During some of the stints it developed a vibration. In the middle of the race there, I was able to make up eight places which was a really great feeling.
“I’m happy that we got through and that we were able to put on a good show. I can’t thank the guys from PIRTEK, the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation, Speedcafe.com, all the other sponsors and of course ‘Crusher’ (Brett Murray) who has developed this phenomenal program that gave me the opportunity to be in this race.
“Let’s hope we can have an opportunity to do more again.”
BUDDY LAZIER, NO. 4 LAZIER/BURNS RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 30TH: “We had a throttle that was stuck wide open on the first pace lap, so I smoked the tires several times trying to get it to free up. I didn’t want to run into the guy in front of me. I clutched it, and the car would bounce off the rev limiter. I was able to nurse it back into the pits, and the guys got to work on it. It was an electronic problem. There was something in the shock casing of the throttle linkage, which is quite unusual because it was fine when we warmed it up this morning. When we got out, the car was decent. We ran a bunch of laps. I’m 20 laps down and I didn’t want to affect the leaders’ day, but we have sponsor commitments and we tried very hard to get back out of the garage and run. We had a decent race car, and it felt really good. Then when we were on our last pit stop, I had just launched out of pit lane and was in the warm-up lane just out of Turn 1 at about 130 or 140 miles per hour, and the left-front tire fell off. Obviously it wasn’t fully on after the pit stop, and we started to grind the left-front caliper. I brought it into the Turn 3 fire safety area and that ended our day with about 50 laps to go I think. We were grinding the bottom of our race car on the race track. We tried to persevere and make the best of the day after the stuck throttle. We will run better in the future.”
SAGE KARAM, NO. 24 GAS MONKEY ENERGY, DREYER & REINBOLD KINGDOM RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 32ND: “I’m more upset than hurt. I banged up my right knee a little. But we had a terrific car today. It was so fast. I could drive past everyone I came up to. We started 23rd and I think we were running right at the top five. The Gas Monkey Energy DRR-Kingdom Racing crew worked their tails off. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t put blame on anyone. Just a racing thing. Josef (Newgarden) checked up a bit and Townsend (Bell) and I tried to go wide. We were three wide. I think I had a little nose on Townsend. I’m sure he knew I was there and I thought Townsend would back out of the throttle and I could slide by on the high side. This is a hard one for myself and the whole team. We had a fast car and maybe a chance to win the race. I just wish I haven’t run into turn one side by side. Again, it was another great experience with this team. They gave me a super car for the race. But I’ll be back here again next year. There’s nothing like the Indy 500.”
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JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 33RD: ARE YOU OKAY? “Yeah, I am okay. People do a lot of dumb things on a restart and we were just being careful, trying to make up some ground. The car was really good and it felt okay. I went into two and got a big push and I got out of the gas and it just came around.”
WHAT WAS THE HEAT LIKE OUT THERE? “The heat is not a big deal. It’s not that bad. When the clouds came over, that is when my car came to life and that was what we were hoping for. I am just disappointed because our Verizon Chevy was pretty good. Just a tough day.”
YOU ARE USED TO ONLY WINNING HERE: “It’s okay. There is good and bad.”