CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
IOWA CORN 300
IOWA SPEEDWAY, NEWTON, IOWA
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER RACE QUOTES
SUNDAY JULY 10, 2016
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 21 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER: JOSEF – HAVE YOU EVER HAD A CAR THAT GOOD? “I think we had a car like that last year. Man, it’s hard to not get emotional after these things! What a great car! Fuzzy’s Vodka…they enable us to do what we are doing here. Have a great team with Ed Carpenter Racing. Great team owner in Ed Carpenter. It is great, man. Best car I’ve ever had. Happy for my team. For my owner – he is a good dude. He takes good care of me. Just happy. This is so cool. Thanks to everyone in Iowa. I love this place. Love coming to Iowa. Love the fans here. Love running Indy cars around this place. I hope we come back here for many, many years.”
DID YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS WHEN YOU PITTED FOR THE LAST TIME? “No. These guys are the best. I have the best crew out there. We learn from past deals. We watch the tapes and everyone learns what we need to do for this year. I had total confidence that we were going to have a good stop. We had a little bit of a buffer, that we were going to get back out there on that last stint and just run away with it. The car was just incredible. I could put it anywhere. It really helped. My right hand was killing me, but having an amazing car helps a lot. It is all credit to this team, Ed Carpenter Racing, they did an amazing job today.”
YOU JUST DID TWO RACES, ONE ON A ROAD COURSE, AND WON ON AN OVAL, HOW EMOTIONAL WAS IT FOR YOU AS YOU RECOVER FROM YOUR INJURIES? “I forgot about that. We’ve been so close to winning on an oval with this team. We’ve had seconds and…I hate having a cop-out. I don’t want people to think that I’m having a harder time because of the injuries. It was tough. This place is already difficult, it is one of the most difficult places we go to. But I wasn’t going to lose control of this thing. When you are leading the race and you have your team watching your back, man, you have to bring it home. I wanted to do it for all of these guys and girls. Just so happy for my group. The injuries – it doesn’t mean anything. It is all about the car and how good of a team we are. I think that is what got it done for us today.”
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 2ND: “It was a really good run – I think we had a very good long run car. We had people come back to us at the end of the stint so I was very happy that it went full green there at the end. That allowed us to get up to second – just stoked to finish well at Iowa. It was tight racing cause those two guys I was racing against are guys we’re definitely racing in the championship. Obviously I didn’t want to get passed but I wanted to get buy them – they’re very trustworthy drivers and very good to race with.”
SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 3RD: “Considering how the weekend started it was pretty dang good. We were in a hole as of Friday so we had a wholesale change for the race today. So it took us a little while to get the balance closer – but we had too much understeer and fell off a lot towards the end. It almost seemed like (Josef) had another set of wings on that car – huge credit to him and everybody at the team there. They did a helluva job. I knew all day that he was running very fast, but it wasn’t until the end that I got up to the pointy end of the field. I kind of hurt my race toward that latter part there – I was trying to keep up with Josef and burned the front tires up.”
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 MENARDS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 4TH: “It was a great day overall for the Menards Chevy. We had a really good car at the start and unfortunately we ran an adjustment pretty quickly when the track changed with the Firestone rubber coming down halfway through the race. We ended up having to deal with what we had. We just didn’t have enough pace at the end to contend for the win. So, fourth today I think is a great day, honestly. I’m very pleased with second in Phoenix and fourth here. Our short oval program has improved massively compared to last year. I’m proud of everyone at Team Penske and the 22 team did a fantastic job again.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 10 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 7th: “I think we had a top-three car for sure, but things just wouldn’t go our way today. We had some issues with our power and then that last stop really hurt us when we came in a littler earlier than we expected we’d have to and the yellow came out two laps later. Those situations are frustrating, but you just can’t control them. The No. 10 NTT DATA Chevrolet was obviously faster than seventh-place considering how much we were running up front with Dixon and Power
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 11 TEAM HYDROXYCUT-KVSH RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 8th: “It was a very average day although the result was pretty decent considering we started 16th. The Hydroxycut – Chevy machine was way too slow. We went conservative on the downforce and had way more downforce than anyone else. Overall we just weren’t competitive pace wise. We got a little lucky, although we created some of our luck. We stayed out late on many stints, which was the result of running a lot of downforce so we were taking pretty good care of the tires. We were getting passed early, but we passed a couple of cars toward the end of the runs. There was just no speed in the car, which is always frustrating when you are behind the wheel. On top of that I stalled the car on the last pit stop. I am not quite sure what happened there. So it was just a tough day at the office, but the Hydroxycut – KVSH guys did a good job and we got some decent points.”
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 83 TRESIBA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 10Th: “Overall it was a really fighting day for the Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing team. The pit stops were solid all day – I think we made up time every time we came into pit lane. I really appreciate the work they’ve done all weekend, and really all year. The car wasn’t great to start with, but we just kept making it better. We slid back early and had to fight almost our whole race from a lap down. It was really just a fighting day and happy to add another solid top-10 finish.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 13th: “The Hitachi Chevrolet was a top-five car here at Iowa Speedway, especially after we made some changes in the third pit stop. However, we got caught under the caution, unfortunately. We couldn’t catch a break and we tried everything to stay out and everytime we stopped the caution came out. It was not a good day for us after that, but we can’t give up. We have to move on and look forward to Toronto.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 18th: “It was a great day for the team. We tested here last week, we knew we had really strong race cars. Josef drove excellent…especially with the conditions of his hand hurting. I really felt like one of us would win, and there was a really good chance both of us would be here (on the podium). Didn’t know we would have quite the dominant day that Josef had, but we needed to get back in victory lane for the team, for Chevrolet. It’s good to contribute some points for Josef and the No. 21 entry. Second in points right now, so we are in a really good position there. We just have to keep doing the same thing we are doing, and keep rounding into form. Hopefully next race we will have two of them on the podium.”
MAX CHILTON, NO. 8 GALLAGHER CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 19th: “It was definitely a character-building day for us and the Gallagher team. It was a learning experience with all the lapped cars and wave-arounds. The car was good and I was trying to keep up with the changes I could make. We had a vibration of some sort and I spun. We wanted to get out and continue and get the maximum laps and experience we could.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 DEVILBLISS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 20th: “The DeVilbiss Chevy was running so well today. We struggled a little bit in qualifying because we couldn’t get a clear assessment on the assimilations there, but we knew that we had a strong car for today’s race and I really thought we had a shot at the win. As we adjusted the car, it was getting better and better. So, obviously disappointed with how things ended. Again, I just want to thank DeVilbiss, Chevrolet and Verizon for supporting us and we’ll look ahead to better results in Toronto.”