CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
HONDA INDY OF TORONTO
STREET OF EXHIBITION PLACE, TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFYING QUOTES
SATURDAY JULY 16, 2016
SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, VERIZON P1 AWARD WINNER: TALK ABOUT THE LAST LAP, THE POLE WINNING LAP:
“Well, I think it started with the first few laps. I was all down and out. I’m like ‘oh that doesn’t look so good.’ I couldn’t get my splits to go negative and the last lap and then we just crossed the line to get another lap. They are like ‘keep going, keep going’. Just gave it our all and the car just kept actually getting quicker. I think the Firestone tires finally came in. I was probably not as hard on them as I needed to be right out of the gate. So stoked for Team Target it’s great to be back on the pole. We haven’t had a pole this year, but huge credit to the team they did a hell of a job this weekend.”
YOU ARE STILL VERY MUCH IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP MIX HOW BIG IS IT TO JUST GET THAT ONE POSITION TO HELP YOU GET A WIN?
“Any point helps, you know, as we saw last year with the tiebreaker that we had at the end and we gained one point at Iowa to bring it through. Whenever you can start on the pole at a street course, especially, is a big help. Just want to thank everybody here in Toronto as always a fantastic crowd and great people to put on a show for. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
WHAT KIND OF RACE DO YOU EXPECT TOMORROW?
“Yeah, it’s tough today. Well, this weekend, where they have made the few changes it is definitely pretty bumpy here and the course has gotten a lot tighter in (Turns) nine through 11. We will have to wait and see what tomorrow brings. I think even getting two-wide for the start is going to be difficult, but I’m sure we will be able to pull it off. For us we just have to hope for a clean day. I think whenever the Target car has had a clean day we have been at the right end of the field. We have had a few upsets this year, but just excited to be on pole. It feels damn good hopefully we can convert it into a win tomorrow.”
ON THAT POLE RUN LAST LAP: “I was a little disappointed on the first few laps when I kept seeing the tracker and I thought ‘Oh, man, this isn’t going to be very well’. Then on the second to the last lap, they told me I was P2, need to get to a 59.9 for P1 then it started going negative again, but I just stayed on it and obviously had a smooth run on the latter part of the session. I kind of made a little bit of a mistake in turn eight. But just so happy for the Target guys. They’ve done a helava job. We struggled a little bit with speed to get to the front end of the field, but if you are going to leave it to find in qualifying, that is good because that is where you makes the most. Tomorrow is race day. Hopefully we put on a great show for the fans here.”
STARTING ON FRONT ROW: “It is definitely going to be interesting. Even going two wide is going to be difficult tomorrow. I think we should be good. To start up front is definitely key for the track and with what we have right now. But as I said, pole is one thing, we are going to try and convert it.”
can convert it into a win tomorrow.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 PENNZOIL TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2ND: WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE TODAY FOR YOU? “Well certainly we had a good car. We made a lot of changes. I have to give credit to my engineer and all of Team Penske. Johnathan Diuguid-we got a quick thinking especially after the first session. In the first session I was struggling. It was really tough even though we got second, but then we made a change, the car was like ‘wow’ really good. And I said ‘alright let’s just keep doing what we are doing’ we know what we have to do. We didn’t want to wait until the end because in case of yellow or red flag, whatever happens, so we decided to go a little bit better. Maybe the track got a little bit better, but definitely the Ganassi guys they know what they are doing. This is not their first rodeo. I did have a little bit of traffic issue with Will (Power). I didn’t know it was him. I was like ‘who is that guy come out right in front of me?’ But, at the end of the day they put up a better lap than us. Oh man really that is unbelievable. Iowa was one; Simon (Pagenaud) was another one in Detroit and this one… that stings.”
IT LOOKED LIKE WILL POWER GOT OUT OF THE WAY AS FAST AS HE COULD DO YOU THINK THAT HELD YOU UP?
“Well normally, yes, he did. I didn’t mean that I missed the pole position because of him. I’m sorry if I said something like that, no. I was saying when you approach someone the dirty air all of a sudden you lose a little bit of balance, but no no, I didn’t say that. When he got out of the way I was already a tenth up from lap time. Then I had to pick it up again. By no means, there was no problem on that. The Ganassi guys they went a little bit better. The Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet is looking very good. I didn’t get the pole, but I tell you what it’s going to be a good race tomorrow for the fans.”
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 PPG AUTOMOTIVE REFINISH TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 3RD: WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO GO ON NEW BLACKS?
“Well we got the pole position twice in Detroit doing that. So, obviously, I felt like the black tires were really good on our car. We were able to do a 60.4 on used blacks in Q2. We were expecting quite a bit of degradation on the reds and we thought let’s take the gamble. So, we were going to do on two laps on the blacks and it looked like it was going to be really fast so we kept on going, but unfortunately I got a little bit disturbed by (Scott) Dixon going on on track in front of me. It’s just that visual aspect that only a car in front of you can disturb you sometimes. I don’t think I expected the best out of the PPG car, but it was great qualifying. I think it was exciting. Dixon nipped our teammate Helio (Castroneves) right at the end. He has been knocking at the door, but super happy with the No. 22 team. I think we have a good weekend going.”
BEING THE CHAMPIONSHIP POINT LEADER YOU HAVE TO BE HAPPY STARTING THIRD, BUT THIS IS A TOUGH RACE WHAT ARE YOUR CONCERNS FOR THE RACE?
“I don’t have really many concerns. I think my biggest concern is tire management. How you are going to manage the tires during the race. Obviously the red tires we saw is going to be good for racing, are going to degrade thanks to Firestone for producing a tire like that. The black tires on our car are going to be really good. I’m already starting to think about these things. Also, like you said Turn 3 is a good opportunity for passing. Maybe trying less downforce we will see.”
ON THE TRAGEDY IN HIS HOME COUNTRY OF FRANCE:
“It’s really hard to comment on such a thing. The only thing I can say is I’m very moved and very sad by the atrocity of what happened. Nice (France) is such a beautiful city. This was a peaceful day. Bastille Day is our Fourth of July, so there are usually a lot of families going for fireworks on one area and unfortunately this disaster happened. I’m very disappointed about the situation. Like I said, I would like to be home because emotionally that is where you would like to be, but I’m praying for the families and the victims. That is all I can do really.”
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 4TH: WHAT DID YOU DEAL WITH IN QUALIFYING? “Well actually the last run there I let Helio (Castroneves) go and I went out in the marbles. So, on the last run it took almost two bloody laps to get the marbles off my tires. Yeah, it is tough out there, easy to make mistakes, very slippery surfaces. Unless you get everything right you don’t get the lap time.”
HOW DO YOU BALANCE AGGRESSION LEVEL IN THIS RACE TO GET THE WIN WITH WHERE YOU ARE IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE? “It’s going to be interesting. Especially this last turn here it’s like threading a needle the way you have to apex the wall and then the exit the wall kind of sticks out a little bit. So, you would expect a few yellows. Sometimes you expect that and there is none, but just have to keep it clean on the first lap and then go into what strategy we think is going to work best judging off the guys in front of us.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 11 TEAM HYDROXYCUT-KVSH RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 5TH: WHAT MAKES YOU SO GOOD AT TORONTO? “I don’t know. We are just doing our thing. I think it’s a very demanding, very rough track with a lot of patches. You’ve got to be very smooth and try and just feel the car out. It’s not easy, so it looks like it suits my style I guess.”
ON THE TRAGEDY IN HIS HOME COUNTRY OF FRANCE: “I guess a bit less craziness in the world would be a good thing I guess. It’s just scary and just feels like there is not much we can do about it. But, we are going to have to do something because it’s just too many innocence’s.”
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 21 PREFERRED FREEZER SERVICE ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 8TH: “It’s always great being here, so many fans come out and see us. Thanks everyone in Toronto for supporting IndyCar, I love running here! We’re battling the speed aspect of it. I think we have a great car, we were just missing some grip there with that last set of tires. We were a bit stronger on our first qualifying run. I’m not sure quite what we need at the moment, we’re good in some sections but weak in others. We need to try and solve that problem. I have a lot of faith with ECR and the Preferred Freezer crew, we should be able to get on it tomorrow!
“I’m always optimistic there is always something that can happen in the race. I think this is our best session. Qualifying is the highest up we have been this weekend, you hate saying that, eighth is the best we have been this weekend. Like I said, I have always got faith that we can figure it out. I think we are getting there. We are good in some sections, bad in others, so we’ve got to try and solve the puzzle. That is what you do when you come to race tracks you’ve got to try and solve the puzzle, figure out the equation. I think we are getting there. Fuzzy’s Vodka, Preferred Freezer Services, we’ve got a lot of people here supporting us in Toronto. Great crowd, the 30th anniversary of Toronto, we are going to have to figure it out. We are the defending champs, so we’ve got to figure out something for race set-up and see what we can do in the race tomorrow.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 DEVILBLISS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 9th: “I thought The DeVilbiss Chevy recovered well. It was tough in qualifying with the used tires, but I am happy with how we recovered from the weekend. We have a great race car and I’m looking forward to the race tomorrow.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 10 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 12th: “That isn’t where we wanted to end up today in qualifying. We had a much better car in the No. 10 NTT DATA Chevrolet, but we were just struggling with understeer for most of that second round. The guys are going to change the engine tonight and get it ready to go for tomorrow’s warm-up. I think the race tomorrow is going to be an interesting one for sure, but we’ll get it right and hopefully make our move up to the front quickly.”
MAX CHILTON, NO. 8 GALLAGHER CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 14th: “I’m really happy with the job I did and the boys did. To me it’s the hardest race track I’ve ever driven to learn. I mean there is zero grip on that concrete. It’s pretty tight and unforgiving, so I think that was a decent job. We missed out by a tenth, but we’ve made huge progress throughout the weekend. I am pretty happy with that.”
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 83 NOVO NORDISK CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 17th: “I’m a little disappointed with that result, but I’m really proud of the Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing guys and the work they did last night on the car after I made contact with the wall in the last practice session. The No. 83 Novo Nordisk Chevrolet was great this morning, but I just seemed to miss it a little bit on qualifying trying to get the grip and lap time out of those alternate Firestones. I know we’ve got good tires and a great car tomorrow, now we just need to put together a good strategy to get up front.”
SPENCER PIGOT, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 21ST: “I’m disappointed to qualify where we did, we were obviously hoping to be a little bit higher up the grid but it didn’t happen that way. We’ll try and make the best of it tomorrow and see what we can do differently. It’s a long race and it’s usually pretty crazy with some big passing zones, so hopefully we can make up a few spots and have a clean race. Big thanks to all the guys at Ed Carpenter Racing, Fuzzy’s Vodka and Rising Star Racing for all their hard work.”