CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
ABC SUPPLY 500
POCONO RACEWAY, LONG POND, PENNSYLVANIA
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE QUOTES
MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2016
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER: EARLY IN THE RACE YOU COULD NOT WORK THE CAR IN TRAFFIC AND THE CAR JUST WAS NOT DOING IT FOR YOU. BUT YOU GUYS STUCK WITH IT. AT THAT POINT, DID YOU THINK YOU WOULD BE HERE (VICTORY LANE) TODAY? “Yeah, it was so hard to follow in traffic because we started very light on downforce. But you know, we just kept adding and adding and adding. Then the team adjusted on the car a bit until it was awesome at the end and I was very good in traffic. I just have to thank Verizon and for all the access they give the fans. I also want to thank Chevrolet. The Chevy engine was awesome today and the body kit was obviously also awesome. So you know it was a very good comeback and I am very happy to win here. I love winning 500-mile races and this is one of the toughest ovals that we race on. I am just really happy for Verizon and the whole team.”
THIS WIN PUTS YOU WITHIN 20 POINTS OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP: “Yeah, that’s good. We are chipping away at it and obviously there is still a lot to go. Now we will give it everything. We will give it everything because we really want to win this championship you know. Especially after such a rough start to the year and the first half of the year where I was feeling horrible and could hardly complete a race physically. So we are really coming back strong.”
YOU STARTED 8TH, YOUR BEST HERE, TALK ABOUT THAT RACE: “Well, I felt like this place owed us. We’ve led a lot of laps here. The car started off really, really difficult to drive. We adjusted on it all day and for the second half of the race, the car was just awesome, awesome. Awesome in traffic, really fast. Just a lot of fun to drive. The Firestones were really good today. Very consistent the whole stint. Just lost a little at the end there so thank you Firestone, as always awesome tires and very reliable. Mikail (Aleshin, pole sitter) was giving me a lot of heat there at the end. I was like, ‘Man is he going to get me?’ He was close. I felt like if I could take his air in three but I felt if he had to lift there, I would be okay, but he was VERY strong. That is as good as it gets. No mistakes. Great stops. As an overall team effort, that was as good of a day you could possible get. Thanks to my team!”
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 21 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA CHEVROLET, FINISHED 4TH: “First off, I want to say thanks to all the fans that came out. It’s such a shame we got washed out yesterday. We had a lot of people come back out to watch this race and I think we put on a good show. Thank you to everyone in Pocono that supports IndyCar! The 21 car was strong; we were just lacking a little bit. I was trying so hard to hold Ryan (Hunter-Reay) off there at the end, I just couldn’t quite do it! He was so fast, he had an incredible drive so congrats to him. Also to Will (Power) and Mikael (Aleshin), they were just a little better than us. I think we were a Top 5 car for sure, maybe a podium, but it was tough to beat those couple of guys in front of us.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 11 TEAM HYDROXYCUT KVSH RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 5TH: “It was a pretty good day for the Hydroxycut – KVSH Racing Team. We took some penalties with long pit stops to set the car up early on, but even though we were marginal on front grip we were running a pretty solid race. We passed Dixie (Scott Dixon), passed Kanaan (Tony), passed some Penskes, not the top one, but when you do that things are going pretty good. Then you end up finishing fifth after there was some computer confusion about our position on the restart. Overall, you have to consider that it was a great day. It was definitely our strongest showing on a super speedway. We learned something this weekend, something we have been missing. The crew did a really good job and the Hydroxycut Chevy machine was really strong. Some overall I am really happy with the result.
SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 6TH: “Well we started in the rear of the field and that didn’t help our cause with the Target team. We got held up in the second to last restart and some lapped cars didn’t go when they should have and that really cost us in terms of track positon for sure. We clawed our way back into the mix but with so many good cars out there today it was hard to get all the way to the front to contend.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 PENSKE TRUCKING TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 8TH: “The hum by Verizon ran well for most of the race. We had some problems with understeer and that made for a tough day. Things didn’t turn out the way we would have liked it to, as we definitely hoped for better results. I’m very proud of the team and how they pulled together the whole weekend and throughout today. We will continue to hold our heads up and look towards the next race in Texas.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 10 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 9TH: We just couldn’t catch a break during the race today. Every time we’d make a run toward the front, something would go wrong. We had a mechanical issue that was affecting the fuel system and that caused a lot of problems for us. Then we lost a piece of our rear bumper pod that caused that last yellow. It just wasn’t our day.”
MAX CHILTON, NO. 8 GALLAGHER CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 13TH: “I’m happy since that was my very first experience racing on the Tricky Triangle. That 500 miles seemed a lot longer than the Indianapolis 500 for some reason. I think we learned a lot though. We got through the whole race without incident as well. There was a lot of adjusting going on with the cars with the wind being a big factor. You constantly had to be adapting to the track and conditions. The last run was really close with all the cars packed back up and going for it. We started 18th and moved up in the race to 13th so that was good progress. I also learned a lot so I’m happy with the result for the Gallagher team in our first race here.”
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 83 TRESIBA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 15TH: “I don’t know what the 98 and 3 were doing there. We were coming into pit lane and they just sent the cars into the side of me. I’m just really disappointed with all of that. We had such a good car. The 83 crew has just really been on it all weekend with fixing the car and having to go to the backup car right before qualifying. I had so much confidence in the car every time I climbed in and for something silly that was completely out of our control on pit lane to put us back like that is just frustrating. After the incident on pit lane, the No. 83 Tresiba® Chevrolet just wasn’t the same. We just had to try and finish the race clean, get a lap back when we could, and really just help our teammates by staying out of the way when we could.”
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 MENARDS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 18TH: WHAT HAPPENED? “I don’t know what happened at this point. . The car bottomed and I went straight to the wall. Really weird because I had bottoming but not to that extent. I just lost control of the steering. It felt okay leaving the pits. Turn 1 was fin. Turn 2 was fine. I don’t know. That one’s weird but it’s definitely a bit of a shame. It’s really disappointing because the Menards Chevrolet wasn’t great, but was good enough to score some points. There’s nothing we can do about it now, so we’ll move on to Texas. I don’t think it changes anything. We’ve gone all out all season and that’s not going to change.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 19TH: ON WHAT HAPPENED: “It’s just a shame. The Hitachi Chevy was really having a good day and we just had another good pit stop when I was coming out of the pits. All of a sudden there was a car on top of me. It was a little strange to be honest. The Team Penske guys worked really hard to try and fix the car but there was a lot of damage. It’s certainly unfortunate because this will hurt us in the championship battle but our team will never give up. We’ll move on to Texas where, fortunately, we’ve had a lot of success.”
ARE YOU OKAY? “Inside the car, I was actually more protected than what it looked like. Sometime people don’t realize the Verizon IndyCar series are so much about safety and today is the proof of that. Very glad that nobody got hurt.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA CHEVROLET, FINISHED 21ST: “Ed Carpenter Racing has performed so awesome this year and the 20 car can’t catch a break. I haven’t finished a full race this season. I made one mistake at Phoenix, but other than that we’ve just had things happen. Some of it shouldn’t have happened and could have been avoided, so there’s just a lot of frustration. This is one of my last two races this year and I felt really good coming into today. I’m not going to comment on what happened specifically, it won’t do any good to talk about it out in the open. It’s just frustrating.”