CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
HONDA INDY GRAND PRIX OF ALABAMA
POST RACE DRIVER QUOTES
APRIL 23, 2017

JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 2 FITZGERALD GLIDER KITS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER: “That was an awesome day. This is what we work for as an entire group. We always want to get one of these cars in victory lane. And, for (teammate) Will Power, I feel so bad for those boys on the 12 car – they were on it today and I feel like it would have been a great battle between Will, myself and Scott (Dixon). But it ended up just being Scott and myself. It’s a group effort here (at Team Penske) – all four of these guys work together. I’m thrilled for the (No.) 2 car guys but this is a team effort with all four cars. So whoever is in victory lane – we just want to get someone there with Team Penske.”

SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 1 MENARDS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 2ND: IN THOSE CLOSING LAPS, THEY SAID WE CAN’T TURN YOU LOOSE, BUD. HOW FRUSTRATING WAS THAT?
“Yeah, you know, you’re racing and you just want to go as hard as you can. But, we couldn’t do it. We had to save fuel to finish. I hate these kind of races! You know, you just want to go! And we had tremendous pace at the end. We struggled a little bit at the starts, and we adjusted the car during the race. I was very happy with the reds and on blacks at the end, it was good. We lost a lot of spots when Josef hit me and I went in the grass in (Turn) 5; so that’s where I think we lost potentially the race win. But it is what it is. It was a good day overall. We transformed a tough start of this season into good results, and I think that’s the key for the championship.”

HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 AUTO CLUB OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 4TH: MIDWAY THROUGH THE RACE, YOU WERE BACK IN 7TH OR 8TH. HOW DID YOU GET BACK UP TO FINISH 4TH?
“Well, with a little bit of luck with the yellow and a shame with Will (Power) cutting the tire and (James) Hinchcliffe went off, so we were able to get back in the top 4. The Triple A Chevy was really good, actually. It was just unfortunate with the black tires was one thing. It was actually good balance, but a little bit slow. When you have the Firestone reds, it was fast but it was too loose to control and it was like man, it was like working of the car; plus saving fuel toward the end was a little bit hard. But, you know what? Congrats to Josef (Newgarden, race winner) on his first win now. He’s not the rookie anymore. Well done. That’s why Roger (Penske) keeps hiring those young talents and we keep pushing.”

HOW WAS IT THIS WEEKEND FOR TEAM PENSKE OVERALL FINISHING FIRST, THIRD, AND FOURTH?
“It’s great. We would have probably finished with Will (Power) up there as well. But, just to show that we are working together. Yes, I want to win. I know Will and I know Simon (Pagenaud) and today was Josef’s day. So we only have to be a little bit patient and at the end of the day, everybody is going to get their share.”

WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 14TH: “I held on as long as I could but I knew (the tire) was going down – you could feel it. We’ll move on to the next one. I’m thankful to my crew, Verizon, the whole team – they put a great effort in and that’s how racing goes sometimes.”

THIS WAS PROBABLY THE MOST DISAPPOINTING DAY OF THE YEAR, BY FAR
“It was such a great effort all around. But the car was awesome. It was so fast. I feel bad. It’s literally five races in a row; three of them were different mechanical issues. Yeah, I don’t know what to say.”

WHEN YOU FIRST HEARD IT, YOU SAID IT WAS FINE. THEY SAID TO STAY OUT. DID YOU EVENTUALLY FEEL IT?
“I could feel it starting to bottom and then started having issues in some fast corners. I tried not to tell them for as long as I could that it was all right, but I knew it was going down. Like you could feel it. Yep, we’ll move on to the next one. I thank all my crew and Verizon and the whole team. They put a great effort in and that’s how racing goes sometimes.”

CARLOS MUNOZ, NO. 14 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 17TH: “This was a really long day, it was one of my toughest races in IndyCar. It started out okay and then after the first pit stop we just lost the car totally – there was zero grip in the car. I’m not sure what happened. So I just wanted to finish the race and not go off track. It was my toughest race at Barber. We just have to sit down and see what happened and learn from it.”

CONOR DALY, NO. 4 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 18TH: “I thought that was one of the hardest fought races I’ve ever driven. I passed Chilton on the outside of T13 – I was super happy with that. We were making moves—we weren’t just sitting back and that was really nice to do. I felt like we had the car to attack and was able to make some moves, had some fun but issues outside of my control still plaguing us but all of that stuff comes around so hopefully we can have things go our way at some point. But until then I’m going to still try and do my job.”

ZACH VEACH, NO. 21 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 19TH: “Overall, I’m pretty happy with our first Verizon IndyCar Series weekend. For what it was coming in here on short notice and a limited amount of time to get familiar with the car, I’m really happy with the progress that we made. I couldn’t have done it without the help of JR Hildebrand and the entire crew at Ed Carpenter Racing. Everyone here was so open to helping get me up to speed. They helped me from Lap 1 all the way to the end of the race. This was the longest race I’ve ever done in my life and part of that was learning how to save fuel and doing my first real race pit stops. Overall, I’m pretty happy with how it went. Granted, I think we would have loved to have a little more speed, but with the amount of time I had in the car, to come home where we did I think says a lot!”

SPENCER PIGOT, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 20TH: “We were making good progress, we were all the way up to 8th after starting 17th. The car was feeling really good and the Fuzzy’s Vodka guys did a great job in the pits. We were definitely going forward! I made a small mistake trying to pass a car that wasn’t even for position, I got on the power a little too hard out of Turn 5 and spun the car. It’s unfortunate to have our race change that way. It was looking really promising for another very solid Top 10 finish, at least. I feel sorry for the guys, they worked very hard this weekend. We are getting better all the time. This time was a mistake on my part that cost us. Next time I will do better.”