CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
DESERT DIAMOND WEST VALLEY PHOENIX GRAND PRIX
PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE QUOTES
APRIL 29, 2017

SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 1 MENARDS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – RACE WINNER
DID YOU EVER THINK YOU WOULD HEAR TH WORDS YOU’VE WON AT AN OVAL? WHERE DOES THIS ONE RANK ON THE CAREER ACCOMPLISHMENT LIST?
“Those were the longest 50 laps of my life. I have a button on the steering wheel to check the lap count, ever lap I was pressing the button. It was the most stressful end of the race I’ve ever lived, but the car was just phenomenal. It was an incredible day for the Menards car, Chevy, incredible job with the aero package for these kinds of tracks and on the engine as well. Since the beginning of the season we worked so closely it’s been fun, I have to say. Obviously, thanks to Verizon as well for all the support that they give us. I’ve got to tell you, this is just incredible. For me, this is my best win because it’s so strategic to win on an oval. You have to really study what the others are doing, how your car is responding adjust it during the race to be good at the end and today was just exactly a perfect day. I couldn’t be any happier.”

GROWING UP YOU NEVER RACE ON OVALS. THE FIRST ONE WAS AT A TEST IN TEXAS A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO. WITH TOWNSEND BELL… HE TOOK CREDIT BY THE WAY…
“I’m sure he can. He taught me a lot actually that year. We were teammates at Indianapolis at Schmidt. He is gasser man he just goes full throttle everywhere and he taught me a lot.”

HOW TOUGH WAS PASSING WILL POWER?
“Yeah, he was great and I’ve got to say big respect. It was a great respect between teammates. We were struggling a little bit on the exit of (Turn) 4. My car was phenomenal all night out of 4 and I was trying to time a run, time a run, he had a slight mistake and I took my chance, but he gave me plenty of room between teammates that is what you want to see and I want to say hats off to him and to the whole team. All four cars were phenomenal this weekend.”

YOU COULD TELL YOU ENJOYED THIS WIN BECAUSE YOU HAD AN IMPROMPTU VISIT WITH THE FANS WAS THAT JUST OFF THE CUFF OR WHAT?
“I’m so excited. I don’t know if you can see it, but I’m so excited. This win for me has been a long time coming. I had to relearn everything. Oval for me was completely unknown. So, when you are 25-years-old and you have to relearn everything it’s not that easy, but I think now it’s coming.”

YOU ARE THE NEW CHAMPIONSHIP LEADER:
“Yes, I like to be proud of that number one and have a great result like that is very fortunate after you win a championship.”

WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – FINISHED 2ND
“Yeah, it was a very good result, definitely needed that one. It’s just unfortunate we caught that yellow because I felt like we had the strongest car. We had a fantastic car and the guys had great stops. Still, second place, I think we closed the gap to the points leader a little bit and yeah, good day, good solid day.

“It was good night considering where we’ve finished the last few races. I’m happy to finish second and get some points. Unfortunately there wasn’t much of a race to be had after that final yellow because there were so many (lapped) car in between. I think the Verizon Chevrolet was the strongest car. I would have liked to have got the win, but I’ll take the points. This was just what we needed for the championship points. We’ve been good everywhere.”

WHAT WAS THE RACE LIKE FOR YOU?
“Yeah, it was good. I don’t understand why they blue flag for the leader, but they don’t for the second-place car. It kind of ruined the race that we couldn’t race. I think they should do like NASCAR where they reorder everyone because it just turns into a boring race. But at the end they start blue flagging people, but it was still, I think Penske was 1-2. I don’t know where the other guys finished, but it was a great day for Penske.”

YOU JUMPED FROM 14TH TO SEVENTH IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP DOES THAT GIVE YOU SOME MOMENTUM TO MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE BACK IN IT AS WE HEAD TO THE MONTH OF MAY IN INDY?
“Yeah, absolutely, it was a fun race and it gave us some points. Yes, we are not out of the game, I mean, come on it’s so early, yeah, we’ve got plenty of time.”

JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 21 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET – FINISHED 3RD
HOW ARE YOU?
“It was a little sore going out on new tires that last stint the wheel was super heavy, I was like ‘oh man’ like this is going to be rough, but the car was just so good. The guys had me totally dialed in. I think we were really close on the trim level and was able to get Helio (Castroneves) and Josef (Newgarden) there. They got kind of jammed up and we were right on the money to get through there. I felt like we had something for Will (Power) at the end. Just couldn’t quite get the timing right, but yeah, happy to break up the Penske sandwich and just really excited for the team to get a good result this weekend.

“The car was just awesome all day. It was a little tricky on those first starts and restarts. I couldn’t quite get the timing right and the other guys were running a little less downforce than we were. I was having a hard time fighting everyone off when we were jammed together that close. Towards the end of the race, the car was just awesome. I really felt like I had something for Will (Power) there, if we were in a little more traffic for a little longer I think we could have gotten him. That’s where we were at our best at this race, just running in a whole pack of cars. Just a huge thanks to the Fuzzy’s Vodka guys and I’m psyched to be able to come back with a good weekend.”

HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 REV GROUP TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – FINISHED 4TH
WHAT DO YOU TAKE AWAY FROM A RACE LIKE THIS?
“That’s what happens when you have three other amazing drivers in our team. It’s great because we always got to have a chance to win a race no matter what happens and which one. Unfortunately, in my situation we got a little bit too cautious in the beginning and then in the end I was going to make a run and almost hit those guys. It was a little bit strange because those guys were a lap down. I was not quite understanding, but the car was pretty good. The Rev Group car, was really good it’s just a shame that we added just a little bit too much front wing towards the end. You got a huge one, but great top four at the end. It was amazing. It was a good run.

“A lot of battles out there, with teammates even. I’m proud of my REV Group Chevy team. They stayed with it all night. That’s what happens when you have three other amazing drivers. Someday it’s going to be somebody’s day. It was amazing to see. It was a big break for Simon (Pagenaud) on the yellow, but he also was very good. At the end of the day it was a tough battle with some of the guys laps down, which wasn’t really necessary to be honest, but that’s racing. We have another top five in a race, collecting points. We’re going to get our break sooner or later.”

WHAT IS THE CHALLENGE? IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG YOU ARE NOT GOING TO CATCH IT:
“You don’t understand a small difference and sometimes it’s just a little bit and there is no way for you to try again. In this situation, I was really getting close to the guy and all of a sudden this (looking at the TV monitor) looks like not much, but it was. That spooked me out a little bit and I ended up changing a little bit of the tools inside the car. It was the wrong way to go unfortunately, but collect more points, keep going, keep trying and let’s go for the next.”

HOW EXCITED ARE YOU FOR THE MONTH OF MAY?
“I’m super excited. This is a great momentum, not only the pole position, but Team Penske winning with Simon (Pagenaud) congrats to him, 1-2 for us again, I mean Josef (Newgarden) was right there as well. We showed that we are going around, even though the Honda looks like a little bit strong we showed that we have to make a very good car and today was another proof. We are ready for Indy. Let’s go with the Grand Prix and obviously the big one.”

ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET – FINISHED 7TH
HOW WAS THE CAR?
“I was okay. We made up a lot of spots, but it was a weird race. We were a little over downforce, so couldn’t get as racy, but we knew we needed to run a lot to try to make something happen and when we got to running with kind of mid-pack to forward guys it was really hard to make moves. Could use some more restarts, I was really good on restarts, but all-in-all a good day for the ECR team and Fuzzy’s Vodka. Getting JR his first podium with us, building some momentum as we head towards May. It had been awhile since I had finished one of these too. So, I will take that as a small victory after the disaster that was yesterday for the No. 20 car.

“Yesterday was kind of a nightmare, so to be able to come back from a that with a seventh-place finish was pretty good! And having our other car in the top three and rolling both on the truck, that’s a pretty good day. JR was super motivated to get back in the car and though he was bummed not to be able to make Barber, it’s great for him to get his first podium result here with the team. The whole team did a good job the entire weekend. Now we’re going to head to St. Louis for our next test, then it’s on to Indianapolis.”

JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 2 HUM BY VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – FINISHED 9TH
GREAT START GOT UP TO SECOND AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?
“It was a rough night. That was pretty much as rough as it can be for the No. 2 car, but the good news is we had speed. I think all the Penske cars did and Simon (Pagenaud) was awesome tonight, so congrats to him for getting a win. It’s a victory for all of us at Team Penske, so happy to see that. Will (Power) was good too and obviously Helio (Castroneves) as well after starting the race up front. I think we have great race cars we were just, changing wings, we had broken wings the whole race. We got in some incidents and just everything that could go the wrong way, went the wrong way pretty much.

“Tonight’s a tough blow. It’s tough when you have a podium car, potentially a winner car if everything goes right, and you finish ninth. We can’t be too displeased over ninth, but I don’t think we’re super happy. I think the Hum by Verizon Chevrolet team is going to truck forward. We think we have fast cars, we’ve had fast cars all year, so hopefully that bodes well for the month of May and we can try to get some more victories.”

WAS RYAN HUNTER-REAY TRYING TO GET OUT OF YOUR WAY?
“Well, so (Ryan) Hunter-Reay, I was following Scott (Dixon) and I had Helio (Castroneves) breathing down my neck at the end there and we were just trying to ride and catch a podium to recover from the day essentially. Scott got on the inside of Ryan into (Turn) 3 and they went two-by-two, so I followed Scott through, but as soon as Scott cleared, Ryan wanted to get back down immediately and I just had a head of steam coming with Scott. I didn’t have any time to check-up, I tried to check-up and hit the brakes, but I’m in the middle of the corner, so I couldn’t really do much to miss him and he contacted my right-side of the front wing. Then I’m coming down to Turn 1 with no front wing and I’m in everyone’s way, so I had to get in and get another wing and that sealed our fate for the night. Somehow, we finished in the top 10. I don’t know how.”

EARLY ON YOU HAD AN ISSUE WITH THE RIGHT FRONT WING WAS BROKEN:
“I don’t know where that happened. I don’t know where I touched something or touched someone. I don’t know what the heck happened, but we had a broken front wing there in the beginning, but once we got that fixed it was two stops later before we got that fixed, so then we were trying to dial in the new wing and then we finally got that dialed in for the last stop. It was just, worked on the car all night and it just wasn’t our way. You know what, still a good night and finished in the top 10. I’m happy with the No. 2 with the Hum guys and obviously, we got a Team Penske victory, so not too much to be sad about.”

ON GOING TO INDY:
“You can’t get sad about the month of May. It’s exciting that we are going to be going there. We’ve got two great races with the GP of Indy and then the Indianapolis 500, so hopefully we’ve got everything bad that needed to happen on an oval out of the way and we can just focus on trying to win the Indianapolis 500.”
CARLOS MUNOZ, NO. 14 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 10TH: “It was good to get a top 10 finish. We just kept our nose clean the whole night. It was a really physical race and got more physical as the track gripped up. At the end I was just trying to hold my line and get to the finish. We still need to improve speed-wise but we are getting better and better with this ABC car.”
CONOR DALY, NO. 4 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 14TH: “The ABC guys gave me an awesome car. We had it in qualifying but we just didn’t have the information yet to know how much to trim. We put ourselves back there because it’s a process and we learned we can be a lot more trimmed for qualifying. We go into the race and we had a great mechanical balance. And the whole stint the car felt great. We were making progress pulling away from people, catching other guys and I really enjoyed that. It’s a shame what happened but 4 races in a row, we had some issues but things will turn our way. But I’m really proud of the team because we worked so hard to get it back on track and as soon as we did, the car was just as good as it was. It was really fun to drive again and I know it was fast and that’s the good part.”