CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
GOPRO GRAND PRIX OF SONOMA
SONOMA RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST QUALIFYING QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 16, 2017
DRIVER QUOTES:
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 2 HUM BY VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, VERIZON P1 POLE WINNER: “
“I can’t say that I necessarily expected it, but it’s really great to get the No. 2 Hum by Verizon Chevy team a Verizon P1 Award. We’ve had a few chances at it this year, but for various reasons came up a little short. Honestly, I wasn’t sure we’d get this one, but we knew the car was fast and it was good to get it done. The track was really gripped up from the earlier race. It was a little slick at first, but after the first lap it was gripped up nicely. That was just part of the job. We need to come back tomorrow and complete the job.
“I was just hoping we could get one of these (Verizon P1 awards) this year – we’ve been close a couple times and a couple places I felt like we had the speed to do it and didn’t get it done. Today we definitely had our backs against the wall. We were making the best decisions we could. We were first out and I think it would have been risky for us to save a set of reds (Firestone alternate tires) like the second group. We knew we’d be on our back foot then in the Fast Six, but this car was phenomenal. It’s cool cause this is the Verizon P1 Award and I’ve been driving the hum by Verizon car many races this year and I haven’t been able to get it in its place. Happy to have those guys on board, they do so much for the sport and this is a great start to our weekend.
“This is INDYCAR racing – anything can happen. We checked one thing off the box this weekend and we have one big one to check off tomorrow. If everything goes according to plan we’ll see where we end up at the end. For us we’ve got to get through the race, we’ve got to have a good racecar – qualifying is one thing, having speed is one thing, but winning the race is a whole other deal. We’re going to work hard with this Team Penske group and we’ve got four guys very capable of getting it done – for The Capitan (team owner Roger Penske) for Tim Cindric and for everyone at the factory we want to make sure one of these Team Penske cars win the championship.”
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2nd: “Qualifying was really great for the No. 12 Verizon Chevy crew and I. It was really just awesome for all of Team Penske with Josef Newgarden winning the pole and the rest of us starting up front. We had a little mistake in qualifying that set us back a bit that could have gotten us more speed but starting second isn’t bad. We’ll work hard tomorrow to get the car in the best possible spot to keep us up front. We need to do everything we can to stay up front to challenge to win the race and if things really go our way, we could have a shot at the championship. We’re ready to see what happens.”
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 1 DXC TECHNOLOGY TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 3RD: “That was really close. I can’t be unhappy with the DXC Technology Chevrolet. I thought we had as good a chance as any at the pole, but Josef (Newgarden) and Will (Power) were a little bit faster. Third is not a bad starting position at all. We’ll be right there if they make a mistake and right there to apply some pressure. We’ll continue to work on the car this evening and tomorrow morning in final practice then put together our race strategy. We plan for it to be a great day for the No. 1 team, but expect it to be a great day for Team Penske.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 4TH: “The talent of our group is incredible. Great job on Josef Newgarden winning the pole. Our team is really strong and we work really well together. It’s really exciting for Team Penske that we will start in the front tomorrow. I’d rather Josef get the pole and we get the victory. For us with the No. 3 Hitachi Chevrolet, we wish we had a little more speed during qualifying. We have a great spot up front but wish we had a little more. It’s going to be quite a battle tomorrow with my teammates and Scott Dixon and we are ready for the challenge.”
CONOR DALY, NO. 4 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 13TH: “I think I’m pretty happy with what happened today. We put a pretty solid lap together and we missed it by just a hair. We made a huge jump forward from where we’d been and that’s what we have to keep doing. Our weekends are always about progression and we keep trying to get better. I have no doubt we’ll continue to improve through the warmup and hopefully the race as well.”
SPENCER PIGOT, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 17TH: “We’ve been struggling to find grip all weekend and we definitely didn’t find it in qualifying. We’ll go back to the drawing board tonight and try to get this Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevy a little but more competitive for tomorrow.”
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 21 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 20TH : “It’s nice to be back at Sonoma, for sure. Unfortunately, we’ve been struggling at these permanent road courses this year. We rolled off the truck and and felt okay on the test day. We were running mid-pack for a lot of the day and we felt like we were going to be able to continue to make the car better and find some gains. We’ve been trying a lot of the right things, but it just seems like something is missing. It’s frustrating, especially being back here on home turf, not to just be more competitive all together. We’ve got some options for the race tomorrow, it’s always a long race. If we can look after our tires, we’ll have a good run. Hopefully we can finish out the season with a solid final result.”
CARLOS MUNOZ, NO. 14 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 22ND: “We just haven’t been there this weekend, the group was quite hard, in the second group everyone went faster. It is a long race tomorrow and anything can happen, the tire degradation is a lot here on this track. We have some work to do and we’ll see what we have tomorrow.”