CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
TOYOTA GRAND PRIX OF LONG BEACH
STREETS OF LONG BEACH
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFYING QUOTES
APRIL 14, 2018
DRIVER QUOTES:
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2ND:
“It was good. I felt like we had a really good car. Got to the Fast Six like we needed to, and yeah, just were not fast enough basically to be on pole, but very happy to be on the front row. You know, we’ve kind of crept up all weekend and definitely made the car better and in a good window now. Yeah, that was a lot of fun”
SIMON PAGENAU”D, NO. 22 DXC TECHNOLOGY TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 3RD:
“It is a really good result, all three of us in the Fast Six. It’s not easy these days. I have to say, I just want to pull my hat off to Team Penske for obviously understanding the street course setup. It’s been difficult just because of the success we’ve had with the previous aero kits. We’ve had to rethink a little bit, and three races we’ve been able to do it. Quite impressive I have to say. I’m quite excited to see that we could get the car in such a good place, and myself, I just have to extract a little bit more out of it, but obviously it was a fun and great qualifying.
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 1 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET. QUALIFIED 6TH:
“It’s good to be up in the Fast Six. That was the first kind of goal was get there, then try and sort it out, and I certainly messed it up for us in the second part of it. You know, just on our best set of tires, which we were planning on getting the most out of there at the end, I just hit the wall in 8, just made a mistake, got a little sideways on the entry and tried to keep in it. For the first lap it was okay. I knew that the second lap was probably going to be my optimum. But I wanted to get the most out of that first lap, and I probably got too greedy with too much slide on the entry, so I just hit the wall, bent the toe, and it was pretty bent, so I had to come in. I was trying to stay out of Rossi’s way, actually, so I didn’t interfere.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 14 ABC SUPPLY TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 11th:
“That’s where we’ve been around all year long and that’s where the goal was. I think this weekend we could have been a little bit better but we had a few issues electronically that put us behind. And missing a session is never a good thing but it’s racing. Problems happen and I’m glad it happened today and not tomorrow. But I’m pleased–I think it was a big improvement on the 4 car as well so we’re gonna go race. [Tomorrow?] “It’s always tough when the field is that close. It’s going to be a fuel mileage race so we’ve got to talk about strategy here. Strategy is going to play a big role here—it always has, so we’ll see.
JORDAN KING, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 12TH:
“I was happy to get through the first session as obviously that’s the first thing you’ve got to do. I didn’t get a great lap in on the second session. I think maybe the crash I had earlier made me have to reset slightly, which didn’t help. We should have been closer to the cusp, maybe not quite quick enough to get through. We should have definitely been better than 12th, 10th or 8th, that kind of region. Overall still a positive run, but from a personal performance I think there was more to be had.”
MATTEUS LEIST, NO. 4 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 14TH:
“Tough qualifying. We’ve been struggling a little bit with setup and myself as well because it’s a new track for me, it’s my first time here, and IndyCar has a lot of great drivers. The car is very good. We just missed the top 12 by one position. I’m pretty happy. I’m confident that we will have a great car in race trim and hopefully we’ll have a good race tomorrow.”
MAX CHILTON, NO. 59 GALLAGHER CARLIN CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 15TH: “It was an unfortunate early end to the qualifying session today. I pushed the brake zone too hard going into Turn-9 and that caused the car to push wide and make contact with the wall. We made solid progress to the car from yesterday and I’m still confident we’ll have a great car for the race. I feel terrible for the team, but I’m grateful and confident we’ll have the car ready to race tomorrow.”
SPENCER PIGOT, NO. 21 PREFERRED FREEZER ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 18TH:
“We’ve made some really good changes to the car throughout the weekend, but this is a tough track. When it came time for qualifying, we really struggled with grip and when we put the red tires on, it just wasn’t there for us. We will go back and look at everything and focus on getting better for tomorrow.”
GABBY CHAVES, NO. 88 HARDING GROUP HARDING RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 19th:
“It looked like rush hour traffic out there for us unfortunately. There were a lot of cars not following the rules as they should be and putting other cars behind them, so it was unfortunate we got stuck. We only got our one time lap when we were trying to get two or three and that really cost a lot. I don’t know where we would have ideally ended up, but it was not 19th or 20th, we were better than that today. So it’s just unfortunate, we’ll keep working and move up in the race.”
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 23 TRESIBA CARLIN CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 23RD:
“I’m really disappointed honestly, because we made such good progress this morning. I felt really good about the No. 23 Tresiba Chevrolet after this morning’s session, but we just struggled to get any good lap times out of the tires and find any grip. We’ll go back and figure out what it needs for the race and dial up the strategy. There’s always something going on around here as far as yellows, strategies, and fuel, so I’m optimistic. Max did a really nice job in qualifying, so we’ll go back and compare our data to see where we need to be for tomorrow.”
KYLE KAISER, NO. 32 JUNCOS RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 24TH:
“It was an unfortunate early end to the qualifying session today. I pushed the brake zone too hard going into Turn-9 and that caused the car to push wide and make contact with the wall. We made solid progress to the car from yesterday and I’m still confident we’ll have a great car for the race. I feel terrible for the team, but I’m grateful and confident we’ll have the car ready to race tomorrow.”