CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
HONDA INDY TORONTO
STREETS OF EXHIBITION PLACE
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE DRIVER QUOTES
JULY 15, 2018
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 DXC TECHNOLOGY TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – FINISHED 2ND
IT WAS A GOOD BATTLE WITH YOU AND ROBERT WICKENS AND HE GAVE YOU A LITTLE BUMP AT THE END. IT LOOKED LIKE JUST HARD RACING
“Yeah, hard racing and good racing. I had fun. It was really, really tough out there. The track was changing all the time. I don’t know if it’s the dust or the tires, but certainly re-starts, where I had wheel speed up to 50 on the front straightaway. It was a blast to drive. It was really difficult. But when you have a good result like this it feels very rewarding and a lot of fun. I’m really proud of the DXC team for a great effort this weekend. I think we showed that we’re back, so I’m excited.”
WICKENS GAVE YOU A LITTLE SHOVE GOING INTO TURN 1.
“Yeah, I really thought I was going in the tire wall. Fortunately, I managed to get a good run down the straightaway and I made his life difficult in Turns 3 and 4, but after that I wasn’t going to be nice. It’s racing.”
THIS HAS BEEN A TOUGH SEASON, SO THIS IS A GREAT RESULT FOR YOU AND A GOOD WAY TO GO INTO THE LAST FIVE RACES
“Yeah, you know what? At the end of the day it’s racing. We have good seasons and we have not as good seasons, but the big thing is to bounce back and I think we’re doing just that. We’re working diligently in the background and it’s showing this weekend. All three Penske car were in the Fast Six on a street course, so we couldn’t be happier this weekend. I’m sorry for Josef (Newgarden) and Will (Power’s) race, but we’ll get them next week.”
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 23 NOVO NORDISK CARLIN CHEVROLET – FINISHED 5TH:
ON HIS RACE: “I’m just really proud of the Carlin guys. They fight and work so hard, weekend in and weekend out. They’re the first ones here in the paddock in the morning and the last ones out at night. We struggled a little on Saturday but on race day we were able to bring it. We showed up in Toronto with a great foundation from Detroit race two, a top-10 car, and we were able to make it a little better this weekend. The No. 23 crew had two fantastic pit stops—that second stop was just rock solid. To be able to come out with a top-five, leaning on fourth at the end, was a great way to cap off the weekend. Really pleased to bring home Carlin’s first top-five in IndyCar and my first top-five of the season.”
YOU WENT FROM STARTING 20TH TO FINISHING 5TH. WHAT WORKED SO WELL?
“Well, I think it comes down to the hard work by the Carlin Racing guys. They’ve been working so hard week in and week out, all year and all season. We came here with a solid foundation. We got an 8th in the Detroit race 2 and worked on it all weekend. We struggled a little bit yesterday. The changing conditions and an electrical problem yesterday morning in warm-up. We knew we had a pretty good car and the great stops on pit lane meant that we were close to the Top 5 at the end and we were able to pick-up a Top 5.
DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING FOR JAMES HINCHCLIFFE IN THE CLOSING LAPS?
“Yeah, my best bet for that was that he had five-lap older Firestone primaries and it was a little like when we raced around here back in 2010 in Indy Lights. He had a moment with about three laps to go coming out of Turn 3 and got all crossed-up. And I thought, all right, here we go with the run of all runs. And he defended to be inside the Top 5 and I thought, okay, he learned from 2010. It’s always fun racing with those guys. You don’t want to lean on him too hard in front of the Canadian fans. But it was a good result for the Carlin crew and the No. 23 car representing Novo Nordisk Canada here in Ontario.
TONY KANAAN, NO. 14 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 6TH: “Great day for the ABC Supply team–we finally had everything going our way. We had good stops, good passing and obviously we had a couple people do us some favors on the race track –that’s the way this race goes. It’s the best result for the team so far—top 6 on a street course where we’d been improving our car all weekend. Really happy for ABC, Larry and for A.J. He’s not here so I wanted to give him a good result.”
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 1 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – FINISHED 9TH :
ON HIS RACE: “It was a tough race. Making contact with the wall didn’t help. I don’t know what it was to be honest with you, it was either marbles or dust from the sweepers; they’re trying to clean off the track and that yellow, when we already had tons of marbles 27 laps in. I don’t know what to tell you, I went straight into the wall. And part of that is my fault, just making a mistake, but I didn’t expect it; I’ll tell you that. I just had no idea the car was going to do that. I knew it would be low grip, but not zero grip. I just lost the front end completely. I feel terrible, it’s not fun to make a mistake. This No. 1 Hitachi Chevy was quick today, I think it was capable of being in the top three or potentially winning the race if I didn’t make the mistake, but you have days like this in racing. We have to move on now and try to pick it back up. With the championship battle, we’ve got a long way to go. This doesn’t help but look, we have plenty of racing. We need to keep our head up here. We’re going to be just fine, we’ve got fast cars and the best in the business. If we get our mistakes sorted out, we’re going to be just fine.”
YOU LED THE FIRST 20-SOME LAPS AND THEN EVERYBODY KEPT SAYING MARBLES, MARBLES, AND YOU SAID IT WASN’T MARBLES THAT CAUSED YOU TO HIT THE WALL
“Well, I don’t know what it was to be honest with you. It’s either the marbles or its dust from the sweepers. They’re trying to clean off the track. It was 27 laps in and you already had tons of marbles. I don’t know what to tell you. I went straight into the wall. Partly that going to be my fault just making a mistake, but I didn’t expect it, I’ll tell you that. I just had no idea the car was going to do that. I knew it would probably be low grip, but not zero grip. I lost the front-end completely. I feel terrible. It’s not fun to make a mistake. This Hitachi car was quick today and was capable of being in the Top 3 and potentially winning the race if I didn’t make a mistake. But, you have days like this in racing. We’ve got to move on now and try and pick it back up.”
WAS IT SIMILAR TO BEING AT INDY AND GETTING IN THE GRAY?
“It felt like that. It felt like I was getting in the gray but I was in the middle of the track. And then I did finally get into the gray on the outside of the track and then I couldn’t really do anything. I was going to hit the wall. I just tried to minimize the damage. I was going so slow, I actually didn’t break anything. That’s how slow I was going. So, I don’t know what to tell you. We’ve just got to chalk it up to a learning experience that this same car at this track with that sort of yellow situation, there’s going to be no grip there in the corner. I guess I didn’t forecast that well enough and was a mistake on my part and I’ll have to learn from it now.”
JORDAN KING, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 11TH: “The first few laps were quite tricky, being on blacks while everyone was on reds. With the incident this morning, we weren’t 100% sure where we were with the car. I maybe struggled a bit more in the first stint than I did at the end of the race, I’ll put my hand up for that one! We got to the lead on strategy and once we were in clean air, the pace was quite good. Tim (Broyles, ECR General Manager) was telling me what was happening so I was quite happy. And literally, just about as we were going to come into the pits, no more than 100 meters from the pit commit line, the yellow came out and my heart just sank. It was almost perfect! That dropped us to the back of the field, but I had a couple of good restarts with the yellows that were later. On the last restart, I got pushed a little bit wide and it took me about three laps to recover, just trying to get the dirt off the tires. Those two things were a little bit annoying but overall I thought our pace was good. It was a great job by the Fuzzy’s Vodka guys to get me back out in time for the race and I am glad I could perform for them. It was a decent result, but if the dice had rolled differently for us as we came into the pits I think we could have been set for a solid Top 10, maybe even a bit higher!”
CONOR DALY, NO. 88 HARDING GROUP HARDING RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 13TH: “I just want to thank Harding Racing and Chevy for this opportunity, it’s so nice to be back in a car. There’s something about this car that we need to sort out mechanically on heavy fuel loads, the car was really beating me up. I think we had good race pace. I got shoved into the wall a few times, which I didn’t really like, but it is what it is. I could have used a bit more cooperation from the #18 car as he was a few laps down. But anyways, I’m just so thankful to be back out here and we made a lot of progress technically this weekend, so hopefully that helps the team in the future.”
MATHEUS LEIST, NO. 4 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 15TH: “I’m a bit disappointed with the result we had today. I got hit on lap 20 and got hit again after a restart so we had to do two extra pit stops. From then on my day was over—not much we could do. It’s a pity because I think we could have finished in the top 10.”
RENE BINDER, NO. 32 BINDERHOLZ TIPTOP TIMBER JUNCOS RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 17TH: “The first stint of the race on Firestone red tires went pretty well. We had good pace and were running as high P11 at one point in the race. Unfortunately I lost positions after one of the restarts and my tires got dirty in the marbles. I was not able to recover the positions and had to settle for 17th. I am ready to move past this event and focus on Mid-Ohio in two weeks.”
WILL POWER, NO. 12 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 18TH: “That was definitely a very physical race. In the last corner I brushed the wall and bent a rear tow link so the car was a little bit out of whack. I didn’t even know that Rossi and I touched. I was just kind of trying to hang on until we got a yellow and could pit. I’ve never had so many DNFs; not DNF for this race but like a DNF in a season. Still it’s kind of how this sport can go. We’re just going to keep pushing away with the No. 12 Verizon Chevy and focus on the double points in Sonoma, that can be a 100 point swing so we’re still in the game.”
SPENCER PIGOT, NO. 21 PREFERRED FREEZER SERVICE ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET – SIDELINED ON LAP 76, FINISHED 20TH
WHAT HAPPENED?
“My right front got on a lot of marbles and it just kind of took off and I was along for the ride. But, that was a shame. I thought we were moving up pretty well. The Preferred Freezer car was handling pretty well, so it’s frustrating. But it is what it is.”
MAX CHILTON, NO. 59 GALLAGHER CARLIN CHEVROLET, FINISHED 23RD: “It was just a really unfortunate day for the No. 59 Gallagher Chevrolet and the whole Carlin Gallagher Racing crew. We were given a penalty under yellow that I’m not sure I completely agreed with and then when we did go back green everyone’s tires were still so dirty from driving through the caution zone that the contact was somewhat inevitable. A car spun out in front and then we were hit from behind causing quite a considerable amount of damage. We were able to limp back around to pit lane, but once we got there the team decided the damage was too extensive to continue. Just a tough break for the team, especially with how much I love racing here in Toronto.”