CHEVROLET RACING IN THE NTT INDYCAR SERIES
HONDA INDY 200 AT MID-OHIO
MID-OHIO SPORTS CAR COURSE IN LEXINGTON, OHIO
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFYING QUOTES
JULY 27, 2019
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET (NTT P1 Award winner with lap of 1:05.5317 in Firestone Fast Six; fourth pole at Mid-Ohio, third of season and 57th of career):
THAT LAST LAP WAS ‘TAKE THAT’
“It’s been such a bad year; so disappointing, but I have such a fire burning in me when I do a lap like that. It just beats you down when you have these bad runs. So happy to get the pole. So happy.”
HOW MUCH DOES THIS RESTORE YOUR CONFIDENCE FOR THE RACE?
“It’s great for confidence for my guys. I feel so bad for my guys. I’ve made some mistakes, so it was good to pay those guys back with some positive energy. And for our supporters as well for all the effort they put in. It’s been a tough year. I had a lot of energy to get pole today. I really want to win a race now. The things that haven’t gone our way. It just starts to wear on you. For me, it just makes me faster and more aggressive that leads to mistakes.”
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 2 PPG TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET (qualified third): “Good day and good qualifying result for us on the PPG Chevy team. To qualify first, third and fourth is about as good as you can do, so great job overall by Team Penske. You could see how our work from the test we had here made a difference. Chevy’s done a phenomenal job — the last three or four weeks we’ve just been on it. That gives us a lot of confidence on the PPG car that we can tap into that consistency and have a strong result tomorrow.”
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 MENARDS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET (qualified fourth): “Awesome result for Team Penske to have three cars in the Fast Six and congratulations to Will for winning the pole. I really thought we would be able to get a front row starting spot with the Menards Chevy, but I think I affected the strategy a little too much and we didn’t have the right tires on the car at the end. Tomorrow, we’ll go racing hard. It’s going to be an exciting race with all the championship contenders starting at the front, so it should be a lot of fun to watch.”
SPENCER PIGOT, NO. 21 AUTOGEEK ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET (qualified 13th): “Qualifying was really frustrating. We seemed to be really quick through the weekend, but we obviously didn’t have it there on red tires. We didn’t get a run on them yesterday, so that did not help us. We’ll have to take a look at it and see where we can improve for tomorrow. The car was really good for the most part up until qualifying. We’ll go back and look at all that and hopefully get the Autogeek Chevy back up to where it’s supposed to be.”
MAX CHILTON, NO. 59 GALLAGHER CHEVROLET (qualified 16th): “Obviously, compared to last year where we got through to the Firestone Fast Six, it looks like we’ve made a step backwards but I think last year we just kind of scraped through because of red flags. I truly believe we had more pace today than we did last year. It’s just super close out there. You know three tenths would’ve gotten me comfortably into the Firestone Fast Six. I really maximized everything I could. We didn’t get a run on reds yesterday, so that was really my first red run of the weekend. I think if I knew what I know now on the reds, we might’ve been able to get Dixon with those two tenths we were just shy of. When we’re only two tenths off of a Ganassi car, I think we can be proud of the job we did. We’re in a good place for tomorrow and I’m hoping we can bring home a good result for the No. 59 Gallagher Carlin Chevrolet.”
ED JONES, NO. 20 ED CARPENTER RACING SCUDERIA CORSA CHEVROLET (qualified 18th): “We certainly made improvements on the black tires over the course of the weekend. However, not being able to run the reds yesterday really cost us quite a bit as we didn’t know what to expect. It’s not usually very easy to overtake here but hopefully we are able to make some positions up.”
MATHEUS LEIST, NO. 4 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET (qualified 21st): “Disappointing qualifying today, very disappointing, considering we were running in or near the top 12 most of the time here. The car felt pretty good for most of the run but we are lacking getting the speed out of the car. We have one more practice tomorrow to figure it out before the race.”
RC ENERSON, NO. 31 LUCAS OIL SCHOOL CARLIN CHEVROLET (qualified 22nd): “That wasn’t quite the qualifying result we were looking for. I think we definitely had a little more pace than we showed today, and we really just need to dial the car in just a little bit more. The temperature change and the major difference between reds and blacks really caught me off guard today, especially not being on reds for a really long time. We need to make some changes and improvements before green flag tomorrow, but the No. 31 Lucas Oil School Carlin Chevrolet feels really strong in traffic. We’ll have warm-up tomorrow to find out a little bit more and make a few tweaks, but I’m confident heading to green flag tomorrow.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 14 ABCC AUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET (qualified 23rd): “Too many things happening but I don’t think we found the setup. I thought we did. We were planning to do three laps, we got caught in traffic – but that’s nobody’s fault – and we ended up only doing two. When that happens, we’re not set up for that, the tire pressures aren’t set up for that, none of that. It was just not a good day. We only have one way to go and that’s moving to the front. We have warmup tomorrow and hopefully we’ll do a better job tomorrow than we did today.”