Chevy Racing–IndyCar–Practice

CHEVROLET INDYCAR V6
VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
FRIDAY PRACTICE RECAP
FIRESTONE GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETERSBURG
STREETS OF ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
 
ST. PETERSBURG (March 28, 2014) The 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season is officially underway as the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 teams and drivers worked on qualifying and race setup for Sunday’s season-opening race – Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
 
Will Power, No.12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, led the way for Team Chevy with a fast lap of 1:02.6443 seconds, 103,441 m.p.h. A total of 10 Chevrolet IndyCar V6 dirvers were on-track in today’s two sessions on 14-turn, 1.8-mile street course along the St. Petersburg shoreline.
 
Although the weather threatened during the day, the top-10 on the end-of-day final order were a mere.5 seconds apart.
 
Practice for Team Chevy  in the Verizon IndyCar Series will resume at 10:00 a.m. ET on Saturday. Firestone Fast Six qualifying is scheduled to begin 2:00 p.m. ET.
.On Saturday, fans can see: Mike Conway at 12:15 PM; Helio Castroneves, Will Power and Juan Pablo Montoya at 12:30 PM; Sebastien Bourdais and Sebastian Saavedra at 12:45 PM and Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan at 5:30 PM.
ABC will have a live telecast of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on Sunday, March 30, with pre-race at 3 PM ET. The green flag will fly at 3:27 PM. The IMS Radio Network brings the action live to fans. Both the radio broadcast and live timing and scoring can be found on www.indycar.com.  Radio broadcast can also be heard on XM Radio 211/Sirius Radio 211.
 DRIVER QUOTES:
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET: “It was a good day for the Verizon Team. We tried to find the right set up, going back and forth with different things, but, overall, I feel real positive about us going back at it again tomorrow.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET:  “Not a bad day today with the No. 2 Verizon Chevy. Obviously we wanted to be a little further up the speed charts, but we knew it was going to be a learning process. This is my first time on this circuit so we had to guess a little bit on the setups. Unfortunately we unloaded pretty far off. In the second sessions we picked up a big understeer. At that point we really quit focusing on speed and just tried to get the car driving better. I learned quickly that there are places on the track where the penalty of missing it is much greater than the gain, so from a track-learning perspective I’m much better off than I was when I got here.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET: “Overall, it was a good job by the Hitachi guys today and it was good to get back out there after a long offseason. We avoided any issues and Mother Nature was messing with us a little bit. We improved a lot over the course of the day and put things together for a good session in the afternoon. That was a much smoother practice and we will continue learning and improving in the Hitachi Chevy as we go along.”
MIKE CONWAY, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA CHEVROLET:  “We didn’t find as much as we wanted between sessions 1 and 2.  We are struggling a bit to get the Fuzzy’s Chevy where we would like it in terms of time.  We tried a lot of things today and we’ll study our data and see where we can improve for Saturday.  The track wasn’t as bad with the grip level.  I think we can get better for the qualifying runs.  We continue to learn with Ed’s team and find the proper settings that I like too.  It’s the season opener so you would like to come out of the gate well.  I know we are working hard to find the best setup.”
ED CARPENTER, OWNER OF ED CARPENTER RACING, FIRST TIME ON THE TIMING STAND AS A TEAM OWNER: “It was okay on the stand today.  It’s a little hard on days like today because we didn’t do the best on track.  It was a disappointing day for Mike and the Fuzzy’s team.  We thought we had some easy things to fix to make the car faster from the first outing this morning.  But, in the second session today, the car just didn’t improve enough as we wanted.  Now we have to work overnight and work on things to get the car better for Mike.  We need to do a better job to give Mike what he needs.  The red flags can hurt a driver’s rhythm during a session but it is the same for everyone.  We will have to work on it now.”
TONY KANAAN, NO.10 TARGET CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET: “We had a very productive day with the Target team although the times might not necessarily show it.  Today is the day to make changes and try a lot of different things, and that’s what we took advantage of doing. We ran into some traffic and lost some time like everyone else, but that’s pretty typical for a street course race. I’m optimistic about tomorrow and gaining more time.”
SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET:  “I think we are in a better position this afternoon than we were this morning with the Target cars.  The times are all pretty tight throughout the field and I think a lot of the other teams took tires at the very end of that session, when we opted not to.  We’re making progress but we just need to keep working hard and be ready for qualifying tomorrow.”
RYAN BRISCOE, NO. 8 NTT DATA CHEVROLET: “It’s great to be back here in St. Pete.  It was a pretty good first day back at the track.  We made some good setup changes but we still have some work to do for tomorrow.  I think we’re on the right track.”
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 83 NOVOLOG FLEXPEN CHEVROLET: “We had a really good first day. The No. 83 Novolog FlexPen car made a lot of progress and we got some great data from our teammates. I have full confidence that we’ll come back tomorrow strong.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: NO. 11 TEAM HYDROXYCUT – KVSH RACING CHEVROLET: “It was good to be back on track with all the other drivers for the first time in six months.  The Hydroxycut – KVSH Racing team had a productive morning practice. The afternoon session wasn’t as good because of the weather conditions. We weren’t as fast as we hoped, but I don’t think we are that far off. We will review the data and make some changes for tomorrow morning’s practice, then see what we can do in qualifying.”
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA: NO. 17 KV AFS RACING CHEVROLET: “It was kind of a rough start for the KV AFS team today. Wasn’t quite how we wanted to start the weekend, but I think we have now found the right direction to go. We just need to focus on a few small things, which will make a big difference to the car. There is a lot of work to do tonight, but tomorrow is an important day and we need to keep that momentum.”