Chevy Racing–IndyCar–Pocono Qualifying Notes

CHEVROLET RACING
VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
POCONO INDYCAR 500 FUELED BY SUNOCO
POCONO RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST QUALIFYING NOTES AND QUOTES
JULY 6, 2014

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 PPG TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, RACE WINNER: WHAT A RACE: “First off all, I want to thank Verizon, IndyCar, PPG and everyone who supports this car and Team Penske. I want thank Roger for believing in me after how many years out of open-wheel, coming back and believing I could do it. Here we are. It’s awesome that we could do it.”

TALK ABOUT YOUR MOMENT WITH YOU AND WILL POWER WHEN YOU GOT YOUR WING CLIPPED. DID IT MAKE THE CAR MORE DIFFICULT TO DRIVE? “There was a little more understeer. I had to do it. It was one of those moves where you do it or you don’t. That was the winning move and I had to do it.”

WAS PATIENCE THE KEY? “Yeah, that’s what we’ve been saying. You have to be patient and you have to be smart. On days like this, if you do everything right the opportunity will come.”

BACK IN INDYCAR AND IN VICTORY LANE AT POCONO… HOW EXCITING IS THIS FOR YOU? “It’s huge. I want to thank the fans for coming out… Verizon, IndyCar, PPG, Hawk Performance and everyone who believes in Team Penske and myself. It’s huge. I was overly excited coming to the line, I can tell you that.”

HOW WILD WAS IT AT TIMES? “It was only wild going for the lead with Will (Power). Everything else was more strategy and saving fuel. You have to run a smart race all day and we did that.”

ROGER PENSKE, OWNER, TEAM PENSKE: ON THE RACE:  “It’s great for Juan. What a great job he did. All three cars ran well. Sorry about Will there and Helio getting together. For Team Penske and Chevrolet, our sponsors PPG, Verizon and Hitachi… what a great day here. We just need to continue this. It’s a great points day for us. With Hunter-Reay having a problem, that gave us a real boost in our points. It’s up to the team and they did it with great drivers. Congratulations to Juan Montoya. Certainly a great day.”

ON THE PENALTY TO WILL POWER: “That’s up to the officials. Obviously it’s a shame for him (Power). These guys are racers. What tell them to keep each other on the track but it looked a little tight there for us.”

HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 2ND: ON THE RACE: “We made some changes and copied my teammate’s setup. Congratulations to Montoya! Are you kidding? This guy is unbelievable. Coming back after 15 years and winning a race. He did a great job. As soon as he signed, I knew he would be an asset and a headache for us. I’m glad. It’s good with a 1-2 finish and I can’t believe we are now tied in the championship. It’s really unbelievable.
“What else can I say? It’s great news (to be tied for the championship). It was a tough race. You have to be really patient, and that’s what we did.”

RYAN BRISCOE, NO. 8 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET, FINISHED 4TH: “Things are really looking up for NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing and I’m just glad we finally were able to get a finish that mirrored our efforts.  We just keep looking better and better as the season progresses and I think we have a lot to look forward to in the second half of this season.  This track is awesome and it’s been really fun to race on all weekend.”

SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET, FINISHED 5TH: ““It wasn’t a great day for us maybe overall speed-wise, but we had made our way to the top five there at the end of the race and to get a top-five finish after where we started isn’t that bad.  The Target team worked hard today and you know anything can happen in these long 500-mile races.  We kept the car in one piece and I was happy to bring it home for the guys.  Hopefully this builds us some momentum for the next few races.”

WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 10TH: ON THE PENALTY “I actually let him go and went wide on the brakes and touched the brakes. I move, I move, I move… I was heading that way, heading over, over and over. I mean, he is my teammate. So it was another penalty and other drive-through and another really good opportunity lost. I’m sure all the commentators up there gave me a pretty good rub. The drive-through at the end of the race… painful. It was a double-move. But time after time it happens to me and no penalty. Anyway, it wasn’t a good day. The drive-through penalty… I’ve got to stop it. I’ve gotta stop getting drive-throughs.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 10 TARGET CHIP GANASSI CHEVROLET, FINISHED 11TH ““There’s two ways to look at today really. First, we had a very strong Target car and I think that shows a lot about what this team and I are capable of when we get the setup right.  Secondly, it’s obviously frustrating to dominate a race like that and not win.  We just missed going to full 500-mile distance by a few laps and it heartbreaking when those things happen but that is racing as they say and we will focus on Iowa now and put it behind us.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 13TH: “It was a long race and I kind of knew it would be that way when we didn’t qualify well.  We really had some issues with the car all weekend.  We ran with Scott (Dixon) most of the day and the car was better later in the race.  Unfortunately, it was a tire sensor that came apart immediately when they put the car down off the jacks on the next to last stop (lap 155).  The car was vibrating some badly that the steering wheel almost flew out of my hands.  So I had to pit again on the next lap and we got down a lap.  I’m not pleased how our team’s weekend went here.  We have been so good this year and today just wasn’t our day.  Now we’ll move onto Iowa and I like that track a lot.  Plus I loved night racing.  It should be a great show.”

SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 17 AUTOMATIC FIRE SPRINKLERS, INC. – KV AFS RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 15TH: “It was a really long day out there and a pretty scary start when we thought we had the same mechanical issue as last weekend. I brought the Automatic Fire Sprinklers, Inc. – KV AFS Racing car back into the pits, recycled everything and managed to get back out before the green flag and without losing a lap, which was a great job by the whole crew. From then on we just battled….everyone is extremely strong, it’s not like there are big differences between the cars anymore, but by starting the race so far back hampered us big time. We had a strong car, and managed to get some good points for the championship but still have a long way to go.”

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 11 No. 11 Team HYDROXYCUT – KVSH RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 16TH:    “It was a pretty good day. We made progress from Saturday in qualifying. The car was competitive in racing traffic. We were marching forward and fighting with the top-10 guys. Once we got into the top-10 it was looking pretty good. Then unfortunately in a typical example of racing…winning together and losing together…we had a bad pit stop. I have thrown a couple of races away this year, today it was the crew. We just have to keep digging and see what happens. For sure it is disappointing for everyone because it looked like we were going to have a good result, but, that is racing. We are headed in the right direction, so we just have to keep at it, keep building and see what happens next weekend in Iowa.”

CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. . 83 LEVEMIR® FLEXTOUCH® CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 17TH: “It was a pretty disappointing day for the No. 83 Levemir® FlexTouch® Chevrolet and I feel really bad for the Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing crew.  The car was really good all weekend and then we developed a mechanical problem early in the race and then we just fought that all day.  We’re looking forward to heading to Iowa and doing some short-track racing on Saturday night.”