CHEVROLET INDYCAR
INDIANAPOLIS 500
INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY ROAD COURSE
FAST FRIDAY DRIVER QUOTES
MAY 15, 2015
INDIANAPOLIS (MAY 15, 2015) – Fast Friday is complete and the stage has been set for qualifying for the 99th running of the Indianapolis 500. Simon Pagenaud, No. 22 Avaya Team Penske Chevrolet, took home the prize for the fastest time of the day. His lap of 230.698 mph bested the six drivers who eclipsed the 230 mile per hour mark.
Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Scott Dixon, No. 9 Target Chevrolet, and Tony Kanaan, No. 10 NTT Data Chevrolet, posted the second and third fastest laps of the day. Dixon ran a lap of 230.655 mph, and Kanaan clocked a lap of 230.457 mph.
Will Power, No. 1 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, and Sage Karam, No. 8 Comfort Revolution/Big Machine Records Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet broke into the 230 club as well with laps of 230.206 mph and 230.166 mph respectively.
After two morning practices, the qualifying line opens at 10:45 a.m. Live coverage will be provided by ABC on Saturday, May 16 (4-6 p.m. ET); Sunday, May 17 (1-3 p.m. ET). Audio coverage also is available and will be broadcast by the IMS Radio Network, plus Sirius and XM channels 209 and www.indycar.com. Race timing and scoring can also be found on www.indycar.com.
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 AVAYA CHEVROLET – Fast Friday’s Fastest
CAN YOU EXPLAIN HOW MANY OPTIONS YOU HAVE FOR DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONS OF THE AERO KIT FOR QUALIFYING TOMORROW?
“We have many options. I couldn’t even tell you the number of options, but the Chevy body kit offers you the opportunity to run those very trim sidepods. As you can see, we call it the qualifying pods; they give you less drag and a little less downforce. But then the efficiency of the rear wing is different to the race package. So then you also have wickers on the beam wing of the main plane. You can put different size wickers high, lower, different lengths. You can have as many as you want, but basically that is the job that the engineers do in the wind tunnel during the winter. Chevy did for us as well, giving us information. There are thousands of combinations you can use. That is why it is difficult to get it right. That is what it is all about.”
SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET – 2nd
“It was hard to tell with the conditions changing so much out there today. It was hot and slippery in the late afternoon but better in the early afternoon. I was happy with the speed in the Target car but I think there is more in it. We have go look over everything tonight and look at where we can make improvements. Qualifying here at Indy is always a challenge and you never know what the weather will throw at you.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 10 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET – 3rd
“It was a good last day of practice before qualifying. We were able to get quite a few laps in today for the No. 10 NTT DATA Chevrolet and really work on how we want to approach tomorrow. The weather was a little difficult to work through, but it’s better to know you’re fast in difficult weather just in case we run into it tomorrow or Sunday. We’ve had a really solid week and I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to be fast this weekend.”
WILL POWER, NO. 1 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – 5th
“The Verizon Chevy ran well today, despite the heat as it took us a bit by surprise. We did a back track and have a better understanding of what to run.
“We’ll take another good look at everything tonight for tomorrow. But overall, we feel comfortable with the way we ended the day.”
SAGE KARAM, NO. 8 COMFORT REVOLUTION/BIG MACHINE RECORDS CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET – 6th
“The conditions later in the afternoon were the best today. It was hot and slippery in the early part of the day. The car was very fast and very much on edge. I think we have a good car for the top nine tomorrow. We were really hanging it out today. I felt every lap I could lose it at any moment. There was even one run out there it felt I was turning right more than I was turning left. It’s very tricky and we are definitely finding the edge. I think it will come down to the most fearless driver winning the pole this weekend.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 SHELL V-POWER NITRO TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – 8th
“The Shell V-Power Nitro+ Chevrolet was looking strong out there today. We really worked hard on the qualifying setup and feel that we have a very quick car. Now we just need to wait and see what the weather will be like tomorrow to help guide us in the direction we need to go. I’m really looking forward to qualifying. We played around with a few sidepod configurations, going from one extreme to the other with them. We just need to look at data to see what we are going to do tomorrow.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – 10th
“We struggled a little with the balance of the car today. Nothing major but we just need to figure out why before qualifying tomorrow. I’m pretty confident that we’ll have plenty of speed but we need to find just a bit more to the Verizon Chevy to where it can win the Verizon P1 Pole Award.”
TOWNSEND BELL, NO. 24 THE ROBERT GRAHAM SPECIAL CHEVROLET – 12th
“We have had a good week of practice in gathering information for race day as well as running traffic. And parallel with that, we have to had work on our pit stops every day. We have made many hot stops each day so far. Now it’s time to worry about getting the car ready for qualifying. We have been gaining more data for the fastest four laps we can put together. Qualifying on Saturday really depends on track temperatures and conditions. Plus getting a good draw position for the qualifying line. You have to remember that the qualifying speed is the average of four laps and that is the challenge everyone is facing right now. Are you a little soft on lap one and pick up speed for the rest of the run or do you have a fastest one first and then fall off for the final three laps? The driver will have be very important this year in qualifying. It’s a tap dance to get your tires just right throughout the four laps. This Dreyer & Reinbold – Kingdom team is a great group and they have put together a solid and strong program this week. Now, it’s up to me to execute on Saturday.”
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 6 PREFERRED FREEZER/CARPENTER FISHER HARTMAN RACING CHEVROLET – 13th
“It was kind of a tough day. The conditions of the track were okay for the first hour of practice and then the track temperature went way up which was when we rolled out. We couldn’t even put a couple of laps together let alone four. Everybody was basically having that same problem. We didn’t see anybody do a four lap run for hours. We came back and put some more downforce on the car then went back out. We started to dial it in towards the end of the day. We’ve at least got a feel for the car which is important going into tomorrow. I think it’ll be tough, you hate to put it this way but I think it’ll just be luck of the draw; whoever ends up going out when the weather conditions are good and the track temp is low. It could be a little overcast for ten minutes while you’re making your run and it could end up making a huge difference with how sensitive these cars are. I think that if the conditions are nice, if the track temp stays cool, then I think we could see the type of elevated speeds that people were talking about, 233 or 234. I hope for the sake of the fans and everything that the cars are good and we can go out there and put up some big speeds. We’ll just have to see how it shakes out tomorrow.”
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 83 NOVO NORDISK CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET – 15th
“It was kind of a frustrating end of the day with people coming out of the pits in front of us when we were trying to get out to do some final qualifying runs. Overall the No. 83 Levemir® FlexTouch® Chevrolet is pretty good and Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing has worked really hard all week to make the car better. I think we have the opportunity to go out tomorrow and put ourselves in the Fast 9 and try for the pole on Sunday.”
STEFANO COLETTI, NO. 4 KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET – 18th
“This is my first time on an oval so we had to take it slow. Going at that speed, it is not something I am used to. So we took it step-by-step, slowly reducing the aero and trying to go faster each time. I have to be honest. After the first two days it was pretty difficult because, like I said, I am not used to going these kinds of speeds. I finally did get used to it and today was the first time we actually started to get close to a qualifying trim. The car behaved well and I was comfortable. I was able to run a 229 and I think the fastest is 230, so we are not that far off. I think I still have a lot to learn and we have some things to do on the car for qualifying tomorrow.
“As far as qualifying, we haven’t gotten to the complete full qualifying trim yet. That is something we might try tomorrow morning in practice. I don’t dream of being on the pole. I am a rookie and it is my first time ever on an oval. I think it takes time and a lot of experience to be fast on this track. If we could be between 10th and 15th I think that would be a good result.
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA CARPENTER FISHER HARTMAN RACING CHEVROLET – 20th
“With today being the first sunny day with warmer track temperatures, it really threw things for a loop and slowed things down. Everyone was running with much more down force and we’re not running anywhere close to last year’s down force. The way today went, I’ll be thrilled if we make it into the fast nine, we’re on the outside looking in now. Last year we we’re pretty solid so I think we can get in, but we got to play our cards right and find a little bit overnight. The thing we’ve got to figure out is how to make the fourth lap still be good. It was definitely a tricky day, I think everyone was struggling at times and it’s really hard to tell who’s good and who’s not.”
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 17 AFS CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET – 23rd
“It was a positive day out there for the No. 17 AFS Chevrolet. We worked on getting the balance right for the qualifying setup and making sure I was happy with where the car is leading into tomorrow. It was pretty tricky conditions with the wind – it definitely made the session interesting. We’re hoping that everything maintains for tomorrow.”
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 21 CENTURY 21 CARPENTER FISHER HARTMAN RACING – 28th
“The guys did an amazing job; they prepared another car really quickly and got us ready to go. We’ve been out here today just getting up to speed and we are relatively back in the game. Qualifying will be tricky because it’s slippery when it’s hot. Looking at the heat, I think whoever draws the first spot is going to be the luckiest guy. It’s only going to get worse as the temperature comes up so you want to draw early if anything. I like the fast nine and obviously you want to get into the fast on Saturday and go for the shootout for the pole on Sunday. We got a lot of good data today, as did my teammates, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 11 HYDROXYCUT – HAUS VAPORIZER KVSH CHEVROLET – 30th
“It was a very challenging day for the Hydroxycut/Haus Vaporizer team. We tried to make the low downforce setup that we had yesterday work today and it never did. So we backtracked and put more downforce on the car, but by that time we had messed with the setup quite a bit and we couldn’t quite hit our marks after that. We are just going to have to take a good hard look at the data tonight and try and get the proper setup for the conditions for tomorrow’s qualifying. Fortunately we have one more practice session before we qualify, so hopefully we will get it right.”
BRYAN CLAUSON, NO. 88 JONATHAN BYRD’S/CANCER TREATMENT CENTERS OF AMERICA CHEVROLET – 31st
“It’s been a roller coaster week, but our car has been fairly comfortable all day. We have been moving the balance around all day and we finally got it right at the end. We ran some pretty good laps on our own. We’ll look at our notes tonight and see what we can do to get even quicker”
“We have a short laundry list of things to do in the morning before qualifying. We’re right there to be in the top 30 when it’s all said and done tomorrow, all we have to do is give it four good ones”
BUDDY LAZIER, NO. 91 WYNN IOWA VISION RESEARCH LAZIER RACING CHEVROLET – 34th