CHEVROLET IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
GOPRO GRAND PRIX OF SONOMA
SONOMA RACEWAY
SONOMA, CALIFORNIA
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST QUALIFYING QUOTES
AUGUST 29, 2015
WILL POWER, NO. 1 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, POLE WINNER: WHAT IS IT ABOUT SONOMA THAT YOU LIKE SO WELL? “Well, I believe it’s a team thing but obviously I love the area and love the track. It’s a very technical track and you have to be very committed when it comes to qualifying. My favorite session of the whole weekend is the qualifying. You get to get the absolute maximum out of the car and ring its neck. I enjoyed it a whole lot. Obviously the race will be a fairly different story as there are a lot of points on the table tomorrow. We really need to be careful on how we execute this because we need to win.”
DOES THE FACT THAT YOU ARE FOURTH IN POINTS, STARTING UP FRONT AND ITS DOUBLE POINTS GIVE YOU CONFIDENCE THAT YOU HAVE A SHOT AT IT? “I think when you think about all the races we have had this year on road and street courses its been very mixed up and very hard to predict which strategy is going to play out. I think that Firestone brought a really good tire this year that slowly degrades over the run, which creates really good racing. So you are going to see that play into the strategies and you are going to see good racing. We need to think about that and what we need to do to the car to make the tire stay under us longer to go for that win.”
THE TRACK RECORD KEPT GETTING BROKEN AND BROKEN. DID YOU KNOW IT WAS GETTING BROKEN DURING THE RUNS? “I was just aware of the times that I had to beat and I didn’t know what the track record was. I just knew what Josef’s time was and needed to beat that. Our strategy was just to do two runs and just use reds, the sets that we used in the previous rounds. We didn’t think anyone would put blacks on but he did and he went quicker. So we had no choice at the very end but to put them on. He kind of showed us the way. If he had put them on at the end, I have a feeling he would have got the pole.”
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 67 HARTMAN OIL CFH RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2nd: “I’m proud of us. It’s great having GoPro here with us this weekend, it’s their home event and it’s a lot of fun to have them on our car at CFH Racing. It’s been a really fun year, it’s been an amazing year in a lot of ways, tough year in others. We were close today, but no cigar. We got bumped at the end so we’ll have to get them tomorrow.”
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 AVAYA TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 4th: “It was a good day. The Avaya Chevrolet was very good today and the most important thing is Team Penske had a good qualifying performance overall. With Montoya inside the Firestone Fast Six and Will on the pole, it gets the team off to a good start as we try to win the championship this weekend. It’s great to have a lot of guests from Avaya and HP here this
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 5th: DO YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT STARTING NEAR THE FRONT?
“Yeah, but we still have to race and anything can happen and we have seen that already in road course racing. I feel that we have done everything in our power to get it done and if things go our way then we will be good.”
YOU HAD TO FEEL THAT BEING IN THE FAST SIX WAS ESSENTIAL DIDN’T YOU? “Not really, I thought if we made it to the second qualifying group we would be excited after last year. It’s good and we have been good and we have been improving the car and I believe we are on the right track.”
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 83 NOVOLOG FLEXPEN CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 7th: “It’s a pretty good starting position for the Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing team. It’s always nice to transfer into the top 12 and we were so close to moving into the Firestone Fast 6 but the field was just so tight on lap times. I think the NovoLog FlexPen Chevrolet should be really good on older tires throughout the course of the race. I’m really looking forward to ending this season on a high note and hopefully watching Dixon win a championship and take the No. 83 into victory lane.”
SCOTT DIXON, NO. 8 TARGET CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 9th: “I’m not sure who was ahead of us out on track in qualifying but they sprayed dirt all over the track around Turn six. Kanaan and I both went through it and that just killed both our lap times. It’s very tight out there and you simply can’t afford to lose time like that. The Target team will have to come up with a great strategy for tomorrow and we’ll do our best to come to the front.”
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 8 AFS CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 10th: “It was a very positive Saturday for us – we definitely made a lot of progress from yesterday. We gave it all we had out there in qualifying, but I think there’s still a little more we can do to make the race car quicker. I’m happy with the position we’re starting in tomorrow and I’m just excited to get out there for the race tomorrow.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 10 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 11th: “Someone in front of myself, Dixon, and Munoz got a wheel off the track and put so much dust in front of us in Turn six. It’s not a coincidence that the last three cars in that second group were myself, Dixon, and Munoz. It was just bad luck for us – there’s nothing you can do about it. Obviously the guy in front of us didn’t want to go off-track, but unfortunately we all lost a lot on our fast lap times.”
LUCA FILIPPI, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA CFH RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 13th: “We missed the Fast 12 by half a tenth to Montoya which is a shame. It’s frustrating because the car was good. I think we could have easily been in the top 10. Now I have found a good feeling in with car and also with the circuit which is very tricky. Coming here without any testing was not easy but now I feel confident for tomorrow. As we know in IndyCar anything can happen. I am very motivated to finish the season on a high. It was good that Josef had a good qualifying run, which shows we have a good car as well and we will both have a good opportunity tomorrow.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 15th: “We had a fantastic Hitachi Chevrolet this morning. Unfortunately, the track changed, we made a little change and it obviously didn’t go how we hoped. We had a little bit of understeer and it just didn’t work for us on the red tires. Hopefully, it will come around for us tomorrow. It will definitely make it more challenging starting in the middle of the pack but we know the Hitachi car is fast. As we’ve seen this year, anything can happen and we’ll be doing our best.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 11 TEAM HYDROXYCUT – KVSH RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 16th: “Obviously qualifying didn’t go the way we wanted. The Hydroxycut guys did a good job preparing the car and I think we had a chance to qualify in the top-10. Then on my fast lap another car, that had no chance of recording a timed lap before the checkered flag, came out of the pits in front of me. He tried to get out of the way, but put four tires in the dirt right in front of me and that was the end of my lap. It’s a shame because qualifying is so important here. We’ll just have to figure out a way to gain some track position tomorrow so we can finish the season on a high.”
STEFANO COLETTI, NO. 4 KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 20th: “Qualifying didn’t go as we expected. We pitted a bit later because we decided to run an extra lap and then do a change, so when we got out the checkered flag was out and we weren’t able to improve our time on the new tires. It’s a shame because now we will start 20th tomorrow and its going to be tough race with tire degradation, so we will see how we end up.”