CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
FIRESTONE 600
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY (FT. WORTH, TEXAS)
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFYING QUOTES
FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 2016
SCOTT DIXON, NO. 9 TARGET CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2ND: “Huge credit to the Target team. The car is fast and I’m excited. The amount of lanes you can use and the different configurations you can run here in Texas is really cool. I’m fairly happy with the qualifying run but we just missed by a little bit.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 AAA INSURANCE TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 3RD: “We’re very happy with the qualifying results. And not surprised at all. The AAA Insurance Chevrolet team is the best and have worked really hard on this car. The warmth is really a challenge. Racing at night is another challenge after a practice and qualifying in the heat of the day. We all know that tire degradation is critical and trying to manage that is pretty difficult. I like where we are starting and we hope to bring home a good result.”
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 21 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 5TH: “We did a good first lap, for some reason the car just dropped off on Lap 2. The car was great, no dramas from my end. The car handled really well, we just lost some speed there on the second lap. We’re starting within the Top 5 so we’re pretty happy with that. We should have a good car tomorrow night; we’ve worked hard on the Fuzzy’s special.”
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 6TH: “The balance and the handling of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Chevy is good. I’m really happy with it. Qualifying is difficult here. We worked primarily on race trim earlier in practice and not a lot of qualifying stuff. Tire management is so important here, but it is fun to see who has the fast cars on new tires.”
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 7TH: “Not quite what we expected for the Verizon Chevy. We’ll need to reset up some things for tomorrow so we can get better in traffic. Just needed to run a bit more down force. Hard to predict what do with the car and what to do in traffic because it can be different every year here.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 10 NTT DATA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 8TH: “I wouldn’t say I’m happy with where we ended up for qualifying today but I think it was a solid run considering how conservative we went with our setup. Even though we came out in first this morning, we had a pretty messy first practice session where we struggled to get a solid qualifying run in with all the traffic. We’re in a decent starting spot for the race, so now we’re turning all of our focus to tonight’s practice. I think it’s going to be a pretty fun session with everyone working on race trim and running in packs.”
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 14TH: “It’s been a frustrating day, I really didn’t know what I had going into qualifying so I can’t say I am disappointed with that. I was hoping to be able to run something in that range. The day hadn’t gone as we wanted, even in the qualifying line the car didn’t want to start. The first practice for us was just a nightmare, we had issues the whole time, both self-inflicted and out of our control.”
CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 83 TRESIBA CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 15TH: “We’re obviously disappointed with that run for the No. 83 Tresiba® Chevrolet. We had a much faster car in that first practice session, so we’re not exactly sure what happened in that run to make us so much slower. Where you qualify is definitely important here, but it’s not the end all be all on any oval. Tonight’s practice will be really important for everyone, but especially us since we’ll be starting further back and will need to work harder to move through the field.”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA, NO. 2 HUM BY VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 17TH: “Disappointed that we didn’t qualify better today. For some reason our car was slow. We’ll just have to look at things tonight and see what we can do to have better results tomorrow.”
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 11 TEAM HYDROXYCUT-KVSH RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 18TH: “It was a tough qualifying session for the Hydroxycut – KVSH Racing Team. We didn’t test here and we didn’t have the tires or the time to do a qualifying simulation this morning. So we didn’t really know what we had going into qualifying. The car was loose. I stayed in it, but the second lap was pretty dodgy. It’s just difficult…no time, no tires. I think we are about where we are supposed to be with the amount of downforce we had on the car. Hopefully, things will be better when the track cools off. We are just going to have to try and make the best of the situation.”
MAX CHILTON, NO. 8 GALLAGHER CHIP GANASSI RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 19TH: “Days like this you’re just learning. It’s all new. It’s hot, there are gusts of wind and you are literally just learning as you go. There’s not much practice time and I’m just trying to log as many laps as I can and soak up as much information as I can from my teammates.”