CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
102ND RUNNING OF THE INDIANAPOLIS 500
INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVYDRIVER TRANSCRIPT – MEDIA DAY
THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

DRYER AND REINBOLD RACING – SAGE KARAM AND JR HILDEBRAND:

SAGE KARAM, NO. 24 WIX FILTERS DRR DRYER & REINBOLD RACING CHEVROLET
HOW IS IT?
“It’s good. I’m just learning. I think qualifying didn’t go how I had hoped. I expected to be around 15th, especially after Day 1. We missed it a little bit. We were 19th. I think JR (Hildebrand) was 15th, and I think that was where we expected we could be come Day 2. But for some reason, we lost speed and everybody else seemed to have found it. So, we qualified 24th. It makes my life a little bit more difficult, but I’ve always had a better race car than a qualifying car. I think that’s the case again this year as it showed on Monday. So, we’ll be all right.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL LAST YEAR’S CAR COMPARES TO THIS YEAR’S CAR?
“It’s much different. I think running and qualifying, I actually like the feel of this car when you’re running alone and trimmed out and stuff. I think this car was a bit more stable for me, and more enjoyable. But when you’re in traffic, you lose the front end like pretty massively. If you’re first or second, you’re okay. And anything like third and back, it just gets more difficult each position back that you are. That’s why I was kind of disappointed with qualifying 24th. I wanted to qualify further up because now it just makes my life a little bit harder. I think it’s going to be a lot harder to pass. I think as you’ve seen in the past for me, I’ve been able to carve my way up through the field. I think it’s going to be a lot different approach this year with how the aero is. I don’t think you’re going to see a lot of guys charging through. I think you’re going to see me having a more difficult time. I think you’re going to see Rossi (Alexander) having a more difficult time. I just think it’s going to be the guys who can keep the right front tire under them longer and just saving fuel better. And they’re going to be able to attack at the end of the stint from guys who are trying to attack early.”

HOW CRITICAL ARE PIT STOPS GOING TO BE IN THIS RACE?
“I think this race is going to be won in the pits. Straight-up, I think I’m going to make up more positions in pit lane than I’m going to make up myself on track. And, I know last year, every pit stop we had we gained about five positions. So, if we can so that again this year, then we’ll be all right.”

HAVING A LITTLE EXPERIENCE HERE, HOW DO YOU FEEL GOING INTO RACE WEEKEND?
“Obviously the more experience you have the better off you are. When I came here and I was a rookie at 19 years old, I wasn’t all that nervous because I didn’t really know what to expect. There was no pressure on me because I don’t think anybody expected a 19 year-old to do well. And, I did pretty good. I look back at that race, and I don’t know how I finished that race. I really knew nothing. I didn’t know what I was doing. I somehow finished in the top 10. Every year I come back, I feel a little bit more nervous because every year I find out more and more what this place means. When you have tough time after tough time, like I haven’t finished the race the last three seasons, some my fault and some the car issues, but it makes you want to just do that much better when you come back. You realize you’ve got to wait a whole year to do it again.”

WITH HOW HOT IT LOOKS LIKE IT’S GOING TO BE ON SUNDAY, HOW MUCH HARDER IS IT TO DIAL-IN?
“We’re going things opposite this week. It’s better to kind of get your car right in the heat and then it be colder on race day because then everything just feels better when it’s cold. We’ve been practicing in the low 80’s all week, and come race day it’s going to be like 90 degrees. I think it’s going to make things a lot more difficult. You’re going to see a lot more cars sliding around on a greasier track. It’s definitely more difficult. I think people are going to miss the aero balance quite a bit. It think you’re going to have to try and change things in a big way some race day and you’re not going to know until you get out there. I think there will be a lot of changes made to the front wing. With how these cars are already in traffic, it’s going to make it even more difficult. At the same time, I think it’s going to make interesting because I think more people are going to make mistakes and lose their front tire more and it’s just going to be the guys who are smarter about it. That’s what is going to distinguish the good guys from the mediocre.”

HAS CHEVROLET MADE A LOT OF GAINS THIS YEAR?
“Oh, yeah. Chevy this year has really come to play. Hats off to them because I think last year was a rough year for Chevy. Honda definitely had an advantage on us last year. For them to work this hard on the off-season and really turn the tables and make it a lot more even of a playing field, I really think is awesome. It’s going to make for a good show for the fans, seeing Chevy and Honda battling it out the whole race. Last year, I knew from the green flag I didn’t have a shot at winning that thing last year unless it was a miracle, like fuel or something. But this year, I think we actually can go in and say we have a shot at winning this.”

JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 66 SALESFORCE DREYER & REINBOLD RACING CHEVROLET:

YOU RAN IN RACE TRIM ON MONDAY DO YOU FEEL LIKE THAT IS GOING TO CONTINUE ON THAT SAME PATH?
“We certainly had some runs that we felt pretty good. At this point it’s more just a matter of … there are a couple of things that we still feel like we need to kind of check the box on. A couple of just handling sort of situations, set-up items that we maybe weren’t expecting quite the kind of read that we got on Monday. And want to be able to test on Friday, I think conditions on Friday will actually be pretty similar to race day. It’s going to be a hard race one way or the other. Guys are losing speed and losing the ability to run around other cars pretty quickly through a stint and basically that is what I think you will see. It will be a busy track on Friday trying to get everything we can out of it.”

BECAUSE IT’S GOING TO BE HOT ON FRIDAY AND RACE DAY TIRE DEGRADATION ALL THOSE KINDS OF THINGS?
“Yeah and I think even by the end of the day Monday like the only guys that I think were able to do anything were guys that went out on fresh tires with low fuel or right at the end of the session. It’s kind of like, well that is not actually indicative of something that is actually going to happen on race day. To get to the point where you feel like you have a car that you can actually pass guys, no matter where you are at in the field is super critical. There is not much evidence to suggest anybody has figured it out.”

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO PUT THE FINAL PIECE TOGETHER AND GET A WIN?
“I think every year it is a little bit different. This year I think it’s going to matter a lot more just how you can get through a stint in traffic. You are going to have to be able to work your way through a pack of cars, which in the past has been… even without a great car, has been sort of possible. You were able to put yourself in position where you could do that and work on your car through the run. So, I think because that has been so difficult everything we do Friday will be designed to try to figure out if we can do that or not. Because it has been so difficult for everybody I think it will continue to be so difficult. Really playing the strategy game is going to be huge this year. I think that is where you will see the biggest kind of momentum swings during the race. We have certainly spent a fair amount of time working on our fuel saving and trying to just at least know where we stand if we get into certain situations that require a change in strategy during the race. As a team and I think from the cockpit as a driver being able to adapt to fresh situations and kind of fresh opportunities throughout the event will be super important. I think it’s going to be a long day for everybody. It’s going to be hot, the cars aren’t going to be working that well and at the end of the day you have to be there at the end. I think more than ever, one of the things that I have certainly learned since my rookie year just in doing a number of 500’s since then is you sort of have to work backwards from the end of the race. And be able to plan out how to get there and how to be at the front and I think our guys can do that for sure.”

TALK ABOUT THE TURBULENCE?
“The cars have a little bit less downforce this year than they did over the last couple of years. Driving out by yourself that has not been super noticeable in terms of the way the car handles and how long you can drive the thing pretty hard through a stint. They also have a lot more drag and so they are sort of punching a bigger more turbulent hole in the air for the cars behind it. I think what we are just finding this year, particularly, if you are three, four, five cars deep into a pack, the magnitude of the effect of that hole that is being punched in the air is much more dramatic than it has been the last few years. Basically, everybody… if everybody was to just run their race set-ups from last year there are also some small differences in the weight distribution of the car because of the aero kits and things like that. Everybody has basically trended towards understeer so just picking up push through the corner. It’s been hard to kind of keep the car in a place where it can just hang on over a stint where you are not just killing front tires. Because of those kinds of compounded factors. I think that is in essence the challenge everybody has been facing and we have been aware that is what we are going to be dealing with from the first day of practice, but it’s proven to be, I think for everybody, a fairly difficult task in really fundamentally addressing it.”

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR CAR THUS FAR INTO IT?
“We have had some sort of moments of optimism, but I think like a lot of other guys have had a hard time really getting it in the window and keeping it there relative to how we have grown to expect race cars of being capable of running through traffic the last few years. There are a couple of things that we obviously have to trim the list down of things that we can continue to play with at this point just to make sure we get everything done tomorrow that we need to. We’ve got a couple of things that are still pretty interesting to us that we feel like might be difference makers and hopefully we can pull it all together on race day.”