CHEVROLET RACING IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES IOWA INDYCAR 250S DOUBLEHEADER IOWA SPEEDWAY NEWTON, IOWA TEAM CHEVY POST RACE PODIUM ZOON CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPTS FOR BOTH RACES JULY 19, 2020
RACE ONE: Simon Pagenaud, No. 22 Menards Team Penske Chevrolet, winner coming from last on starting grid to Victory Lane and Oliver Askew, No 7 Arrow McLaren SP, third place finisher-first NTT INDYCAR Series podium
RACE TWO: Josef Newgarden, No. 1 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet, winner from pole-third win at Iowa, and Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, second place tying his best finish on the fast .875 oval
THE MODERATOR: Welcome, everybody, to our video news conference with the podium finishers from tonight’s race. We’re joined by the third-place finisher Oliver Askew of Arrow McLaren SP. Oliver finishes third. It’s his career best finish in the NTT INDYCAR Series. Oliver, took tires there late in the end and came through the field to score that podium and pass a lot of cars. Talk about the race tonight. And we’ll welcome Simon into the call. It’s Simon’s 15th career win in INDYCAR, his first win of 2020 and his first win at Iowa Speedway. Simon’s most recent win before tonight came at Toronto in 2019. Congratulations. You started 23rd, just the seventh guy to start 23rd or worse in an INDYCAR race and come all the way to win:
OLIVER ASKEW: Yeah, I don’t think I’ve had so much fun in a race car on an oval, on any racetrack in my life. Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet absolutely came to life since the track started to get a bit cooler and once the sun completely went down, and yeah, I just had so much fun out there. We were able to run the second lane about halfway through the race and I felt really good up there, as well.Without that second yellow I thought that we would have been in really good shape for finishing one-two with Pato and I, and we’ll try to do it tomorrow.I kept asking my timing stand what position we were in, and they would never tell me, they just told me to just keep my head down once we put on that fresh set of tires in the last stint, and I found myself fighting in third place with Rossi, and it was just an absolute blast up there.THE MODERATOR: You started pretty much mid-pack; how difficult was it to do qualifying and then start in the back and then kind of be patient and work your way until the car came in?
OLIVER ASKEW: Well, luckily qualifying doesn’t mean so much, as we saw today, and tomorrow we’re going to be starting in about the same spot. I was kind of worried the first stint didn’t really go very well. We got stuck in one groove and kind of burnt off the right front tire, so that forced us to pit a little early, which ended up helping us, I think. We jumped a lot of cars on that next stint, and that’s when we found ourselves running in the top 5 with Pato. Just an overall super strong day for the team.Q.Could you give us your perspective on what happened on the restart that got waved off? Colton Herta apparently was unaware that it was waved off? Were you aware? And apparently Pato went early. Can you give us your perspective on what happened?
OLIVER ASKEW: I don’t think — well — yeah, I can’t really speak for Pato. It didn’t seem like he went early. I don’t know why it was waved off. I thought it was waved off because there was contact. I didn’t know it got waved off for (indiscernible) waved off. But yeah, I haven’t seen the incident, so I can’t really comment on it. I was told in my ear that it was waved off right away.
Q.Oliver, McLaren when they put this team together decided they were going to go with two young guys, yourself, the Indy Lights champion from last year, and Pato O’Ward, the champion from the year before. It really seems the two of you are both getting to the same level of progress on the racetrack. How do you view the progress and the way that the two young guys are working with this team and the fact that the strategy that the team put in choosing both of you seems to be paying off very well?
OLIVER ASKEW: Yeah, I think it’s such a good environment right now. Pato and I get along really, really well and we have a lot of experienced personnel on the team. We have Robert Wickens who has recent experience with this car, who I’ve been able to lean on quite a bit over the past couple races. The more seat time I get in this car, the more I understand the ins and outs of INDYCAR, the better I seem to be and the more confidence I have in the car. It was good to put Road America behind us. That was not a very good weekend for myself, and hopefully this can be the start of a good rest of the year.You know, had a pretty good run on Simon. I probably should have gone in a bit deeper. I just didn’t really — yeah, I didn’t pull that move off that well, and I think it was really my only opportunity. He seemed to be a little bit better for the last 10 laps. Sort of 40 to go, 30 to go, I thought our car was really strong, but huge congrats to him. They did a fantastic job, and it was good to see him in Victory Lane.
Q.Oliver, this is your first podium. Based on the revised schedule would you have picked this soon or this track to get a podium?
OLIVER ASKEW: Well, I think this is the third podium in a row for Arrow McLaren SP here, so traditionally we’ve had really good cars and we knew that going in, but I kind of waited for the race to come to us. We made some good calls in the beginning of the race to jump a lot of traffic and ended up running one-two with Pato, which was awesome. I think without that yellow, we would have been in better shape, but that second yellow we would have been in better shape. To be on the podium here, it’s fantastic. My first podium on INDYCAR. Good to get that off my back and under my belt.Yeah, looking forward for tomorrow. Probably one of the funnest races I’ve done in my life. I’m happy I’ll be able to sleep in. I’m happy that these races aren’t during the day because that would be pretty brutal physically. So yeah.
Q.Does this change your goals for the rest of the year? Does it reset everything and now the expectations are higher?
OLIVER ASKEW: No, I don’t think so. The goal is for every weekend that we come across is just to do our best and execute, and that’s what we did today. As long as we keep our heads down and keep executing, we should be in good shape in the future.
Q.Simon, did you think you needed to get by Alex Palou at the end there?
SIMON PAGENAUD: Yeah, that was really trouble, to be honest, at the end, the traffic. Alex was doing a great job with his car and I was really strong on the bottom with a charging Scott behind me. That’s always kind of a stressful situation. But I also had to save some fuel to make it to the end. I used him to go fast on the straightaway, but at the end I was trying to press the issue a little bit and I found some things to try to get by, but when tires are used up, it’s a lot more difficult. You’re sliding around a lot more. Certainly not easy when you’re the leader. I didn’t want to throw away the race three laps to go, and I had a big moment three laps to go, so I was trying to force the issue. It worked out.
Q.Obviously it’s the first race of the new scoop on the aeroscreen, so I was wondering how you found it in the cockpit and whether you think it’s something that helped tonight and whether it’ll help moving forward, as well.
SIMON PAGENAUD: Yeah, personally I thought this was an added layer of airflow into the cockpit. I thought it was great handling as long as everybody runs it. Obviously as long as everybody runs it, you’re not going to feel something different. It’s my opinion the more air, the better. Obviously tonight was not too hot, so you’re not supposed to be hot in the race car. It’s under yellow that it gets actually the hottest, but if it was during the day, it would have been tougher. However, it’s an improvement, and INDYCAR is really on it.
OLIVER ASKEW: Yeah, I kind of echo what Scott said. I don’t think I’ve ever been so dirty getting out of the car in my life, which means that it’s been moving some air into the cockpit. I haven’t done a back-to-back, so I can’t really say if it’s an improvement, but props to INDYCAR car for making the effort for sure.
Q.I don’t know if you’ve had time to look at the Colton Herta crash yet with Rinus VeeKay or if you’ve seen the footage, but I wondered if you felt reassurance now we’ve got the aeroscreen in place; when you see crashes like that happening do you feel a bit more safe as a driver to know that safety device is there?
SIMON PAGENAUD: Yeah, personally that was my first thought. I saw two cars flying behind me pretty high. My first thought was thank God we’ve got the aeroscreen. Again, I’ve been in big favor of the aeroscreen for safety. Unfortunately being around what happened to Justin was really tough, really tough for everybody. Obviously being there and seeing it happen was extremely hard, so I’m so glad that INDYCAR is doing everything they can to be the pioneer into a new level of safety, and I welcome it.OLIVER ASKEW: Yeah, I haven’t seen the incident, so I can’t comment too much on it.
Q.Oliver, first career INDYCAR podium, looks like you and the team are really starting to find your legs out there. Could you take me through the last few laps trying to get past Rossi. And did I hear you, the team wasn’t telling you your position towards the end?
OLIVER ASKEW: Yeah, I kept asking what position we were in, and I kept asking where third place was, and they just kept telling me to keep my head down. They knew that I would catch him eventually. They were just trying to keep me focused on the task at hand. Yeah, awesome day for the team for sure. I feel great. Now we just need to focus on tomorrow and try to get another couple places better.
Q.Trying to get past Rossi there towards the end, was that a bit of a challenge for you at all, trying to get past Rossi?
OLIVER ASKEW: No, I was on much fresher tires than him, and I think it was Sato that just got around him, so that put him in a bit of dirty air, and he lost some momentum. You know, we were catching him from a long ways back. I think we were good from the start of that last stint.THE MODERATOR: Oliver, Scott, we appreciate your time. Congratulations on the podium finishes, and we’ll see you tomorrow night, and good luck.
Q.Simon, starting 23rd there when your car just wouldn’t cooperate there on the qualifying grid, can you kind of maybe tell us a little bit more about what actually happened there, and how does having to start in last there kind of change your mindset going into the start of the race?
SIMON PAGENAUD: Yeah, we had some sort of a turbo pressure issue, so the car wouldn’t start, a problem that’s really rare. Luckily we were able to fix it because we didn’t get to qualify we could fix it thanks to INDYCAR because obviously the new schedule made it so you have the impound rules, but we were able to fix it per the regulation, and it is what it is. I’ll tell you what, unfortunately it’s an engine issue, but Chevy won the Indy. So what can you say? You have to be fortunate about the situation you’re in sometimes, and sometimes there’s going to be outside factors you can’t control, but this team, as you see, is able to always bounce back, and I think that’s the strength, and that’s what’s impressive to me.Obviously definitely not the qualifying we wanted because I think we had a car for both poles, so tomorrow we’re going to have, again, a lot of work to do, but actually starting at the back allows you to learn really early on about lane usage, tire wear. So I think I started really aggressive and dialed it back a little bit afterwards, so that was a different approach to some of the races I’ve been starting at the front on ovals. Interesting for sure, but yeah, just very fortunate that my team had a great strategy, were able to lay down some fast laps in pit sequence and get to the front.
Q.Certainly it’s been the case for you the last four races where you’ve been able to storm up to the front from toward the back, but why especially with this race and this track do you feel like starting position really wasn’t a big factor, not only for you but for all the podium finishers tonight?
SIMON PAGENAUD: Well, I think tire deg, which is great for racing and a desire from Firestone to create better racing, the fact that we have added weight on the car creates tire degradation. So when you have tire degradation, the better cars show better on long runs, and then you’ve got good cars on short runs, and that creates a difference. So I think that’s why the racing was so good, and that’s why you saw people cycle from the back to the front and vice versa. But also pit sequence was big today. There was a big game to play there. I’m sure tomorrow a lot of people will catch up on it, but yeah, we were able to kind of play a very aggressive game on pit stops and pit sequence, and that just worked out better than anywhere else for sure.But here when you put new tires on and you’re doing obviously 19 seconds a lap and the others are doing 22 seconds a lap, that’s three seconds gained. So if you can do several laps like that, it’s a lot of time when it’s only a 19-second lap.
Q.How early in the race did you realize you were riding a rocketship?
SIMON PAGENAUD: It’s interesting because all of a sudden they said, you’re the leader. I’m like, they’ve got it wrong, there’s no way I’m the leader. I know we’re fast, but I didn’t think I passed everybody. I realized at the start we were really strong. I realized on long runs we were really strong, but we short pitted, and then I passed a lot of people during the pit sequence. So I didn’t get to see the cars I passed, but all of a sudden they’re telling me that (indiscernible) is for position, Josef is for position, I’m like, wow, we’re right there in the mix, we’re right there for the win, and that was early in the race, too. I think that was by lap 80. So pretty early on we were right back in it.From there I just kept my head down really. I just kept pushing. I just kept attacking and I just kept listening to the race car and what we needed to keep going. We didn’t have to make any changes at the end. It was just a matter of being on the right tire at the right time. Glad it didn’t go yellow at the end there, that would have thrown a big curve ball.
Q.And also your engineer Ben Bretzman said after the race that races like this when you’re starting last and you know you have a good car, you just go for it. It makes the strategy that much more simple. Do you believe that it was like that tonight?
SIMON PAGENAUD: Well, yeah. We are in a situation this weekend where we’ve got nothing to lose. We’re starting last. We’ve got a really good car. We’ve got to go for it. The only thing is I don’t want to crash the car because it’s a good car, you know.That’s the only thing in the back of my mind. You want to be there at the end to play for good position. Certainly did not expect, quite frankly, to win the race today, but I certainly put as much effort as I could to go get it. Yeah, it was certainly one of my best overall races, yeah, but INDYCAR will always top it.
Q.Are you going to do it again tomorrow night?SIMON PAGENAUD: Hey, I never give up. If by now you don’t know this, I’m going to go to bed, I’m going to rest, and then tomorrow morning I’m going to put the knife between my teeth and I’m going from last to first.
Q.Simon, you mentioned all the dust; how disturbing was that, or was it only after they put a lot of speedy-dry down?
SIMON PAGENAUD: Listen, I’m struggling with heat in the car, so whatever INDYCAR is doing to provide airflow, I’m happy. I’ve driven on dirt; it doesn’t bother me. I am dirty, yes; I understand what they’re talking about. But to me it’s more important to get some airflow.
Q.So you’ll take the dirt over the air?SIMON PAGENAUD: Absolutely, absolutely.
Q.Simon, obviously a great win for you and Penske, but some more struggles today with your car in qualifying and Will Power had a problem on his pit stop that resulted in his left front wheel coming off. Does your win today sort of show if Team Penske can put all this stuff that has plagued you guys the first four weeks behind you, you have a chance at winning every week? Do you have any thoughts on the frustrations there about why Penske has sort of had these uncharacteristic problems on execution?
SIMON PAGENAUD: Well, it’s an interesting question. I think it’s a very unprecedented time. I think everybody is having to adjust massively like we are right now doing this videoconference.I think for the team it’s a big adjustment. We used to work a certain way. We used to meet at the shop. I haven’t been to the shop since St. Pete, for example. You know, I used to go there every Monday and sit down with my engineer, with my crew and give them a pep talk and so forth. Team Penske is being very, very cautious on the guidelines of COVID-19. They take it very seriously. We have 550 people on the race team. It would be quite dramatic if we were to have the virus spread within the shop, so they’re taking a huge amount of precautions, and rightly so. I’m obviously a hundred percent behind. It requires us to change our method.Does it have anything to do with what’s been happening? I think it’s just INDYCAR racing in general. There’s a lot of action. The weekends are very compact. Obviously what happened today to us was one problem — I don’t even remember having a mechanical problem in my career at Team Penske. At the end of the day, like I said earlier, you’ve got to be fortunate about what you have and who you drive for, and we’ll bounce back from this and we’ll recover, so that’s what we do.
Q.Do you guys still feel like — Dixon finishes second again tonight. You make a little bit of progress and are chipping away, but is he still pulling away?
SIMON PAGENAUD: He’s a strong man. Dixon when he gets in this position is when he’s at his best. We’ve got to find a way to make him trip. But I’ll tell you what, this is what’s fun about competition. You want to beat the best, and he’s certainly on a roll. His team found the right setups at the beginning of the season. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be the case every day; he qualified 17th today. Obviously he raced really well, but he always does that.But there will be better days for us and worse days for him. We just have to capitalize when he has bad days, as long as his bad days are not second. But we can’t control it. If he does an excellent job, then good for him, but we’ve just got to do everything we can to execute, like I said, and stay up front.
Q.Last time we spoke, you had gone from 20th to second. This time last to first. Does this mean you won’t qualify from here on out?
SIMON PAGENAUD: That’s funny. No, I love qualifying. That’s the thing. It’s one of my favorite exercises. It’s so much fun to be able to put it together on that one lap, and honestly I got the pole here last year, I got the pole in 2016, as well. I was looking forward to try to get two poles here in one weekend.We certainly had the car for it. But at the end of the day, like I said, it’s racing. Sometimes there are mechanical issues. We didn’t crash out of the race. We scored maximum points. Can’t be mad at that. Can’t be mad at anything. Can’t be mad at Chevy at all. These things happen, and I’m 100 percent behind everybody. I make mistakes, too; it’s just — but that was not a mistake, that was a simple mechanical failure. But like I said, I don’t remember having had a mechanical failure in my six years with Penske, so it’s okay. We bounced back, and tomorrow we’ll try to do the same.
Q.Talking about tomorrow, looking at the track, it’s extremely bumpy, it’s very hot, especially in the cockpit for you guys. How do you recover from a race like this to be ready for tomorrow?SIMON PAGENAUD: Yes, that’s a hot topic, and it’s not a play on words actually. It’s a hot topic. I’ve personally done a lot of research on the body, heat and how to treat the athlete the best way to recover, to prepare. I can’t tell you all my secrets because I don’t want the drivers to use my — what I think I have an edge on, but there’s definitely been a lot of research done trying to get a little bit of an advantage. I don’t know if I do, but I know that originally I’m someone that’s very sensitive to heat, and so far it’s not bothering me, so I think we’re doing a good job.But very happy we’ve got more air coming into the cockpit now. Really want to thank INDYCAR for caring about the drivers’ opinion after Indy. It was so hot, so difficult to be 100 percent the entire race.
THE MODERATOR: We welcome Will Power in. Second-place finisher in tonight’s INDYCAR Iowa 250. First 1-2 finish for Penske since 2017. How satisfying is it to you after a couple frustrating races? And we welcome in the winner of tonight’s Iowa INDYCAR 250 Race No. 2, Josef Newgarden from Team Penske. It’s career win 15 for Josef, his third win at Iowa Speedway, his first since he won at Iowa in 2019.
 WILL POWER: It’s just good to have a normal race. Really good just to have a normal race. Obviously very frustrating start to the year, as it has been for the last six years. I don’t know what I got to do. A hundred points out. Who cares? Just going to go try to win races.
Q.A question about the preparation you went through from day one to two. Talk about the specific things you were doing to make sure you were prepared for today’s race and how it actually went.WILL POWER: Physically it was pretty hot at the end of the race. Had too really wheel it tonight. Normally I never 9indiscernible) in a race. This is the first time I felt it. I didn’t really sleep last night because I was so frustrated with what happened.Yeah, good day. Good day. Obviously way out in the points. If Dixon will finish in the top five every race, won’t be a race. Be very tough to beat him.
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: To answer your question, it felt great to shake off the pole jinx. I was pretty fired up yesterday. Felt like we had a winning car that slipped away from us. Was really determined that we could come back here and get it right today. Thought everyone did an amazing job.Tim is always on it when he’s calling the race. The boys in the pits are always executing for me. Just had a good run. No unlucky cautions tonight, which was great. Finally able to get the Hitachi car back into Victory Lane. Very happy about that. Very pumped to be with Chevy, have their support, great package underneath us.
Q. Josef, talk about how frustrated you were last night, to come back and have a day like you had today, leading over 200 laps, a great performance with the Firestone tires.
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Tricky. It was a tricky night with the tires. Firestone is such a great provider for us. We never have any major issues, no big concerns, no troubles.Yeah, feels good after a night like yesterday just being so frustrated. I felt like we were a bit unlucky with the yellow. Without a doubt just took us out of the race pretty much completely, getting trapped a lap down. Trying to keep the bad luck away from us hopefully going forward now for the rest of the season.
Q.Josef, how much of the frustration you felt stemmed not only from how close you felt like you were on Friday night, but how much of that was close calls, not having been to Victory Lane since Iowa last year?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: It’s probably a bit of both. So frustrated after the GP, catching the unlucky yellow, then having sort of the engine issue at Road America when it looked like we were going to seal up something on Saturday there.Just another yellow flag that was wrong place, wrong time last night. I think all of those three compounded into some frustration of not being able to capitalize on good days.
Q.Will, you’ve come close several times this year. You were frustrated about some bad luck. What has been the most frustrating part about starting really relatively strong with a handful of podiums so far this year and not coming away with a win?
WILL POWER: What’s frustrating? It’s frustrating when you’re so quick and you keep getting screwed by yellows and INDYCAR because the pits close. That is the most frustrating, annoying thing in history. It’s such a bad rule. It should be changed. It should have been changed this year, and hasn’t.Otherwise I would have won a race. Otherwise Josef Newgarden probably would be right up there in the championship, too. Dixon wouldn’t have gotten that freebie win.That’s what I say about the season, man. Screw that bloody stupid closing the pits on yellow crap.
Q.Josef, what is it about Iowa that’s leading you to have so much success here?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: I don’t know. I’ve spent my whole career studying the great Will Power. I’m a huge fan of Will. I respect him greatly. So I think all that work studying him has made me strong here at Iowa.But I don’t know. Honestly, I have no idea. I like short-track racing. I would take 10 short tracks if we could get them on the year. If I knew what it was, I’d bottle it, take it everywhere with me.We’ve always had good cars here. I think that’s why me and Will were 1-2, we had good cars. Certainly challenges by McLaren tonight. We can’t rest on what we did today. Got to be better next year. Good racecars, good teams, makes a big difference around here.
Q.Still your favorite short oval?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: I would say so, yeah. I was really excited to go to Richmond this year. It was a shame we weren’t able to make that happen with the situation going on in the world. Yeah, I would say probably currently it is my favorite short track.
Q.Will, obviously you’re frustrated with some of the logistics and the rules. How do you keep your passion for the sport positive so you don’t get frustrated? How do you keep it so you keep that love and keep wanting to race?
WILL POWER: Yeah, I mean, just have normal races where it’s just strange, abnormal things don’t happen. Like just have straight-up, normal races, be able to use the pace that I have. That would be awesome. That would be just so good.Or you could totally change the tactic and just qualify horribly and do a bad job. The way the rule is right now, end up at the front. You kind of have to take which one you want to do. I’ll take the working hard and trying to be good.
Q.Do you think the frustration would get to a level that you would switch series, go drive somewhere else?
WILL POWER: No. They just need to change the rule. They need to make it fair to people who put a hard, good effort in, spend a lot of money to be at the front, not to get screwed and basically get a drive-through because a yellow falls at the wrong time. Just a horrible rule.There’s a solution for it, but they don’t want to change it. They should change it. Just a terrible rule.
Q.Josef, how excited was your chief engineer being from the state of Iowa with taking this victory home from the pole?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Yeah, Travis Law. He’s an incredible chief mechanic. We have great chief mechanics on our team across the board. Travis has done an amazing job for us.He obviously likes coming here because it’s home turf. A little different, normally he has some family members around. Didn’t have that this year with COVID-19. But nonetheless, I think a win here is a big deal for him. It’s a big deal for all of us because of that.Just like last year how we got pretty excited to be able to have a fast car, same thing this year. Wants to make sure we do a great job. He does that everywhere. But everybody would feel it’s a little more special in your home state.
Q.You mentioned a lot of people have been talking about sand and debris in the cockpits. What is the heat situation like? How is that getting in there?
WILL POWER: Yeah, actually I did notice when I got out of the car, there was sand all over my suit. It was hot. I have to say, it was hot and humid. I could have done with more air in my helmet, for sure.JOSEF NEWGARDEN: I’ll jump in and say, too, because we’ve been asked a lot about this. Look, at the end of the day, how do we judge the Aeroscreen? First off, they’ve honestly done an amazing job. The series has knocked it out of the park for pretty much most areas with this Aeroscreen.Are there some things that we still need to be better at, like airflow, pulling debris out of it, like the sand that you spoke about, especially on a gritty track like Iowa? Sure, we still have areas to improve. I think INDYCAR is listening, trying to do as much as they can in the pandemic situation. It’s been a tough year to make progress on anything I think anywhere in the world. But they’ve done a very good job.This Aeroscreen is very good. It’s very, very close to being perfect all around. The airflow quality has been a little lacking. We’ve made it a little bit better with every step. We still have a little bit more to go.There’s some grit that still comes inside the car, which is kind of the nature of an INDYCAR. We spew a lot of sand. We blast it up from the car. We’re swirling a lot of air on the track with the way these cars are designed.These things that need to be improved slightly, I think we’re going to get there. Overall I think I want to say that INDYCAR has done a great job with the screen.
WILL POWER: Thanks to Verizon and Chevy. Seriously, Chevy did a great job. You need to go out, people, and buy Verizon phones or get signed up with Verizon because, let me tell you, the service is amazing. How is that, Newgarden?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Unbelievable (laughter).
Q.Talking about the scoop, the cooling issues, was today a pretty significant step forward with the scoop or were there different things that you’d like to see added to it to improve the cooling?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Yeah, I think they need to do some different things. Look, Road America, no issues for me. Absolutely zero issues. Texas, zero issues. The Indy GP, it’s too hot.I think some of the issues they’re running into is we’ve been trying to force air in, but we’re not getting air out. I think the main issue now is trying to extract air from the cockpit. Is it a terrible environment? No, it’s not a terrible environment. Is it ideal? It’s not ideal. Just kind of in the middle right now of quality as far as the airflow.The reason I went through that is because it depends on the track and it depends on the temperature outside. If it’s a cooler day like at Road America, it’s a long straightaway, you don’t pick up as much grit from the racetrack like you do here at Iowa, there’s not any big problems.I don’t think anyone had major issues at Road America. It’s on days like the GP of Indy where it’s 95, 98 degrees out, it’s too hot, you’re not getting enough airflow in at that point.I think what we’re going to find here it’s not getting more air into the car, it’s more pulling air out of it. Yeah, there’s still things that need to be better. I think that’s what we need to work on.I wasn’t a big fan of the scoop this weekend. I didn’t think that was a positive. But that’s also okay. We test things like that to see if it is a positive or not. My opinion is it wasn’t the right direction. I think we need to do something different.
Q.Hinch was saying on the broadcast he ran into you at the hotel last night, you were still so angry you couldn’t form words. When was the last time you’d been that angry after Friday’s night’s race? Was it the race itself, the effect of the whole season?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Probably the last time I was that angry was qualifying here in 2019. I felt like we were going to qualify on the pole. We qualified third just due to a small miscalculation. It just frustrated me so bad.Look, I’m competitive. You want to be perfect every time on the track. When you feel like you have either a car to put on pole or a car to win the race, it doesn’t materialize, it eats me up inside. You wouldn’t believe it. I couldn’t even sleep last night I was so angry.It is both, to your question. It’s a combination of the season has been so unkind for multiple events leading up to this weekend, then it happened again last night. Really just last night overall. I was just mad about both of those things.I felt like when is the tide going to turn? When are we not going to get these odd engine issues, whatever it’s going to be. We have to have a smooth day where if we’re a first or second place car, we’re going to be able to secure that result.Finally tonight we were able to break through that odd streak that we had.
Q.Dixon has five top fives now in six races. The season is almost half over. Does it feel like the championship is slipping out of reach here?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Not yet. Fortunately not yet. Look, these days I think you have to accept that this is racing, right? There are years where I’ve had tremendous fortunes over other people when they’ve had misfortunes. I think right now you’re seeing that Scott has the lucky end of the stick.It’s hard to predict when that’s going to happen. You never know when you’re going to get things going your way or they’re not going to go your way. You got to really work to stay on track.When you’re in a situation like we’ve been in where things are not going our way, you just have to keep with the same process, keep doing the same things. It’s inevitable that it’s going to turn around. You’re eventually going to get out of this odd cycle where things are not coming your way.I think a lot of it is not down to decision making that we’re doing. I think we’re putting ourselves in as good of a position as we can. We’re just for whatever reason missing it here or there. That’s when you start talking about luck. I hate to use the word ‘luck’ but it is part of racing.Dixon has had a great start. I think we’ve given him a lot of layups already. A couple of his wins were complete layups from us. He is smart, so he is going to take them.Hopefully we can get a couple on the back end. If they hand us some layup, we’re going to try to put it in the basket, no problem, as well.
Q.You’re going into August with Mid-Ohio, the 500, Gateway. Describe the endurance these guys have put up with and now getting the much-needed rest.
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: It’s been grueling, totally grueling for our boys, boys and girls, on all the teams. You just can’t underestimate the amount of effort that’s being put in. These people are getting up at 4 a.m. in the morning on a Friday, traveling here, working all day on Friday, not getting out of the track until 1 a.m. in the morning. That’s almost a 24-hour shift, okay?You can’t make mistakes. You’re running a race at the same time in that 21 hours that you’re up for a constant amount of time. They’re doing an unbelievable job, absolutely unbelievable.I think the drivers have a hard time right now, too. But there’s nothing that compares to what the personnel and the mechanics are going through.Look, they’re grinding it out, doing what they can. They do it because they are passionate, they love racing, they want to do it for nights like tonight because they want to race. They have a lot of heart and soul without a doubt. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to do what they’re currently doing on these doubleheaders.This rest coming up for them is going to be very welcome, like you said.
Q.Regarding the championship race, Dixon’s lead, coming as close as you did last night, did you almost enter today feeling this was a must-win of sorts to stay in this race?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: No, no, no. It’s still too early. We’re not talking like there’s two or three to go as far as race events. So no.We just did the same thing, but we went aggressive. We went as aggressive as we could, did the same program. We knew that eventually all this was going to kind of turn around from a luck standpoint.I didn’t feel the pressure that we had to win to stay in the championship. It was just, hey, let’s go secure a win. We should have won last night, so let’s get it done tonight. That’s purely what the attitude was.Q.How much did the back-to-back doubleheaders take it out of you as the driver? You look a little thinner than normal. How has the toll been on you?JOSEF NEWGARDEN: It was very tough. Without a doubt, I was pretty fatigued towards the end of this race. I don’t know how to describe it, but like the last 50 laps I felt like I was just starting to feel it a little bit. I was really having to work to concentrate.These aren’t endurance events where you kind of backpedal a bit with the car, take it easy. You are flat out, knife to your throat for 250 laps. That’s how you drive these cars.So to do that two nights in a row in a grueling environment. INDYCAR is honestly a grueling environment. It’s been a little bit more grueling with the Aeroscreen, but it’s always been that way. It’s always been tough.It was very difficult. I think for anyone in this race tonight, they had their work cut out for them. It was definitely a little more fatiguing than Road America. Road America you have a little more time on the straights to catch your breath. This was tough.If they end up doing doubleheaders at other events, what is going to be coming our way, they’re tough to get through. You have to be physically ready for it.
Q.On the Penske eight wide, pretty impressive considering it’s the one time this season where everybody at Team Penske is running everywhere, every series on two different hemispheres.
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: It’s amazing what they’re doing, it really is. I think probably, what is it, 10, 15 years ago, probably just 10, Penske was not running this many cars. They didn’t have this many drivers, all this activity going on. They’re doing so much nowadays.It’s just amazing to see how they perform. They excel at every category they run in. That’s very difficult to do. They make it look simple. But it’s really not.They got a polished machine. It’s a lot of years of history. It’s just a tremendous amount of work from Roger and everyone that makes it happen, Tim Cindric, to make sure all themes teams are in sync and working together.Like I say, they make it look effortless. It’s unbelievable how they keep the performance up on all the teams.