James Hinchcliffe Scores Career-First IZOD IndyCar Series Win to Put Chevrolet V6 Power in Victory Lane
Team Chevy Drivers Capture Top-Four Finishing Positions and Six of Top-Seven
 
ST. PETERSBURG (Fla.) (March 24, 2013) – James Hinchcliffe made the right move at the right time to grab the lead on the final restart of the 110-lap race, and never looked back to score his career-first win in the IZOD IndyCar Series. Behind the wheel of the No. 27 GoDaddy.com Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, Hinchcliffe led a total of 26 laps on the 1.8-mile/14-turn temporary course on the Streets of St. Petersburg.
 
Today’s victory was the second consecutive for the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 in the season-opening Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
 
“I was so happy to get it done and get Go Daddy its first win in IndyCar,” said Hinchcliffe. “Chevrolet back in Victory Circle, one, two, three on the podium, podium sweep. My teammate on the podium.  It’s just a heck of a day!”
 
“Congratulations to James Hinchcliffe and the entire Andretti Autosport GoDaddy.com team on their win today on the Streets of St. Petersburg,” said Jim Campbell, U.S. Vice President Performance Vehicles and Motorsports. “We are proud to be part of James’ first win with the Chevrolet IndyCar V6.”
 
Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet, finished second to score his sixth top-five finish, including three victories, on the street course.
 
Marco Andretti, No. 27 RC Cola Andretti Autosport Chevrolet rounded out the podium for Team Chevy.
 
Tony Kanaan, No. 11 Hydroxycut KV Racing Technology Chevrolet was fourth. Simona de Silvestro, No. 78 Nuclear Entergy Areva KV Racing Technology Chevrolet finished in the sixth position and E.J. Viso, No. 5 Team Venezuela PDVSA Andretti Autosport Chevrolet was seventh at the checkered flag.
 
“Team Chevy’s Helio Castroneves, Marco Andretti, Tony Kanaan, Simona de Silvestro and E.J. Viso all drove terrific races today helping deliver six of the top-seven finishing positions with Chevrolet power,” Campbell concluded. “Preparing for the 2013 IndyCar season has been a team effort with all the Chevrolet teams.  It is a long season, but this is a solid way to start.”
 
Race number two of the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series 19-race season will be Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, Alabama on Sunday, April 7, 2013.
 
POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
 
An interview with:
 
MICHAEL ANDRETTI
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE
HELIO CASTRONEVES
MARCO ANDRETTI
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll go ahead and get started with today’s post-race press conference.  We have Marco Andretti, who finished third.  This is the first top-five finish for Marco on a road/street course in Toronto 2011.  This is also a career-best finish for Marco here at St. Pete.
Marco, this off-season you talked about improving your street racing.  Talk about today’s race.
MARCO ANDRETTI:  I don’t want to speak too soon.  There’s still a long way to go in the season.  I’m definitely pleased to reap some of the benefits for how hard I’ve been working, not only physically, but as you say, where I’ve been lacking.
For me it felt like a win, but we’ll take this.  I think if we can have days like this all year, we can be in contention for a championship.  That’s obviously the goal.
Great job to Hinchcliffe and I have to give credit to Simona.  She drove a helluva race, as well.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’re also joined by Helio Castroneves, who finished second.
Helio, talk about the restart on lap 84.  Looked like you went a little wide for James to get around you.
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  No, I don’t want to talk about it (laughter).
All joke aside, great day for Hitachi cars.  If you ask me I would finish second place on Friday, I would say yes, I would be happy and okay with that.  But not today.  Today was an incredible racecar Jonathan and the entire Hitachi team gave me.
Start at the beginning, we start pushing, saving fuel.  I mean, the car was actually pretty good waiting for some of the guys wear out a little bit of the tire, just making my move until we were able to get to the lead and never look back.
Unfortunately on the restart, it was a long restart, long yellow.  I don’t think I warm up the tires enough.  I was braking pretty much the same place.  Unfortunately because of probably the tires are a little bit cold, it locked the rears.  Thank God nobody was in front of me because probably would be a big accident.
But Hinch was able to hold on, pass me.  Still had 30 laps to go.  I didn’t know the red tires would drop off like they did.  I was really, really pushing.
We had great exit on the corners, but the front was giving up a little bit, especially when you’re behind a guy you do twice the work.  It’s very difficult to set up.
He was just able to have good exits and not make a single mistake.  So compliment for him on that because I was pushing, I was just going for it.
Unfortunately towards the end, the tire was just giving up.  I had to finish in second.  Second is better than nothing.  But great way to start the championship.  I feel upset because when you have a good car, it’s hard to give up opportunities like that, especially in a series that’s so competitive.  That’s why I’m a little bummed out.  But I have to keep moving on and happy for a great start of the season like this.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll start with questions.
Q.        Marco, you said on TV, I had to muscle Simona, I needed that podium.  Can you talk about that final lap and I guess the drive, what is pushing you, the desire to go that hard for that podium.
MARCO ANDRETTI:  Well, I knew her tires were going away.  She was braking really early.  Yeah, I mean, it’s a selfish business.  I felt for her but I needed this so bad.  Like I said, it feels like a win.
I saw both of their cars, her and T.K., struggling to keep them underneath them.  I was able to stay with them while really taking it easy on my rear tires because I knew it was going to come down to the last few laps.  My traction was still great with a couple laps to go.
So, you know, it was that whole middle of that stint that kind of got me the podium.  I think when they were pushing, I was kind of cruising, holding the gap to Dixon, as well.  I think I had more at the end.
 
Q.        Helio, James getting his first victory, the series is looking for a personality, word is he sort of has one.  Maybe you can react to what it means for the series to have him in Victory Lane for the first time.
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Sure.  Hinch is not going to sleep tonight.  He’ll be over the moon.  First win you never forget.  Last year he already went really close to win many races.  Did he win last year?
MARCO ANDRETTI:  No.
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Anyway, so he was very close last year.  So good for the series, that’s for sure.  Younger generation is kind of coming over.  We saw at the qualifying some of the guys, especially guys from Indy Lights coming over, doing well, which is the case of Hinch.
It’s great.  The series needs that.  Good for him.  I’m sure he’s going to succeed, continue to succeed in the future, no question about it.  He did a helluva job today.
MARCO ANDRETTI:  Same thing.  He’s been knocking on the door, working so hard.  It’s great to have a personality like him win because he’ll have some fun tonight.  It’s well-deserved.
But I’m happy for my friend.  He’s a great kid, a lot of fun off the track as well.  If it wasn’t going to be us, it’s cool to see
him get his first.  Anyone but Helio (laughter).
 
Q.        Do you guys believe in momentum?  What do good results like this do for you and your team?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  It helps starting the season strong.  It helps through the beginning and to the middle.  It sets a little tone out there.  Again, it helps in the championship, when you start battling for the championship.
So hopefully that’s going to be the case.  This second place will be worth a lot of points in the end.  And as you said, the momentum.  It’s great to set the momentum for the next race, keep the team’s spirit up.  Everybody knows what we can do.
In our case, we feel very strong.
MARCO ANDRETTI:  Yeah, I mean, it’s all confidence, confidence with your engineers, but also confidence, your guys need to have that in you.  Obviously I finished better than wherever the heck I was last year.  Hopefully we can be part of this snowball effect that people speak of and we can just keep clicking off a lot of great results.
Obviously I’ve made my improvements where I need to improve, but sometimes you don’t know why they come.  You just got to keep working hard and hopefully it can snowball.
 
Q.        Marco, with Ryan coming off of the title, you coming off a great run today, Hinch winning, is this as optimistic as you’ve been about Andretti Autosport in quite a while?
MARCO ANDRETTI:  Yeah.  It’s a good feeling.  It’s a tough feeling going home with the defeat I had last year, knowing your teammate beat you and stuff like that.
But you also need to look at the bright side of it.  You’re driving for the championship team.  You know you have the equipment to get the job done.
So that side of it, you need to take that confidence and go.  I mean, my mentality changed this year ’cause instead of looking back and saying, Oh, man.  If you’re thinking about how terrible last year was for me, then we talk about confidence, you’re not going to have that confidence.
But we talk about a terrible year last year, but we were one of the cars to compete in our Super Bowl at Indy.  We need to definitely show up there strong as well.
 
Q.        Helio, today Hinchcliffe dedicated the win to Dan.  Can you talk about something special when you come to Dan’s former hometown, is that nice to see?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  You know, for us it’s still very difficult every time we talk about it because Dan is special for all the community.  He was a friend of everyone and a very special person.  All of a sudden when you come to a place where he used to live, and the way it happened in the past, the accident, certainly you can’t forget about it.
That’s why it’s great for us to keep remember him, but remember him in a good way.  And the city remembers him as well.  He left his kids, the generation that’s coming.  We hope he will never be forgotten.  For sure for us it’s tough, but it’s great to come over here and to remember how he was.
MARCO ANDRETTI:  Yeah, I’m not sure I really understood the question.
We just have to keep it positive.  That’s what Dan would want us to do.  He’d be the first one to laugh at us for sobbing.  That’s the way I got over it.  I’ll never got over it.  But that’s the way we got through dealing with his passing.  We just have to think of the good times we had with him.  We had a lot of fun.  Have to keep it positive.  It’s what he would want.
 
Q.        Two title contenders from last year got out of the box slow.  18 more races to go, how important is it for both of you to get off to a fast start in this championship?
MARCO ANDRETTI:  It’s huge.  Same question as before.  It’s all about momentum.  To be right up there close to the top is a great feeling.  You want to be No. 1 on the team.  Obviously Helio accomplished that, I didn’t.  We’re within striking distance.  We need to stay there week in and week out to get the total support of the team.
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Pretty much the same.  We know in my case, Will is a fast guy.  There’s no question about it.  He would be up there, as well.
When we have the competition like we have in this series, talented drivers, great teams, it’s coming down to the wire and one point makes a big difference.
 
Q.        When Will was interviewed after the race on TV, he keeps talking about second place on the restarts.  Do you know what he’s talking about?  Did you go early or something?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  I went between the cones where we talk about it.  But I understand that he also got to keep the pace.  I was looking and I thought he was going for it.  He crossed the finish line actually first.  So I do not know what the situation is.
I’m not sure if he hit me or not.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  No, with Will, when I went outside, I felt a bump.  So I’m not sure what happened there.
But I feel that if they have the cones there, they said this is going to be the start of the race, you got to be ready.  I was ready.  So in this situation, everybody wants to win and go for it.  I think I was doing my job.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Congratulations, guys, on a great start to the season.
We’re glad to be now joined by Michael Andretti.  You start this season with Hinchcliffe getting the win and Marco on the podium.  Talk about that.
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  We worked so hard over the winter because we knew it was going to be that much harder to be competitive this year.  To come out the way we did, I think all weekend all of our cars were showing they had strength.
For Hinch especially, he just was on it from the first practice on.  He just did a heck of a job.  He did not put a wheel wrong all weekend.  He drove his butt off.  Then to bring it home for Go Daddy, his first win, and Go Daddy’s first win as a primary sponsor, it was just awesome.
So proud of him.  I’m really happy we were able to get Go Daddy their first win as well.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Also missed in the excitement of the top five, outside of that was E.J. Viso finishing in the top 10.
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  Just to set the record straight, we screwed him up on Saturday.  We made the mistake with something in the practice, and then also in qualifying it was a mistake on his car.  He didn’t deserve to be where he was on the grid.
But he kept his head today and drove a really good race.  I saw a very smart race.  He was very aggressive, but yet there’s times where maybe the old Viso would have kept going there, but he was backing off, really used his head and drove a good race.
I’m excited that we were able to get through this race for him.  I think he’s going to win some races for us before the end of the year.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll go ahead with questions.
Q.        This race last year is when James kind of showed just how good he really is.  What is it about this course that suits his driving style so well?
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  Honestly, I don’t know.  I mean, he’s good on street circuits in general.  So this is our first street race.  I think that’s part of it.
But, you know, in the end he’s really quick everywhere.  I don’t think he has a weakness.  I don’t think any of our drivers have a weakness.  I think all of them are strong on all disciplines of tracks.  That’s something I’ve always looked at when I look at drivers.
Marco struggled on street circuits, bu
t he worked hard over the winter.  All that work is paying off for him as well.  To come home on the podium after all that hard work, I’m happy for him, as well.
 
Q.        For you to win here at St. Pete in what would have been Dan Wheldon’s car…
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  That’s another special one.  That’s what James said, as well.  It was so fitting for James to get his first win here in Dan’s car.  It was great.
We miss him so much.  It made it even more special.
 
Q.        To see Marco come in third, all the struggles he’s had on street circuits, how did you feel?
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  I mean, all weekend he drove really well.  You could see all the work he put into it over the winter.  It’s paying off.  He was on pace all weekend.  Really drove a good race.  Really conserved his tires there to really nail ’em in the end.  He drove a really good race.  He was making good fuel mileage.  We were watching it.
I’m excited about that for him.  He deserves it.  He really worked hard.  So hopefully this is a sign of good things.
 
Q.        He finishes where he finishes today.  He comes in here and is talking about this could be the start toward the championship.  James gets his first win.  Simona has a breakthrough weekend.
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  It’s only positive.  This whole field is so full of talent, such great personalities.  It’s great we have the mix we have.  Simona just drove good all weekend long.  Yeah, I think it’s all just a positive for the series in the future.  Vautier, great job.
Yeah, it’s exciting.
Q.        You have a Toronto connection.  Now you have a driver from Toronto.  Can you talk a little bit about that.
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  It’s great.  It’s great that he’s Canadian.  I love Canada.  I love Toronto.
But we don’t really look at the flags in the end, we just look at the personalities.  I think we have great personalities, and James is one of them.  He’s a great guy, fun to be around, great for the series.  To have him up front I think is really great for everybody involved with the series.  It’s good.
 
Q.        You’re talking about a guy who won the series’ most popular driver before he even won a race.  Can something like this catapult him on to a lot more people’s radar and benefit not only him, but the sponsor, team, series?
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  All of us.  It’s good for all of us.  He is such a great personality.  He’s not only a great personality, but he also performs on the racetrack.  You got it all.  That’s a great thing to have.  I’m so happy and proud he’s part of our team.
I’m excited.  I’m glad he finally broke the ice.  This isn’t going to be his only win I don’t think.
 
Q.        Were you surprised at all that Hinch finished on the blacks whereas Marco finished on the reds?  What did you make between the two compounds?
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  They were different.  But it was different strategies.  It was interesting the way it worked out.  It also worked out how many sets of tires you’re using, how many you had.  The way it worked out, I think Marco had the sticker of reds, James had the sticker of blacks.
I think in the end it was the right one for James because it was all about the end of the race.  I think in the end he had the tires more than Helio.
Helio, he had to make his move early.  He wasn’t able to.  James was able to hold him off.  I knew 10 laps to go, I think we’re in good shape now because James has got the blacks, so it worked out.
 
Q.        I know things change week-to-week in this series.  You come off a year in which you win the championship, you take two of the top three spots today, meanwhile Chip Ganassi isn’t happy with his engine manufacturer, and you beat Penske today.  How do you feel about all of that?
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  I think we have a great team.  We have great drivers.  But we also have just great people throughout, from engineering down through management to mechanics.  It’s really, really fun to be around the people we have on the team right now.
In the end, it’s all people that make it happen, and they’re making it happen for us.  I’m very excited about it.  I felt really good coming into this year, even better than last year.  I think there’s so many things we added to the team.
So, yeah, I feel really good right now about where we’re at.
 
Q.        You mentioned the characteristics of your drivers that you pick out.  Without giving away any trade secrets, can you get specific about James, what qualities and talents you saw in him?
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  Well, I watched James’ career all the way back in Mazda when he was racing Marco in Mazdas.  He was always quick.  Didn’t matter what type of car he was in.
The other thing that really caught my eye the year before when he was with Newman/Haas was how he was able to perform on all different racetracks, as well as having a teammate like Oriol next to you and he’s running with him.  You knew he had the talent at that point.  It was a no-brainer for us to bring him into the family.
Then, like I said, the added bonus on top of his talent is he’s just a great guy, a great personality.
 
Q.        All this time we’ve not heard Ryan Hunter-Reay’s name today.  What do you think about what I would call the three championship contenders way in the back today?
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  I’ve got to say thank goodness.  I don’t wish bad luck on anybody, but it helped us that Will had his problems as well.  Ryan, I know he would have been battling.  He would have been right up with Marco.
Something happened with the throttle.  We don’t actually know why yet, so we have to look into that.  It’s interesting, I’m wondering if that’s what happened to Hildebrand.  Looked like the same thing happened to him.
That was the only downside of the weekend I would say is that.  But we can’t be greedy.  I know that we got lucky because the other championship contenders, besides James, who I think will be one, and Marco as well.  But, yeah, I think we got lucky in that way with Ryan.
 
Q.        I know you’ve been a big proponent of this series since you came over here in 2003.  For those watching today’s race, didn’t have all the drama, subplots, story lines, that you would hope to see in an auto race.
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  Yeah, it was actually about the racing.  What’s that about?  It was great.  It was an all-out fight.  Those guys were running flat out the whole time.  That’s what racing’s all about.
It was fun that Helio was keeping the pressure on there.  You didn’t know until the last stop what was going to happen, Marco and all that with his tires going off.  That’s what makes this series so great.  The racing product is the best in the world.
 
Q.        Talk about the synergy between James and Craig.
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  It wasn’t by design.  We had a change happen right after Christmas, so we had to go to work to try to find a replacement.  We had tried to get Craig back in the off-season before that, like right around November, but he couldn’t do it because things were happening with Newman/Haas.  It’s so weird.  One door closes and another one opens.
Almost that same d
ay we found out that Craig could leave, so it was like a perfect thing.  Adding him to our team is just going to make us that much stronger because we rate him very highly, we always did.  We’ve been trying to get him for a while.
To have him come and slide right in with James worked out perfect.
 
THE MODERATOR:  Congratulations on today’s race.  Thank you.
MICHAEL ANDRETTI:  I also want to say great job for Chevy.  Top five, that’s pretty awesome.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll jump into it with James Hinchcliffe, Andretti Autosport.  How does it feel to get your first win?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  It’s awesome.  There’s been a lot of talk about it in the off-season, when that first one was going to come, what we had to do to get there.  My answer was always the same.  We had to minimize the mistakes.  The team is good, the car is good, the engineers are good.  We proved last year the team is capable of winning.  It’s down to me on any given Sunday to minimize mistakes.
We capitalized on restarts.  The last restart was on blacks, everyone around us was on reds.  Helio made a mistake.  I thought I would lead for a couple laps, but he would catch up.  For that many laps on technically the slower tires took everything out of me.
I was so happy to get it done and get Go Daddy its first win in IndyCar, Chevrolet back in Victory Circle, one, two, three on the podium, podium sweep.  My teammate on the podium.  It’s just a helluva day.
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll start with questions.
Q.        Michael was in here a little while ago and he said he knew with 10 laps left he wasn’t worried.  In those 10 laps, did you think you had it won?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  I’m glad he was calm about it (laughter).
It wasn’t till about four to go, I opened up a little bit of a gap.  All weekend we really struggled out of the last corner.  Obviously that leads onto the longest straightaway and best passing opportunity.  Those black and white cars were really quick in that part of the track.
For me the focus was getting out of turn 10.  I knew no matter what I did I was going to be slow compared to him out of the last corner.  It was just being absolutely picture perfect lap after lap.  I had a couple more overtakes than he did.  With four to go I opened up enough of a gap that I could save the fuel I need to save and not make any mistakes.
Man, it’s the realization of a dream, being a winner in IndyCar.  Especially for Canada it’s really cool.
 
Q.        There’s been a lot of discussion after this win about personality, for obvious reasons.  Michael Andretti said you’re one of the great ones.  Where do you see your personality fitting into IndyCar and does this first victory give you a chance to amplify that to the fan base?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  We’ll see.  I think that fans certainly like a winner.  Now we can call ourselves that.  Hopefully it’s not the last one.
But I’ve always tried to be myself at the racetrack.  I think some people at some points in my career thought that maybe I wasn’t taking my job seriously enough or something like that.
But I think when you look at the last three laps of this race, the pressure we were under, I made a couple tiny little errors sort of thing.  But to bring it all back, keep our head down, hold off a guy like Helio, hopefully it proves that you can be a joker off the track but still get the job done on the track.
Like I said, we’ll see if the fans respond to it.  Usually they like a guy that can win.  Maybe this will help boost me up a little bit.
 
Q.        Early reports are they’re tearing down Young Street right now in the celebration.
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  I don’t know about that.  But if that’s the case, probably catch a plane home and join them.
 
Q.        You forged your own identity with Go Daddy.  They’ve invested so much into the sport.  How does it feel to be the one that gave Go Daddy their first victory?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  I can’t tell you how much that means.  They obviously took a big gamble on me.  I’d only been in the series a year.  We won Rookie of the Year, but hadn’t done tremendous things.  For Andretti and Go Daddy to take that chance on us.  We were in shouting distance of a win a few times last year.  It was that last piece that was missing.
Today, beginning of the season, first race, to get that out of the way, get the Go Daddy car in Victory Lane for the first time, it’s awesome.  Thankful for Bob Parsons and everybody at the company.  Hopefully it’s a match they’ll carry on for a number of years to come.
 
Q.        (No microphone.)
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  Certainly following Danica was a big ask.  I guess we put a lot of effort into making sure it wasn’t the guy driving Danica’s car.  We really wanted to make it our own by playing off her last year, things like that.  I hope now, especially after things like this, You’re the guy driving Danica’s car.  Hopefully when we get to the races this year, it will be, That’s Hinch’s car.
 
Q.        Now that you’re a contender, what does a contender need to become a champion?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  Well, it’s race one.  There’s 18 to go.  It’s early to call anybody a contender or rule anybody out.  It’s a good place to start.
To be a contender in this series is all about consistency.  You cannot make mistakes.  It’s so competitive, there’s so many guys willing to pounce on anything you do wrong, whether it’s in the pits, making a bad setup call or a driving error, people are going to take advantage of that.
So I think the guy at the end of the year, or girl, that made the least mistakes as a team on the whole, those are going to be the guys you’re going to see hoisting the championship trophy.
 
Q.        Two years ago here you were going through the paddock waiting to make your series debut.  Could you have imagined two years ago you’d be right here?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  No chance.  No chance.  What a difference 24 months can make.  Even last year was such a difference in my first race with Go Daddy, Andretti Autosport.  We qualified, finished in the top five.  That was a good result for us.  To come here 12 months later, especially when you think how our season ended, it was not a good end to our season.  Fontana was just the worst, longest day of my life.  It was so demoralizing going into the longest off-season in history with such a poor record finishing the season.
But we’ve got such a good group of guys on that car.  It’s all the same crew we had last year.  These guys worked so hard.  Chevy did such a good job over the winter to come here and grab that first win for those guys as much as Go Daddy, it’s really cool.
 
Q.        Talk about holding up the Canadian flag in Victory Lane, what that meant to you.
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  For a small country population-wise, Canada produces some pretty good racing drivers.  When you look at the list of guys from Canada that have made it to IndyCar, whether it’s Scott Goodyear, Jacques Villeneuve, Craig Moore, Paul Tracy, Alex Tagliani, Patrick Carpentier, not only did these guys make it from Canada to IndyCar, every single one of those guys are winners.  A lot of guys come from the UK or Brazil and never make it to that win.  There was a lot of pressure put on myself, never externally, nobody back home ever said anything, but to continue th
at tradition of Canadian winners, not just Canadian drivers.
That weighed on my mind a lot ever since I got the chance to get into an IndyCar.  So now to add my name to that list means an awful lot for me.  I’m just proud to do it for Canada.  
 
Q.        What was it that you did that caused Helio to go wide into turn one?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  I’d like to say it was some masterful trickery.  I think Helio got a little hot in there.  It’s tough.  That late in the race, the inside line gets dirty.  I had to restart from both the inside and the outside at different points in the race, and it’s tough.
Being on new tires, on the outside, I was able to brake quite late.  I saw him make the mistake and go wide.  I’ll wait a couple laps, he’s on reds, I watched him walk away from me in the last stint.  I figured he was going by.  I was doing my own thing, trying to conserve my fuel and tires to make sure I could make it to the end.  It’s a long stint at the end of the race there.
10 laps into that stint, he’s still there, but he’s not attacking.  So the big thing for me was just be absolutely inch perfect all the way around the track lap after lap.  I knew I had a couple more overtakes, so that was going to help.
Yeah, at the end of the day it was just putting the focus in the right places at the right times.  Those last four laps, like I said, we were able to gap it a bit and that’s when it kind of became real.
 
Q.        Can you take us back to the day when Michael called you about the job.  This was a car that Dan was supposed to drive.  Danica had just left.  The pressures.  How did Michael call you?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  Certainly I was shocked to get the call, if I’m honest.  It wasn’t that long after the end of the 2011.  I hadn’t even thought about the fact that somebody had to drive that car.  I was kind of floored when I got that car, that my name was on the short list.  It was quickly established that they wanted me in the car and I very much wanted to be in the car, with essentially having lost my ride at Newman/Haas when they closed.
It hit me because it was a tremendous amount of responsibility I felt to honor Dan and do a good enough job to honor what he would have done in this car.
So to get the first win here in his hometown with his family here, who I’ve grown quite close to, it means so much more, to be honest.  There’s nowhere that I would have rather had my first win I don’t think in this car than right here in St. Pete.
 
Q.        Where were you when you got that call?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  I was sitting at home contemplating life, thinking about what I was going to do in university (laughter).
 
Q.        Did you get a chance to speak to any of the Wheldon family afterwards?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  Yeah, I saw Holly.  Holly and I are quite close.  My girlfriend and her have become best friends.
It’s just so awesome.  They’ve been so nice to me, so accepting of me being in this car.  They feel like family now, they really do.  It was a huge relief for me because before it was announced I guess someone let the Wheldons know.  I got a text from Holly saying, Is it true you’re going to be in that car?  I was so glad she texted me because I wanted to talk to her about it.  She said the Wheldons couldn’t think of anybody better and they’re fully supportive of you.
I said, My trailer is your trailer, this is your car as much as anything.  They’ve been huge supporters of me.
 
Q.        Last 10 laps in particular, since the race was extended from last year, any extra concerns with you on blacks and him on reds?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  Yeah.  It was kind of funny because they extended the race trying to eliminate fuel-saving racing.  Street courses, cautions, the way it all plays out, we ended up saving fuel for the last stint by a good chunk.  If it had been 10 laps shorter, we would have been flat out in the last 10.  Ironic the way it unfolded.
I was trying not to focus that they added laps.  At the end of the stint I didn’t think I would be leading with 10 to go.  I didn’t think it was going to be an issue.
 
Q.        You had vibration early on in the first stint.  What was that?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  We were really rough on the red tires.  It was a pretty big factor in the decision to run blacks in the final stint there.  Just as the first stint went on, it just sort of developed a vibration, a sign of excessive wear.  Nothing wrong with the tire, just the way our car was handling it.
When we did the second stint, the blacks were more consistent, even though they weren’t quite as quick.  When we figured out how long the last stint was going to be, we had a used set.  Obviously other guys did reds, held on with them.  I don’t think our car could have done that.  The decision to throw the blacks on at the end is absolutely what I think gave us the win here today.
Q.        What is it about you and Craig?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  He comes with so much experience.  He’s been in the sport 20 years.  He’s probably the most decorated engineer on pit lane.  What I like about Craig is just how honest he is.  Drivers and engineers have a tremendous habit of being completely full of BS and blaming everything on other people.  He’s the first engineer I’ve worked with that when it was absolutely his fault, he was the first guy to put up his hand and admit it, and he was harder on himself that anybody else could have been.
That work ethic he brings to a program is just incredible.  It motivates everyone around him.  I’m working harder than I did last year.  I thought I was doing a pretty good job last year.  He brings that whole extra level.  It’s just that last little bit you need to be at the front in this series.
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AUTO CLUB 400
AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY RACE NOTES & QUOTES
MARCH 24, 2013
 
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 26th
“We just had a tough Friday and Saturday and we regrouped for Sunday and put a new set-up on the car and stayed optimistic. The car started off a little bit loose but once we dialed that in, it was decent. At the end of the race I really thought it was pretty good. So I felt better at the end of the race than I did in qualifying. So we made big improvements. We all want better than 26th and that’s what we had today and it will be better next time.”
 
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 2nd
THAT WAS A WILD FINISH AT THE END THERE, WHAT DID YOU SEE FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE?
“Yeah, that was pretty wild.   We had a good car and came real close to winning there but then everybody started taking tires and tires were really big at the end because the place is really slick and worn out.    We were lucky there at the end and came in and got some fresh tires and that sort of fixed our mistakes and helped us to get a good finis.  We had a good car and had some wheel issues, but was real happy about how we finished and made it up.  We had a good enough car to run there, and were happy to get the finish.”
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/SERTA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED 5th
TALK ABOUT YOUR 3RD PLACE RUN AND WHAT IT TOOK TO GET IT THERE
“We worked on it and in the end I could have followed Kyle and just wanted to apologize to him for putting it three and four wide on the restart because I am hungry and going for the win and it’s not normally a move you would make if you are pushing a brother.  I could have pushed him out to the lead earlier and maybe he could have held off the 22 and the 11 but I messed him up on the restart and I told him, I am going for the win with this Furniture Row Chevrolet SS and I am not going for anything less.”
 
DESCRIBE WHAT THE TRANSITION IS LIKE WITH THIS RACE TEAM WHICH IS BASED IN DENVER, COLORADO WHICH IS NON-TRADITIONAL IN TODAY’S MODERN NASCAR STANDARDS
“We are doing it and we are a bona fide real team and like the fourth car from Richard Childress Racing but Barney Visser gives us everything we need and its an awesome feeling to do it the way we are doing it.”
 
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 RUSH TRUCK CENTERS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET – FINISHED 22nd
WHAT DID YOU TAKE ISSUE WITH AT THE END OF THE RACE?
“Well, Joey (Logano) spun the tires on the restart.  Everybody had trouble with that so, but it’s not my fault that he spun the tires.  For a guy that has been complaining about how everybody else is driving here and then (for) him to do that it’s a double standard.  He makes the choice.  He makes the decision to run us down there and when you run a driver down there then you take responsibility for what happens after that.  He is a tough guy on pit road as soon as one of his crew guys gets in the middle of it.  Until then he’s a scared little kid.  Then he wants to sit there and throw a water bottle at me.  He is going to learn a lesson.  He can run his mouth on Twitter and stuff all he wants tonight.  I’ve got plenty of people that are going to watch for that.  It’s time he learns a lesson.  He’s run his mouth long enough.  He has sat there and done this double standard and he’s nothing but a little rich kid that has never had to work in his life.  He’s going to learn with us working guys that had to work our way up how it works.”
 
BEFORE THAT, YOU CAME STORMING UP THROUGH THE FIELD. TELL US ABOUT THAT
“We came in that one stop and got two tires that got us an awesome restart on the outside that got us to third. I was proud of the restart and really proud of the team. They did an awesome job and had awesome pit stops and made great changes all day. I don’t know what happened at the end. I think we had a tire going down. If not, we had something else that actually happened. But it started right before the caution and was really bad afterwards. It’s still no excuse for Joey to do what he did. I’m just tired of watching these kids whine and then they sit there and act tough when their crew guys get in the middle of it. If NASCAR wants us to let the guys have at it, it shouldn’t be any different than hockey. Let the guys have at it and then when one guy goes to the ground, then it’s over.
 
INAUDIBLE QUESTION REGARDING JOEY LOGANO AND BLOCKING
“He still takes the responsibility on himself. He has that right. He has the choice to do that. He’s in control of his car. But if he ever turns down across in front of me again, I don’t care what lap it is, he won’t make it through the other end of it. If I didn’t hit the chip, he wouldn’t have made it through Turn 1 to begin with. I’m tired of these guys doing that stuff; especially out of a kid that’s been griping about everybody else, and then he does that the next week. I mean he’s sent Denny (Hamlin) to the hospital and screwed our day up.  He’s talked the talk, but he hasn’t walked the walk yet. He’s always got his crew guys walking the walk for him.”
 
HE SAYS HE WANTS TO CALL YOU THIS WEEK. WILL YOU ACCEPT HIS CALL?
“Hell no.  If he wants to talk about it, we’ll talk about it. After he threw the water bottle at me like a little girl, we’ll go at it now.”
 

EAM CHEVY BRINGS HOME FIVE OF TOP 10 POSITIONS AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY
DALE EARNHARDT, JR. MOVES INTO POINT LEAD WITH SECOND-PLACE FINISH
 
FONTANA, Calif. (March 24, 2013) – Behind the wheel of his No. 88 National Guard Chevrolet SS, Dale Earnhardt Jr. avoided a late-race accident between the leaders to collect a second-place finish at Auto Club Speedway, Round 5 of the 36-race 2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.  Earnhardt, Jr. and his No. 88 Chevy SS team are off to a fast start as the schedule swings into full gear.  The team has already collected five top-10 finishes in the first five races; the only team to accomplish that feat this year. Earnhardt, Jr. also is now the series point leader with a 12-point advantage over his closest competitor.
 
Kurt Busch, No. 78 Furniture Row/Serta Chevrolet SS, collected his second consecutive top-five finish bringing home a fifth-place effort at the 400-mile race. The run moved Busch to 13th in the standings, which is a three-position gain.
 
Richard Childress Racing’s Paul Menard, No. 27 Menards/CertainTeed Chevrolet SS collected another solid top 10 finish by crossing the checkers in eighth. Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS who brought home a ninth-place finish, followed him.  Ryan Newman, No. 39 Wix Filters Chevrolet SS, recorded his third top-10 finished of the season by taking the checkered flag in the 10th spot.
 
Kyle Busch (Toyota) scored the victory; Joey Logano (Ford) was third, and Carl Edwards (Ford) finished fourth to complete the top-five.
 
The series takes a break next weekend and returns to action in two weeks at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, April 7th.  
 
DRIVER POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED SECOND  
 
THE MODERATOR:  We have our runner‑up finisher Dale Earnhardt, Jr., driver of the No. 88 National Guard Chevrolet.  Can you just talk about that last lap there and what happened?
 
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Yeah, I wasn’t racing up there, so I couldn’t really get a good view of it, but I was running around the bottom of the corner, and I knew they were going to ‑‑ they were slowing up and battling real hard, so I was just trying to get what I could get.  I felt like on the back straightaway Kyle had the best shot at winning the race because those two guys were slowing down running so hard.  Just lucky we were able to get by on the inside there.  I got turned by Harvick one time when he had a flat tire back in ’01 or ’02.  Man, turned into a wall there, and I didn’t want to have that happen again today because that’s what I thought was going to happen to me.  So I was a little ‑‑ that was the world I was in at that moment.  I really wasn’t worried about those guys too much and how they were wrecking and all.  I was just glad to get through and get a good run.
 
We had a good car all day, and sort of just got off sequence and all screwed up on tire strategy there at the end with all the cautions and guys coming for four and two, and we were able to take advantage of that on that last caution, get four tires, and starting on the inside was terrible.  I would lose five, six spots down there trying to get going on the inside, and finally that last restart we started 18th but we were on the outside and we were ninth by the time we come back around for the first lap under green.  Just really important to get that outside restart, and we weren’t getting it there near the end, so we were just going backwards.
 
Just happy we were able to finish.  I thought the car was good enough to finish in the top 5, so I’m glad we got a good finish up there.
Q.  Can you just talk about what a team effort it took from where you got knocked down to the back?  You guys had the tire changes; you came to fight for where you are, now you’re the points leader.
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  Yeah, we had a little problem on pit road on one of our stops and lost a lot of positions.  But we’ve always ‑‑ we just stick together, and everybody was just kind of ‑‑ patted each other on the back and we was going to get another chance to redeem ourselves on pit road.  We had a good car.  On that next restart we drove back up to 10th before the next caution, so I felt like we were back up in position to run well and everything was fine.  We got a good pit stop on the next caution and put that mistake behind us.
 
You know, then the race sort of got weird.  I’m not sure exactly ‑‑ when we would take two tires, our car drove really bad.  It just didn’t like that old left rear on there, and it would ‑‑ we’d just get really, really loose.  So that was giving me some problems.  And we were fading there at the end of the race, but we got an opportunity to fix it when we got that late caution.
 
But yeah, we just stick together.  We got ‑‑ we were pretty good at closing races, something I never really was good at for years, and now we’re doing it as good as anybody.  Just riding the wave.  Just real happy with how things are going for our team.
Q.  A lot has been said this weekend that the track hasn’t been resurfaced or redone in a while.  Some people are calling it character like Fenway Park or Wrigley Field.  What’s your take?
DALE EARNHARDT, JR.:  I think it’s great.  Do everybody a favor, whoever owns this place, and pave the back straightaway.  If you pave the back straightaway, there’s some real bad bumps, we all watched it on TV in the Nationwide race and I’m sure you saw it today.  It’s just going down the back straightaway.  It probably doesn’t cost much to pave the two lanes that we race in, and that would really cure any complaints that I got.  I think the corners are perfect.  I wouldn’t pave anything or change anything about the turns.  This place has got ‑‑ this is the age of asphalt that I think tracks strive for.  This is what places like Michigan and Phoenix look forward to, you know, when they get a good 10, 15 years on their asphalt.  This is really right in the ballpark, right in everybody’s wheelhouse.  I think everybody that runs in the Cup garage really likes the surface.  It’s just real bumpy down the back straightaway for some reason, and it doesn’t have to be, and I think they can fix that with a couple lanes of asphalt on that outside toward the wall, and like I said, the corners, man, you couldn’t ask for a better racetrack.
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/SERTA CHEVROLET SS – FINISHED FIFTH
 
THE MODERATOR:  We are now joined by our third place finisher, Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Serta Chevrolet.  Good run for you out there, Kurt.  Great finish.  Talk about that race.
 
KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, it was awesome with Todd Berrier’s pit strategy to get us back up to the front.  The way the race played out for us at the end, I was looking at the bumper of the 16 car going down the back straightaway with a run, and he was right on the 99 and I was able to pass both Biffle and Edwards on the top side as well as dodge the wrecking 22 and 11.  And right now they’ve got us scored as third.  We’ll see where they post things here at the end.
 
But just real ecstatic.  I mean, I was just telling everybody, this is what it’s all about.  Persevering, digging hard, and bringing it right back up to the front when it counts, and so you can race 400 miles and be leading every lap like Kyle was, and I had a chance to pass him for the lead on that final restart, and I took it.
 
Normally I’d have followed him and pushed him and drafted with him and tried to break away from the field.  But I went to his outside, and it was a move that held him up, and it took his momentum away,
gave me a shot for clean air, and up on the high side, and just a little too tight.  The car just was a little tight on that top side, couldn’t quite get the power down and couldn’t get in front of him and Logano to seal the deal.  But they were fast, and that was my one shot to win and I took it, and I’m glad the 18 got back to victory lane.
 
It’s an amazing race, how the low groove comes in, even the apron of 3 and 4, the middle, the high side.  We were calling it lane 5 all the way up by the wall.  That’s the Harvick lane.
 
It was great watching everybody race and putting on a good show, and I think the cars performed well here.  For our Furniture Row Chevy SS, another top 5, this is what it’s all about, just keep plugging away and surprising people.
Q.  Kurt, obviously you’re driving for a different team and different car than your brother Kyle.  Nevertheless are you exchanging technical information with each other?
KURT BUSCH:  No, no information is ever exchanged as far as team setup notes or any privacy type material.  But what we do talk about is tracks and trends with the groove and the racing line, like the braking point at Watkins Glen or any short track where there’s a bump, just general terms.  We’ve always been tight that way in communication, but we made a rule, or at least I did since I got into Cup Series a few years before him, that our information is ours and yours is yours.
Q.  Can you just talk about how much your team has worked to try to get to this point, being away in Denver, it’s like even though you guys call yourself the 4 Childress team, there’s still been a lot of changes made over the last few months to make this a contender.
KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, Joe Garone, the general manager, he’s the most hands‑on GM I’ve ever met, more so than Penske Racing, Roush Racing, and the way that he operates, he’s in charge of all departments.  And he stays with his thumb on top of it.  So Joe Garone deserves a lot of credit.  Barney Visser has supplied us with the funds to do so.  We’re teamed up with Childress, that gives us motors, it gives us chassis, but then it’s up to the crew guys to find little things every week when we’re bolting cars together, and one of our main guys that won’t ever get credit, Cole Pearn, he’s our lead engineer.  He’s probably the smartest guy that’s applying numbers to the car.  Him and Todd Berrier work side by side.  Todd likes the mechanical side, Cole likes the engineering side.
Q.  What kind of instructions was Rick Carelli giving you in that last part of the fracas at the very end there?
KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, I saw all the safety vehicles.  We slowed down to about a 5 mile per hour pace and he said come down pit road.  I guess I was supposed to go down to Turn 1 and turn into pit road.
Q.  How about during the last five, ten laps when things were kind of winding down?
KURT BUSCH:  Carelli is awesome.  He’s a racer himself; he’s been Southwest Tour Champion, Winston West winner, Truck Series.  He was a legend on the West Coast, and to have him as my spotter, it’s an amazing feeling to have somebody you respect, somebody that you looked up to as a legend helping you, telling you, hey, you’re a legend.  I’m like, no, I’m just Kurt driving around in circles.  And just the chemistry between us is awesome.  I’ve never had a racer as much as he is be the spotter.
Q.  So basically what was he saying when all that was going on up front there at the last?
KURT BUSCH:  We were so busy with our 16 and 99 and then he’s just like, watch out for the cars.  I mean, he knows that it’s hard to predict when people are wrecking which way they’re going to go.  But we were worried about our initial bubble around our car.
Q.  For those of us that were sitting here either watching on TV or trying to watch on the track, can you describe what it looked like from your window when that threesome between your brother and Hamlin and Logano was going on?  It just looked like mayhem.
KURT BUSCH:  Yeah, I’m trying to draw up the cutest analogy to describe all this.  You know, when the Kentucky Derby is coming down the stretch, you’ve got guys that were front runners all day and then you’ve got strong closers, which front runners would have been Kyle and Logano.  The closers today would have been guys with tires such as Hamlin, Edwards.  And when you have the clash of your pace such as Logano is going to be fast overall, where Hamlin is going to be fast in the corners with fresh tires, it’s just chaos, and you hope that when you clear somebody that your momentum will allow you to draft with them and that you’re not stuck side by side drafting and slowing yourselves down and waiting for the guy behind you to bonsai in there.  It’s a free‑for‑all.  It’s like here’s a quick run again; it’s like you see a shoot‑around NBA game and you’ve got everybody shooting basketballs at the same hoop, and all the balls are heading towards the hoop and some make it in and some bounce even though they were going to make it.  It’s just crazy.  There are just cars everywhere and you go for it.  You can race 400 miles here and it comes down to the final restart every time.
 

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES
GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETERSBURG
STREETS OF ST. PETERSBURG
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER POST RACE NOTES AND QUOTES
MARCH 24, 2013
 
MICHAEL ANDRETTI, ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT – WINNING TEAM OWNER
YOUR CARS WERE FIRST AND THIRD AND WE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE TOUGH TO TOP LAST YEAR BUT YOU GUYS HAVE DONE IT HERE IN THE FIRST RACE:
 “What a great weekend.  James just did a hell of a job all weekend and Marco had a great race there and I feel bad for Ryan (Hunter-Reay) because he had tough luck with a sticking throttle and EJ did a great job of coming back up through there so yes, aside from Ryan it was a great day.”
 
ASIDE FROM RYAN HOW BIG IS THIS FOR THE TEAM AND WHAT A WAY TO START THE 2013 SEASON
 “It’s really huge and we did lose with Ryan but Will (Power) had a bad day too so it will be interesting for the championship. But all-in-all it was a great day and so, so happy for GoDaddy as they have been such a great supporter of ours and to finally get them to victory lane……I am just ecstatic about that as well as for RC Cola to get on the podium as well.  So it’s just a great day.”

JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY.COM ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET – WINNER
WHAT A FANTASTIC DRIVE WE JUST HEARD FROM CRAIG HAMPSON (ENGINEER) HE CALLED YOU JAMES HINCHCLIFFE 2.0:
“We talked before the race and he was like ‘I’m really excited for this race and I’m excited to see James Hinchcliffe 2.0’ and I said well what is 2.0 want to do better than 2.1 he said ‘better restarts, more aggressive passes on track and save fuel when you need to.  We put it to the test today.  GoDaddy in Victory Lane in IndyCar I have to thank Bob Parsons.  Chevrolet all the work they have done over the off season to grab the first one here in St. Pete.  This one I’m throwing out to Dan (Wheldon) this is his hometown; this is his car and knowing that my face is going to be on that memorial that is really special.”
 
IN THE FIRST SEGMENT WHEN YOU HAD THAT BIG VIBRATION DID YOU THINK YOU HAD ANY SHOT OF STANDING HERE?
“Well, we knew that was it for us on reds (tires).  That was our sticker set.  We knew it was going to be tough to put the old ones back on and after that last restart everybody else was on reds we knew it was going to be tough.  Everyone was asking me what it was going to take to finally become a winner.  I just said minimizing mistakes, no mistakes in the pits, no mistakes on the track and we capitalized from Helio (Castroneves) making some mistakes.  Just put our heads down and did it.  Man it feels so good I can’t thank Andretti Autosport and GoDaddy, everybody, my family, my girlfriend, this is awesome.”

 
JAMES, I DON’T KNOW IF IT GETS MUCH MORE SPECIAL THAN WIN NUMBER ONE.  CAN YOU BOTTLE UP THOSE EMOTIONS? “I don’t think you can because as soon as I crossed the line I burst into tears and I never thought that was going to happen when I won my first one.  But that was a hard battle in fighting off those Penske cars because they were strong and to get the GoDaddy Chevrolet to victory lane and the first win in IndyCar is just so special.   Everybody at GoDaddy is so incredible and everybody did such a good job.  I am exhausted but just elated at the same time.”
 
HOW WIDE DID THOSE EYES GET WHEN HELIO WENT WIDE GOING INTO ONE? “Well, I knew he was on reds and not sure if I was going to be able to hold him but we just didn’t make any mistakes and that was the key and we capitalized on that and man, god it feels good.”
 
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED SECOND: I THINK YOU JUST SAID THAT IF THEY HAD TOLD YOU THAT YOU ON FRIDAY THAT YOU WOULD HAVE FINISHED 2ND YOU WOULD HAVE GONE FOR IT, BUT I SEE A BIT OF DEJECTION ON YOUR FACE NOW: “Absolutely.   The Hitachi Chevrolet was just awesome.  Everything was so good and the team did a hell of a job.  Jonathan and John and especially running your first race with me and not bad for second place but I feel terrible for just a small mistake. And no pun intended but Hinch was pretty good toward the end and he was pushing very hard and I was pushing him on the reds and hell of a job for him.   This second place feels a little bit better.”
 
FINISHING SECOND HAS TO FEEL GOOD AS COMPETITIVE AS THE SERIES HAS BEEN AS OF LATE AND LOOKING BACK AT YOUR CAREER YOU HAVE TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT THE START: “Oh, no question about it.  I am happy inside obviously but when you have competitive car like that sometimes you can’t miss those opportunities because the series is so competitive.  In qualifying we made a little mistake that put us behind in fifth so I said that is it and now we just have to keep going.   And unfortunately there was another one but we just have to keep pushing and like I said, for the championship this is great points.”
 
MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 25 RC COLA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET – FINISHED THIRD
THOSE LAST FIVE LAPS WERE ABSOLUTELY SPECTACULAR.  I KNOW TWITTER WAS LIGHTING UP AND THEY SAID THIS IS THE MARCO ANDRETTI WE HAVE BEEN WAITING TO SEE SINCE INDIANAPOLIS OF LAST YEAR:
“I have been working so hard in the off season. Not just physically but really just working on where I have been lacking.  These places were real weak points for me.  It feels good to reap some of the benefit.  Congratulations to James (Hinchcliffe) the whole Andretti Autosport team is gelling so well.  We’ve got to keep this momentum going.  Also, credit to Simona (de Silvestro) she drove a hell of a race.”
 
YOU PUT A LOT OF PRESSURE ON SIMONA (DE SILVESTRO) THERE IN THE FINAL GOING WERE YOU AWARE OF HOW MANY PUSH TO PASSES THAT SHE HAD LEFT?
“I just knew that her tires were going off.  I felt for her, as I said, she drove great.  I had to muscle her a little bit.  It’s a selfish sport; I needed a podium (laughs).”
 
YOU SNUCK AROUND SIMONA (DE SILVESTRO) THERE AT THE END TO GRAB A PODIUM FINISH, HOW BIG IS THIS FOR YOU GUYS?
 “Well, congratulations to James first and foremost.   For me it feels like a win because of the struggles I have been having and all I can say is that it feels great to have the hard work pay off for sure.”
 
HOW BIG IS THIS FOR YOUR TEAMMATE JAMES HINCHCLIFFE LEADING THE WAY AND PICKING UP THE RACE WIN TODAY?
 “It’s a good start and looks like we are going to beat him this year.  It’s good.”

TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 HYDROXYCUT KV RACING TECHNOLOGY/SH RACING CHEVROLET – FINISHED FOURTHL “It’s definitely a good start of the season for everyone at KV Racing, finishing fourth and sixth. My car was flawless while on track, the only problem we had during the race was that I couldn’t shift into neutral during my last stop. That cost me three spots on track and made me work a bit more for this fourth place finish. I was impressed that my last set of scuffed red Firestones lasted that long and I can’t say enough about my Chevy engine. It’s unfortunate that Simona couldn’t hold off that third place, she was running strong up front until she had no more tires. She deserved the podium. I guess Marco had a newer set of Firestones than both Simona and I, so it was a matter of time for him to get by us.”

SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET – FINISHED SIXTH
 “It’s been a good weekend for us. Unfortunately we lost a few positions at the end there. We kind of ran out of tires at the end. I think we can be pretty happy with sixth. Now we know what we have to work on for the next race. It was really cool to be up front all day with Will, Hinch and everybody; it was awesome. I think we can learn a lot from this weekend to have a better result at the next race. I really want to thank Chevy and my Nuclear Clean Air Energy sponsors for all their support. I’m really e
xcited to get to Barber and see what we can do there.”
 
E.J. VISO, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA PDVSA CITGO ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED SEVENTH:
I am extremely happy finishing seventh after a very difficult beginning of the weekend with so many mechanical issues in the practice and qualifying. It’s been tough to survive and make it to here, but the team did a great job to get me a very competitive car and give me all the tools to stay battling in the field. I’m feeling good about this year; I think we will be able to achieve good positions. Congratulations to my teammate, James, on his first win in the IZOD IndyCar Series.
 
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 MCAFEE DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 11TH: “We’ve been fighting car behavior and brake balance – front to rear and left to right evolving runs and massively… I really don’t know what is going on, but every time the brakes start to stabilize, the car comes back to life. I’ve just been fighting a ghost that moves around in the car. It makes it difficult on the restarts because never know what you are going to get. It’s the hardest 11th place I’ve ever had to fight for.”
 
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 14TH: “ It was a survival today.  We had a busted front wing and it took us awhile to figure it out.  So we ran most of the race with a broken front flat (of the wing). It was tough to hang onto.  When we replaced the front wing late in the race, the Fuzzy’s Chevrolet was much better.  I think we got up to tenth at one point.  But our red Firestones were pretty worn out by then.  In fact, we ran many more laps with them than we would in a normal stint. But the race was improvement for our ECR/Fuzzy’s team.  It was not pretty but we survived to the finish.  Way better than last year here when we finished a couple of laps down due to some contact. It was a great day for Team Chevy and to have (James) Hinch (cliffe) get his first IndyCar win.  Team Chevy swept the podium and the weekend that is very cool.”     
 
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – FINISHED 16TH
“Yeah, that’s a tough finish for us in 16th. It’s too bad because the Verizon car was definitely fast. (On the incident with JR Hildebrand) He came over and apologized after the race. He said he was just looking down at his steering wheel and he just ran over the top of me. It’s just a mistake but that happens in racing. Then I made another mistake there at the end and it cost us four more places. Tough day but we just have to move forward and look ahead to Barber.”
 
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 22 MECUM AUCTIONS PANTHER DRR CHEVROLET, FINISHED 17TH: “At least we showed what we’ve been saying – the team has improved so much over the winter. We showed we had the pace. First we had bad luck, there was a crash in front of us and I broke the front wing.  We were on a different strategy after that, but it gave us the lead. The car was great; I was really happy to be able to maintain and to keep that gap in front of  Castroneves, Power, and Hinchcliffe. I think the race was going to play out in a way that would have had us finish in the top five the way we were running. It was unfortunate – we came into the pits, the clutch wouldn’t disengage and we lost several laps fixing the problem. However, I am still very happy with how we ran today.”

RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, FINISHED 18TH  :
It wasn’t a great day. We couldn’t get our car into first gear on a pit stop for whatever reason. I don’t know if that had anything to do with the stuck throttle that we ended up having, but that’s what sidelined us in the end. I’ve heard some other guys have been having that issue so everyone is scratching their head right now, and trust me, on a street course it’s not the thing you want – it’s pretty scary to have one. That’s racing. You can be on the highest high and then next weekend you can be on the lowest low. We just have to ride it and we’ll come out swinging next week; it’s all a part of it. It’s a great win for James Hinchcliffe and Andretti Autosport.
 
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET – FINISHED 19TH:  “I was just getting ready for the restart and talking to the team while dialing my knobs back and the field checked up in front of me. It was totally my fault and I feel super sorry for Will and Team Penske. The National Guard guys gave me a great racecar today and I hate that it ended this way.
 
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 6 TRUECAR DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET – FINISHED 20TH:
TELL US WHAT HAPPENED:
“We had a good start.  I think we were maintaining, but those reds (tires) went fairly quick.  We were struggling big time.  We came in, great stops, but I think the yellow came in the wrong time for us.  From then on we just tried battling back.  Tried to keep safe, unfortunately, that last restart I clipped (E.J.) Viso and broke my front wing.  I was for 20 laps driving without the front wing holding on for dear life trying to get into the pits and change it, but was not enough unfortunately.  Very bad day for the guys that do a good job, we will see next week.”
 

Team Chevy Drivers Claim Four of Firestone Fast Six Qualifying Positions for the  IZOD IndyCar Series Season-Opening Race
 
ST. PETERSBURG (Fla.) (March 23, 2013) – For the fourth consecutive year, Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, will lead the starting field of the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg (Fla.) to the green flag.  With a lap of 01:01.2070, 105.870 m.p.h., Power won the 30th pole of his career.
 
Four of the Firestone Fast Six Drivers were powered by the Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Twin Turbo Direct Injected Engine.  Simona De Silvestro, No. 78 Nuclear Entergy Areva KV Racing Technology Chevrolet, will start third in Sunday’s 110-lap race.  James Hinchcliffe, No. 27 GoDaddy.Com Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, will roll off fourth and Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet, who has won the St. Petersburg race three times, will start fifth.
 
“Congratulations to Will Power and Team Penske on winning the pole for the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg,” said Chris Berube, Chevrolet Racing Program Manager, IZOD IndyCar Series. “This is a very good way to start the opening weekend of the season for Chevrolet.  It is difficult to know if your off season efforts were sufficient, so we were anxious to see how we measured up.  The race tomorrow will be the true test and I am looking forward to an exciting race.”
 
Also starting in the top-10 for Team Chevy are:  Marco Andretti, No. 25 R.C. Cola Andretti Autosport Chevrolet – seventh; defending IZOD IndyCar Series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, No. 1 DHL Andretti Autosport Chevrolet – eighth and Sebastian Saavedra, No. 6 True Car Dragon Racing Chevrolet – ninth.
The Grand Prix of St. Petersburg is scheduled to start on Sunday, March 24 at 12:00 (Noon) p.m. ET with live TV coverage of the 110-lap event on NBC Sports Network. The IMS Radio Network brings the action live to fans. Both the radio broadcast and live timing and scoring can be found on www.indycar.com.  Radio broadcast can also be heard on XM Radio 211/Sirius Radio 211.
 
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES:
 
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – POLE WINNER
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR 30TH CAREER POLE.  THIS HAS TO BE A GREAT WAY TO KICK OFF THE SEASON:
“Yeah, definitely that is always the aim and good start to the year.  Obviously, this is going to be a mixed up race tomorrow with weather and so on. You know it keeps us out of trouble for the first part and see what we can do after that.”
 
SOMETHING NEW THIS YEAR THE VERIZON P1 AWARD VERY FITTING THAT THE VERIZON DRIVER SHOULD GET THE VERY FIRST ONE CONGRATULATIONS:
“Well thank you I didn’t even know about that, but thank you to Verizon for the car and also the pole award.  Very good start to the season.  Just had to get through the fast six and look after our tires in the first two rounds then see what we could do that last one.”
 
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED THIRD
WHAT WAS IT LIKE MOVING UP THROUGH THE QUALIFYING SESSIONS TODAY?
“I was actually pretty nervous because last year I haven’t done that in a while so it was kind of like let’s see how it goes.  KV Racing they gave me a really good car and every session we tried a few changes and went in the right direction.  To be right up there is an awesome feeling.  After the year I had last year it’s really cool to get this opportunity with the Nuclear Clean Entergy car and to be running up front.  It’s awesome.”
 
WHAT IS YOUR MINDSET HEADING INTO TOMORROW?
“Pretty much like the whole weekend I’ve been pretty open to anything that can happen.  I feel like I have to learn a lot of things for the first race weekend so I can get better after that.  So far it has been going pretty well and hopefully the race is going to go well too.”
 
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST ADJUSTMENT THAT YOU HAVE MADE WITH KV RACING THIS YEAR?
“Well the biggest thing I think is joining the Team Chevy family.  It’s been a huge relief to be with a manufacturer like Chevrolet.  It’s been awesome.  They have really given me the tools to be competitive and just really cool to have things happening the right way right now.”  
FIRST TIME EVER IN THE FIRESTONE FAST SIX HOW MUCH FUN ARE YOU HAVING?
“It’s awesome.  The whole weekend has been going really well for us.  It’s kind of really cool to finally get the results we wanted.  Thanks to KV Racing Technology to give me the opportunity and also the whole Nuclear Clean Entergy campaign to be supporting me after the year we had last year.  Just cool to get the results, it’s just unbelievable we were right there with Will (Power) and (Takuma) Sato who are usually always up there and just really fun to be up there with them.”
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY.COM ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED FOURTH:  ON HIS QUALIFYING:  “To go out there and get a start for the GoDaddy car, we’re pretty pleased.  I would have liked to have seen a few more of my teammates in the Fast Six, but we’ll get together tonight and put our heads together and try to make a good race car, because, obviously, we didn’t quite have enough in qualifying.  Will was outrageously quick to get on the pole and everybody.  It’s a good group up here for the Fast Six.  So just happy to be in the first two rows of the first race.”
 
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED FIFTH: ON HIS QUALIFYING:  “The Hitachi car and Hitachi boys did a great job during the practice because we didn’t have much of a comfortable set‑up, and we were having some issues, unfortunately.  At the end of the day in qualifying we were able to get back in the groove and the Red tires were good at that point.  Now qualifying was tough.  We start in the same position as last year and it worked out, so hopefully we’ll do that again.”

MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 25 RC COLA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED SEVENTH
“We had a good team effort today. I would have liked to see something in the Firestone Fast Six, but it takes so much to get everything right. The tires are pretty finicky, so that can make things pretty interesting for days like this. We will make some adjustments tonight, and come back tomorrow ready to go.”
 
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED EIGHTH
“This morning we got aggressive with the setup and we tried some things that didn’t really work, so we went back on it for qualifying and didn’t quite hit the sweet spot. We were only a couple tenths off. Looks like we were less than a tenth off from being in the Firestone Fast Six. As usual it’s tight – if you miss it by a hair, you’re going to be on the outside looking in. Eighth is in the Top 10 – we can start from there and still race for the win. Optimistic about that, just disappointed that we didn’t get the DHL Chevy into the Top Six.”
 
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 6 TRUECAR DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED NINTH – AFTER SUCCESS HERE LAST YEAR IN INDY LIGHTS,HOW WERE YOUR FIRST QUALIFYING LAPS?
“It does help to bring a little bit of momentum from last year.  We were podium here in Indy Lights.  Now together with Dragon Racing we’re just doing a really good job.  We struggled a bit yesterday, but we kept very late until last night.  The No. 6 TrueCar racing guys just worked nonstop to do it.  I’m very pleased.”
 
HOW WAS THE BALANCE OF YOUR CAR?
“It was for sure and uncertain thing.  We didn’t know what was going on.  We went out there pretty much blindfolded.  It was good balance.  It is more grip, but for sure the Firestone guys have done an incredible job to make the tires for this year even better.  Everything is improving. To see six C
hevy’s up front is also very nice.”
 
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 HYDROXYCUT KV RACING TECHNOLOGY/SH RACING CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 11TH:
“It’s a shame. We had very good momentum going on the No. 11, the Chevy power was great and the Firestone tires help up well. I had a Top-Five car, but we made a minor change between the qualifying sessions that did not go our way, leaving us back in 11th on the grid. Well, tomorrow is another day and I’m sure we’ll be fine when the green flag flies.”
 
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 22 MECUM AUCTIONS PANTHER DREYER & REINBOLD RACING CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 12TH:
“It’s not where we wanted. We were fourth yesterday and I felt the car was good but it’s just so tight. We made the top 12 which is what our goal was, last year I think it only happened once all season. We had a car that had the potential to be in the top 6, but we just didn’t nail the change between the two runs so we couldn’t go to the next phase. We’re making progress and it’s showing, we just need to keep pushing and keep learning.”
 
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 MCAFEE DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 21ST: “The car is not responding to what we have done. The other car is much better, and Sebastian (Saavedra) has driven it well. We have a very different setup from what we were using last year. I think I was pretty much on the way to do a .62 flat, but Tagliani just got in the way, and that was that.”
 
E.J. VISO, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA PDVSA CITGO HVM ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 22ND:
“Well it was a tough day today especially with the morning we had. Something failed in the practice session this morning, and we could only get a couple laps – it was tough to recover. Qualifying didn’t go the way we wanted either and we’re missing a lot of downforce in the car which made the car understeer like crazy. I’m happy for my teammates, though, they did a good job; James (Hinchcliffe) is starting Top Six . I really think tomorrow will be a good day. There are plenty of variables that can affect us, including the weather, but I totally trust the strategies that Andretti is going to put together for tomorrow’s race.”
 
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 23RD:
“That was the first time we had been on the red Firestone tires so we are still learning how they handle them.  We have been talking about how we can use the reds in the race too.  The grip level is good with red tires but they change later in the stint. We just need to see how we can be prepared for the race.  We are getting some good grip on the rear tires, but we had some understeer in the low speed corners.  So we need to work in that area for Sunday.  Boy, it is competitive out there.  There was just over one second in the top 12 in that first qualifying group.  That makes it hard to move up when the field is that tight.  This is just a highly-competitive series.”
 
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET – QUALIFIED 24TH : “We don’t want to be this far back. We needed to be faster, but it’s two-tenths, so I think we need to go back and make the car a little bit better and make sure we have a good car for tomorrow.”
 
POST QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT:
 
An interview with:
WILL POWER
SIMONA de SILVESTRO
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE
HELIO CASTRONEVES
 
THE MODERATOR:  We’ll get started with today’s post qualifying press conference.  We’re pleased to be joined by some of our Firestone Fast Six qualifiers for tomorrow’s Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.  The Firestone Fast Five has drivers representing five different teams and they are separated by .8 of a second in that final second there.  We’re joined by James Hinchcliffe of Andretti Autosport who qualified fourth.  James’ only previous start here was last year where he also started from the fourth position.  Talk about qualifying today.
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  Yeah, I’m glad to get it out of the way, to be honest.  It was sort of the big first challenge for the weekend for us was our first qualifying of the year.  It’s a big unknown, and obviously it was the Firestone Reds because we had no opportunity to test on them or practice with them.  The first time you get to drive them is really when it counts in qualifying.
So to go out there and get a start for the GoDaddy car, we’re pretty pleased.  I would have liked to have seen a few more of my teammates in the Fast Six, but we’ll get together tonight and put our heads together and try to make a good race car, because, obviously, we didn’t quite have enough in qualifying.  Will was outrageously quick to get on the pole and everybody.  It’s a good group up here for the Fast Six.  So just happy to be in the first two rows of the first race.
THE MODERATOR:  We’re joined by Helio Castroneves of Team Penske who will start in the fifth position; he’s the 2007 pole sitter here.  Helio, you’re a three‑time winner here, looking to make it a four.  Talk about qualifying in a prime position starting for tomorrow’s race?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Yeah, certainly, the Hitachi car and Hitachi boys did a great job during the practice because we didn’t have much of a comfortable set‑up, and we were having some issues, unfortunately.  At the end of the day in qualifying we were able to get back in the groove and the Red tires were (Indiscernible) at that point.
It was good the times, so at least we don’t need to wait for that long.  I think the fans are able to see more action out there.  For us it was a good effort.  John Florveus, my engineer, John, Jonathan, actually, so it’s a new engineer, and we’re very happy that we were able to find the issues and good job for him and good job for the whole entire team.
Now qualifying was tough.  We start in the same position as last year and it worked out, so hopefully we’ll do that again.
THE MODERATOR:  We’re joined by Simona De Silvestro of KV Racing Technology who qualified third.  This is a career best start or qualifying result for Simona.  Her previous best start was seventh in Edmonton in 2010, and her previous best start here in St. Pete was 14th in 2010.  Simona, talk about making your first appearance in the Firestone Fast Six today?
SIMONA de SILVESTRO:  Yeah, it was pretty exciting to make the Fast Six.  I’ve never been in this position, and I was pretty nervous before qualifying because I haven’t done a qualifying run like this in a long time, so it was kind of a little bit nerve‑racking.
But each session went better.  We made a few changes every team, and really happy with P3.  It’s kind of a huge relief to be in this position.  I really have to thank everybody that’s supported me through the difficult years we’ve had so far and to make it now into starting third for the first race of the season is pretty awesome.
THE MODERATOR:  Great, Will Power of Team Penske is the winner of the Verizon P1 Award.  This is Will’s fourth consecutive pole at St. Pete, and his 30th career IndyCar pole.  Will, talk about qualifying and getting that first front row position for tomorrow’s race?
WILL POWER:  Yeah, that was interesting.  I never knew you could make so many changes to a car through qualifying.  In between each round it’s kind of hard to find a balance all weekend, but it seemed very nice on used tires.  Going into the final round was kind of straightforward; just go out there and give it everything I had.
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  Straightforward.
WILL POWER:  That’s right, Hinchcliffe.  That’s right, pal.  What else are you going to do?  You’ve got to go out there and just do it, man.
THE MODERATOR:  Great, thank you.
Q.        Is it a requirement as the Verizon driver to win the
Verizon pole award?
WILL POWER:  It was, otherwise I’d be fired.  So I made sure I got it.
Q.        About women in motorsports:
SIMONA de SILVESTRO:  Yeah, it’s true.  I think when we wear the helmet, we all look the same and just try to do the best job we can out there.  You know, it’s a difficult sport in IndyCar.  But, for me, it’s always been really important to get the results and being a female second.  I always wanted to be a really good race car driver, and that’s what I’m aiming for.  I’m really lucky also to have people around me who saw this that way too.  That I wanted to be really competitive and try to win races and be running up front.
Q.        Differences in tires:
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  I don’t think there’s one reason in particular.  Certainly just being the first one of the year and these Red tires are just such an unknown.  I think a lot of people found it was sort of one lap was the magic lap.  With the exception of Will, you didn’t usually go quicker after that.  If you made one little mistake or caught a guy in traffic or something like that, your next lap was significantly slower.
So I think what you see here is the people that did the best job of finding the gap and putting the sectors together.  That’s not to say there are not going to be quick cars a little further down the grid tomorrow, so could make for a really quick race.
Q.        (Indiscernible).
WILL POWER:  It’s always like that in IndyCar.  You can never predict what’s going to happen.  We don’t know who is going to win, but that is the excitement of it.  Never had so much depth in the field of drivers.  Everyone, like, there are no bad drivers.  You go to the field, and you have 20 guys there.  All of these guys can win.  Given the right equipment and day, they can win races.
I hope IndyCar gets that after how difficult this series is.  I think they need to.  I don’t think enough people know about it, you know, how many good drivers there are in this series.
Q.        (Indiscernible)?
SIMONA de SILVESTRO:  Yes, it’s funny.  Actually this winter I had a lot of time to think about if I would be fast.  After years ahead, you really didn’t know where you were.  And after a few tests it was kind of like, okay, it’s kind of all right.  But after you get to a race weekend and you feel the pressure a little bit from the outside and know where you are, I think it’s really rewarding for me and also for my team to kind of show where we can be.
I think it’s kind of a big relief to know that we can be up front and be running up front.  I think it’s just going to make it easier now going forward because I know I can be fast and I know I have the tools to be fast.
Yeah, definitely I was pretty nervous going into qualifying and things like that, but the weekend so far I’ve been kind of letting it come to me and working pretty well so far.
Q.        (Indiscernible)?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE:  I think there is no doubt, and it’s not just us.  Like Tristan (Vautier):  , I ran pro Mazda and then Indy Lights, and if you look back from 2008, ’09, ’10, 11′ and now ’12, at least one lights driver has graduated from a full‑time IndyCar ride, and other guys have gotten part‑time deals.  How the GP3 over in Europe for more money is full and Indy Lights has nine cars is unbelievable.
It’s shocking how narrow minded some of these young drivers are that they can’t see such an incredible opportunity over here in the Lights Series.  It trains drivers well.  Tristan has proven that.
Like I said, five years in a row, somebody’s graduated to a full‑time IndyCar.  There is no other series that can boast something like that.  It’s nuts.  I just don’t get it.
Q.        (Indiscernible)?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Oh, yeah, it’s too long an off‑season for everyone, especially for the driver.  The driver is trying to find things to do and they start to get in trouble sometimes.
But I wish we would have started much earlier in the season.  We probably are one of the last top series that start that late and beginning of a championship.  So probably the earliest one to finish as well.
So it’s one of those scenarios I already said my opinion regarding how they do.  Obviously, you need to look for dates, you need to look for opportunities, you need to find some places, which I guarantee you, obviously, TV as well, timeframe or areas that they can show.
But, at the end of the day, it is what it is.  We’ve just got to keep going, keep working, keep trying like the IndyCar Series is doing, and hopefully we’ll be better in the future.
Q.        (No Microphone).
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  I do get jitters, yes.  Butterflies in my stomach, especially when they play the National Anthem, but the butterflies the fly in formation.  Right now I’m under control.
Q.        Your thoughts on the extra ten laps being added for the race tomorrow?
HELIO CASTRONEVES:  Yes, certainly it will create an interesting aspect.  I don’t think it’s going to be a save fuel mode run in the beginning of the race.  I believe it’s the three stops, so people are going to push or create an opportunity for a lot of racing in the beginning, so it’s going to be interesting.
Like I did last year in two stops, it’s going to be very, very difficult to do which takes a little bit away from the strategy from other teams.  At the same time, it adds a little bit more challenge in the beginning of the race.  Instead of follow the leader, I do feel it’s going to be quite a more challenge.
But it’s still going to be competitive.  Firestone Tires did a great job off‑season improving the grip, and right now, tomorrow, we’re going to find out how they’re going to hold up during that scenario.  Adding ten more laps is another thing to start thinking about.
THE MODERATOR:  Congratulations and best of luck tomorrow.

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AUTO CLUB 400
AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFYING NOTES & QUOTES
MARCH 22, 2013
 
 
TONY STEWART IS FASTEST TEAM CHEVY QUALIFIER FOR AUTO CLUB 400
TEN CHEVROLET SS RACE CARS WILL START IN TOP 20
 
FONTANA, Calif. (MARCH 22, 2013) ~ Three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart, No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS, led Team Chevy in today’s qualifying session for the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.  Stewart, a two-time winner at Auto Club Speedway, will start Sunday’s race from the eighth starting position.  This will be his fourth top-10 start in the first five races to kick off the 2013 season.  Kurt Busch, who drives the No. 78 Furniture Row/Serta Chevrolet SS, will join Stewart in the top-10. This is Busch’s first top-10 qualifying effort thus far this season.  Busch is fresh from his strongest finish of the year last weekend at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, where he finished fourth.
 
Earnhardt Ganassi driver Juan Pablo Montoya, No. 42 Target Chevrolet SS, will start 12th, followed by Richard Childress Racing driver and California native Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet SS, who qualified 14th.  Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 National Guard Chevrolet SS, will start 15th followed by his teammate Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet SS who will start 16th.
 
Jamie McMurray, No. 1 Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats Chevrolet SS qualified 17th followed by five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s/Jimmie Johnson Foundation Chevrolet SS who will start 18th.  Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet SS will start 19th and Ryan Newman, No. 39 WIX Filters Chevrolet SS rounds out the Team Chevy powered drivers starting in the top-20 for the fifth round of competition in 2013 at the 2.0-mile Auto Club Speedway.   
 
Denny Hamlin (Toyota) was the pole winner, Greg Biffle (Ford) was second, Brad Keselowski (Ford) was third, Kyle Busch (Toyota) was fourth, and Matt Kenseth (Ford) was fifth.  
 
Sunday’s Auto Club 400 from Auto Club Speedway will air live on FOX at 3:00 pm ET and can be heard on MRN radio and Sirius/XM satellite radio channel 90.
 
 
QUALIFYING NOTES & QUOTES:
 
TONY STEWART, NO. 14 RUSH TRUCK CENTERS/MOBIL 1 CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 8TH:
ON HIS LAP:
“We picked up a half a second so I have no complaints about our lap by any means. We’ve just got to figure out what we’ve got to do. We’ve kind of fought the same balance in qualifying that we did in practice. So, we definitely have some work to do. But we’re happy with the fact that we’ve actually got good speed right now, so we’ve just got to make it better.”
 
KURT BUSCH, NO. 78 FURNITURE ROW/SERTA CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 10th
NICE LAP OUT THERE
“Yeah, we got a good speed pick-up out of it and then I left a little bit out on the track just with driving in deep and getting a little bit sideways at points. But overall, for us in qualifying, we’ve struggled as a team to find that genuine balance in the car. And today was the first time that we sniffed a little bit of that comfort balance where you know you can go and attack the track. Whereas in qualifying before, I’ve just been tiptoeing around.”
 
JAMIE MCMURRAY, NO. 1 BASS PRO SHOPS/TRACKER BOATS CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 17th:
“I was actually pretty excited about our qualifying today. I thought we were pretty good in practice and I don’t know; the car got too tight and the wind was blowing pretty hard. It seems like if you got a big gust getting into Turn 1 and it’s already a really difficult corner to get to the bottom. Some of the guys are running the third groove and I don’t think it’s critical trying to get the car to turn. And I chose to run the bottom but just couldn’t get down there.”
 
JIMMIE JOHNSON, NO. 48 LOWE’S/JIMMIE JOHNSON FOUNDATION CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 18th:
HOW WAS YOUR LAP
“I think it was good. We definitely picked up so that’s a great thing. Going first, it’s so hard to know what is going to pan out. But based on our practice and how the car was handling there, things improved some. We’re happy with that.”
 
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET SS – QUALIFIED 40th:
“I think we’re just trying to figure out what works for me and what makes me feel comfortable in the car. When you have to go really hard and know the limits of the car like in qualifying, you know I’m confident about what’s underneath me. I have a lot to learn, especially when it comes to getting the most speed out of the car, but we’re going to figure it out eventually. So, we’re just learning right now.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AUTO CLUB 400
AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 22, 2013
 
DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Auto Club Speedway, and discussed challenges of racing at Auto Club Speedway, the start to his 2013 season and other topics. Full transcript:
 
ON RACING AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY:
“I really like this track. There are a lot of grooves. We’ve talked about that before like race tracks where you move around and you’ve got to try to find different lines to find a good speed with the car. The balance of the car might be different and you can move either from the top to the bottom or from the bottom to the top to get your car to get going and do some things to get your car competitive. So, I like that. It’s real rough down the straightaways. The corners are fine; not that rough at all, if they just repave the straightaways this place would be a blast. It’s pretty rough, especially down the back straightaway, middle to the end of the back straightaway, corners are in good shape. Should have a pretty good run this weekend if we do everything right. Had a pretty good run last year here. We felt pretty good in race trim this morning when we started out and we’ll do more of that tomorrow to figure out exactly what we need to improve on. Went into qualifying trim and just dragging the splitter trying to get the car low is a real challenge with the bumps. Going down the straightaway, the car is bouncing and bumping and carrying on, you can’t really read shock loads and you can’t really figure out where the splitter is because it’s really hitting on the straightaway, you don’t really get a good gauge of where the splitter is in the corner because it bumps so bad on the straightaway. Really fighting that and didn’t  run any good lap in qualifying that I was happy with so worried about just how we’re going to qualify, but I think we’ll race well and this track is wide enough that if we don’t qualify well then we can move up, if the car is good we can move up.”
 
WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO DO A NCAA BRACKET WITH FANS?
“I got asked to do it. I never filled out a bracket before so it was my first time. I kind of like to watch the tournament, it’s interesting to see who the Cinderella teams are and how far Carolina can go. I tend to pull for Carolina in college basketball. I don’t know, I got asked to do. I think Jimmie (Johnson) and I got asked to do it together so Mike Hoag (road manager) came over to the house the other day and we sat down, thought it through and made my picks. I think I was 11 and five this morning, I don’t know how I’m doing today.”
 
HAVE YOU EVER DONE ANYTHING ELSE LIKE THAT?
“Well, I’ve only ever done fantasy football and I didn’t really know if brackets were even that fun to do. It’s my first foray into that. I think it’s pretty fun to do with your friends, but I’m such a football nut and focus so much on fantasy football that’s really all I ever thought about doing as far as fantasy sports go, but this is pretty fun. I’m having a good time with it. I hate losing, but I hate making the wrong pick. What are you going to do? There’s a lot of games.”
 
SHOULD YOU BE GOOD AT CALIFORNIA BECAUSE YOU ARE GOOD AT MICHIGAN?
“No, not really. The surface here, there are two totally different surfaces, especially with the new repave at Michigan. Steve (Letarte, crew chief) and the guys might say it’s true because there’s some things in the setup I’m sure that are similar in the way the car travels and the loads the car sees in each corner of the vehicle, the engineers really get into that stuff. There may be some things in the setup that correlate between the two tracks that we can carry some improvements we made at one to the next one and it work. The way you drive them and the way you race them are two different things.”
 
WHEN YOU SEE YOUR TEAMMATES CELEBRATE SUCCESS DOES IT MAKE YOU WANT IT THAT MUCH MORE?
“The fans really like it when you go to victory lane obviously and you get a lot of great feedback from the fans, but man, it’s really different when you go into the shop and you see the employees that don’t actually travel. You get to go around and see every single one and ring the bell and they get into it and they get excited. Every employee rings the bell. It’s fun, I enjoyed that. I thought it was a good way to sort of bring everybody together as one unit, one team. I’m ready to ring the hell out of it. It was a lot of fun and I’d like to do that more often because the employees and all the people that work really hard on the cars that don’t get any credit, don’t get the kind of credit we do and don’t get to travel, they really enjoy that.”
 
DOES IT ANNOY YOU WHEN PEOPLE FORGET THAT YOU CONTENDED FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP YEARS AGO?
“No, not really. When I hear about people talking about the fast start I just feel like you have to take a lot of different factors into the equation. We’ve had good fortune, we got real lucky. We couldn’t have got luckier at that Bristol race. We were running good and Steve (Letarte, crew chief) did make some good adjustments there toward the end that I think would have helped us maybe finish 10th. A lot of guys wrecked out and we got a good restart where everybody on the outside got hung up and we passed three or four guys just on that restart into one. Then with the newer tires we got a couple guys before everybody started filing to the top in the next few laps and then that was it. Those scenarios have been working in our favor and they don’t always work in your favor and you’re not always going to get to come out on the better end of those deals, but we have. We’ve ran well, we’ve had good cars too, we also had real good fortune on where we were restarting, what lane we’re in and just having good opportunities to get positions for various reasons at the end of these races. I think it’s a long year, going to have some bad luck, it’s bound to happen. Nobody runs the whole season perfectly and I’m just trying to get as many points as we can as early as we can so when that bad luck comes it doesn’t hit us as hard as it hits some of these guys early. These guys that run so well and then have something silly happen to their car or whatever and get in a hold early. They really have to grind and it weighs on you trying to make that up and get back into a comfortable position in the points. Everybody wants to be in the Chase, it’s so important to be in the Chase. So much publicity for your team and so much excitement to be able to race for the championship. Trying to build on the points early is important to me, but we’ve been so lucky in so many scenarios too in order to finish like we have in the last couple weeks, but it’s a long year.”
 
WHO DO YOU HAVE WINNING THE NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP?
“Indiana. I think Indiana will beat Duke. I’m not a Duke fan.”
 
HOW MUCH DO YOU PAY ATTENTION TO THE DENNY HAMLIN AND JOEY LOGANO SITUATION?
“I don’t worry about it on the race track. Of course I think everybody in this room enjoyed all that stuff Sunday night. It was pretty funny watching them go back and forth. I don’t have Twitter so I wasn’t able to follow it too closely, but I did get some updates and hear people talking and texting back and forth so I got the gist of what was going on. I thought it was really entertaining. I think it’s over. I don’t think they’re going to go after each other. I think both of them want to win races and they’re going to concentrate on doing that.”
 
DO YOU STILL HAVE INVOLVEMENT WITH ADIDAS?
“No, I wear Asics, but I have to buy them. I don’t have a shoe deal anymore. The Adidas deal was company-wide for myself and Hendrick Motorsports. All the drivers, all the crew members, everything we got was Adidas apparel. It was a great relationship. I enjoyed working with Adidas, they’re a good compan
y. The Adidas deal went away for whatever reason and I found these new shoes that I like to wear, they’re called Mexico 66s, they’re made by Asics and they are just like a retro old 70’s style soccer shoe, real comfortable. I’ve been wearing those. I don’t got a shoe deal, I don’t need a shoe deal. I don’t play basketball or anything like that. I’ll be alright. Adidas is a great company, I enjoyed working with them.”
 
DO YOU HAVE A PREFERENCE FOR THE OFF WEEKEND AND DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS?
“Easter, yeah. Just being around family and friends. We’ve got all sorts of stuff planned to enjoy ourselves. It’s really the only off weekend I’ve got. My buddy Brandon Suggs is getting married on the other off weekend so we really don’t have but one off weekend this year thanks to Bubba. We’re excited for him. I’m just going to be around family and friends and take it pretty easy. I really don’t want to quit racing as well as we’ve been running. Hopefully, we can come out of here with a good finish and be able to breathe easy for a week off, but I would much rather be at the race track. I like my off weekends to be deeper in the summer that one before Daytona was always a good time.”
 
WHAT IS THE MOOD OF YOUR TEAM?
“I think we’re feeling confident. The guys seem to be happy with the results. My crew guys really work real hard and expect good runs and expect us to run well, expect me to do my job. They hold me pretty accountable. It’s early. We’re just kind of grinding it out, got a lot of racing left to run. Got a lot of things to worry about besides where we’ll be come Richmond after 26 races. We’ve got a lot of things to learn about this car. Still kind of going through a lot of growing pains with the car, understanding what makes it work. The mood is good. I think we see where we need to improve and I think a lot of people don’t see. We qualified poorly, really poorly last week. We struggled today trying to get the car up to speed in qualifying trim. That’s just an example of things we need to do better as a team that don’t get documented as much as how well we’ve run and how well we’ve finished I’d say. We feel like we’ve got pretty decent speed in the car in race trim. Would love to qualify better, love to be a little bit better and be more dependable when we put the car in qualifying trim that we’re going to be good. There’s always speed to find in the track in race trim, but it’s been going pretty good. I was really happy with how we run in Phoenix that really gives us a good burst because we really, really struggled there for a long time. Hopefully we can keep all this up.”
 
WHY DID YOU FALL IN PRACTICE THIS MORNING?
“The first few laps we ran were in race trim and I thought the car was good and comfortable and had good speed and then we went to qualifying trim and we weren’t able to run the faster laps that the other guys were able to run partly because of the splitter, but a number of things that we’re working on right now to try to put the car through tech. We’re making the changes we think we need to make to have better speed in qualifying and we’ll just see. I’d be happy if we could get in the top-15 after how lousy practice was going for us in qualifying trim. I’d be happy to qualify in the top-15 and just give us the opportunity to give us a good start because I think we’ve got a good car.”
 
DO YOU THINK THE DRAFT WILL PLAY A ROLE IN THIS RACE?
“You know I think it could at all the tracks like this and Michigan as well because of the shape of the spoiler. The rear spoiler being so big is really going to create a little more of a draft. The draft, you’ve always used the draft here and Michigan more so than at Texas or Charlotte. The dog leg sort of cancels that out a little bit, cancels out the opportunity to draft and side draft people because you’re trying to drive through there the best you can without hitting each other. At a track like this where there is so much straightaway and smooth straightaway as far as being able to just gradually turn down the front straightaway, you can side draft on guys and get away from guys and try to get guys to push you by people. It really works here.”

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AUTO CLUB 400
AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 22, 2013
 
JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DRIVE TO END HUNGER CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Auto Club Speedway, and discussed the challenges of the first four races, the tire situation at Bristol and other topics. Full transcript:
 
WERE YOU SCRAPING THE SPLITTER ON THE TRACK IN PRACTICE?
“I don’t think we’re alone.  It’s just really rough down the straightaways trying to maximize where that splitter is in the corners so it’s a tough balance.  Plus I think what you see on TV or what you saw, I was actually underneath somebody and when you move a lane down it really hits that left-front.  It’s something we need to work on and have been.  I think we’ve made some improvements.  Our race runs aren’t too bad.  I was hoping to get more speed out there for qualifying and hopefully what we learned there, we will when it comes time to lay down a lap.”
 
WHAT DOES IT DO TO THE FEEL OF THE CAR WHEN YOU HIT THE SPLITTER?
“It doesn’t feel good and you don’t like it, but it’s on the straightaway not a corner.  It’s when it’s hitting in the corners that you have a problem.  That’s when it gets your attention.  We’ve gotten to the point now with the cars where we want to hit that splitter a certain amount in the corners and it’s just trying to get a gauge when you don’t have telemetry, we don’t come here with all the data collection on the car so we’re not really sure how hard we’re hitting it because you’re hitting it so hard on the straightaways.  You have to play around with it.”
 
ON YOUR CURRENT POINTS POSITION:
“Unfortunately, yes.  We’re pretty far back.  We were running so strong last week and we didn’t run good at Vegas last year either.  The only difference at Vegas was we actually still pulled off a 15th place finish.  We weren’t so lucky this year with that.  We’ve got ourselves in a hole that we’re going to have to climb ourselves out of.  We’ve got a great team and fast race cars.  We can certainly do it again, but it’s not something you want to do.  We definitely focused coming into this season on, even if we’re off a little bit, let’s get some consistent finishes so we’re staying up in the points and don’t get too far behind and here we are in a similar situation.”
 
HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO GET FOUR CONSECUTIVE TOP-FIVE FINISHES IN THE FIRST FOUR RACES?
“It’s tough, especially when I look at our first four races.  It wasn’t a fluke that they (Penske Racing) were champions last year.  They ran solid and strong the year before and then they won the championship and they’re coming out showing their strength again.  That’s what it takes to be champions.  You can really build confidence based on winning that championship and that’s what I see.  Even though they’ve switched cars, manufacturers and engines and a new car, they are still a very solid team.”
 
WHICH TYPE OF TRACK ARE YOU MOST COMFORTABLE RETURNING TO AT THIS POINT? “Obviously, Bristol.  Other than blowing a right-front tire we were fast there.  We had a good race car, a top-five race car, which that was our best performance that we’ve had so far this year.  I love this race track, I do.  Even though we weren’t super-fast in practice, I just love being able to search around different grooves and our race runs weren’t bad.  I don’t care where I qualify, I could qualify 35th here today, I can’t wait to go race.  It’s a wide-groove race track and from that standpoint, things haven’t changed a whole lot as far as how the cars feel and this type of race track is the first abrasive race track we’ve come to this year.  Big racing track and that’s the kind of track I really enjoy.”
 
IS THERE A TYPE OF TRACK YOU FEEL THE MOST VULNERABLE AT?
“Vegas certainly was.  Vegas, we haven’t hit it there in a while, it’s a good thing we don’t go back there twice for me anyway.  Texas I think is going to be a big test for us.  We look at everything that we did in Texas, our teammates as well and if we run poorly at Texas then that’s going to be alarming for us.  We feel like we’ve learned enough to improve when we go to Texas so we don’t run poorly and we’ve run good in the past at Texas.  I think that’s probably the biggest test for us.”
 
DOES YOUR EXPERIENCE RALLYING IN THE POINTS LAST YEAR HELP YOU THIS YEAR?
“We’re fighters, we just don’t give up.  We’re a much stronger team than we show in the results and this team is a tight-knit group.  We went through this last year and came out strong.  We just kind of hoped that momentum would carryover so we could start the season off strong.  Don’t count us out, that’s for sure.”
 
WHY DO YOU HAVE THE BEARD?
“I don’t know.  I didn’t shave for some things I had to do yesterday and I woke up this morning and decided I would keep it one more day.  Just felt like waiting an extra day to shave, or two.  Could be Sunday.”
 
DOES SEEING JIMMIE JOHNSON AND KASEY KAHNE RING THE VICTORY BELL AT HENDRICK MAKE YOU WANT IT THAT MUCH MORE?
“I heard the bell going around.  We were debriefing and in a meeting.  Listen, that’s what everybody at Hendrick wants to accomplish and do.  It’s an awesome thing.  The team, not just the team, but the whole organization really rallies around it and it’s turned into a very cool tradition.  There is nobody at Hendrick that can say they don’t wish they were ringing the bell the next week.”
 
DO YOU BRING YOUR KIDS TO THE BELL RINGING?
“Oh yeah, absolutely.  Prior to last year, I hadn’t rung the bell so that was the first time for me.  I savor wins.  More these days than I ever have.  Having children, I want them to get the full experience of it.  They put their little headsets on to cover their ears because that bell is loud.  My daughter, she just loves handing out the stickers.  They hand out something to everybody who comes and rings the bell.  She’s handing things out and ringing the bell and it’s cool, it’s fun.”
 
WHAT DO YOU THINK CAUSED THE TIRE BLOW OUT LAST WEEK?
“It wasn’t a setup thing.  And it wasn’t a brake heat thing.  Or I should say, it wasn’t from using too much brake.  I think we could probably run a little bit bigger hose to cool it and that’s something that we’re going to focus on a little bit more as we move forward here.  Every year you find ways to create more grip and that’s what the team has done.  There’s also always a price to pay with that.  I think we’re right there on that edge of damaging the tire or melting the bead.  I was not hard on the brakes at all.  We went back and looked at all the other cars in our stable and I was probably using the least amount.  It’s not a brake thing, it’s really more of just there is still heat being generated over there radiating things and it was too much.  We can do a better job to make sure that doesn’t get up into the bead and cause too much heat.  I was definitely harder on the right-front on that run because I was out front, I had clean air and I was running faster lap times.  It was putting more stress on that right-front that ultimately caused it to blow.”
 
HAS TECHNOLOGY CHANGED RACING WITH DURABILITY OF TRACKS, TIRES, ETC?
“We’re always pushing the limits, always have been.  Pushing the limits of some component.  There is always a weak link.  As you go faster, you start to find where the weak links are.  In this particular case, I think that what we realized is just how close every single weekend you are to m
elting a bead.  To having an issue with a part or piece.  We found the weak link and that we need to do things to have a little bit more control over that.  When other cars finish the race, even though there were some other guys that had issues there in the closing laps, it starts to tell a story and we want to make sure that when we have good runs like that going that we get it all the way to the end of the race.”
 
DO YOU EXPECT TO SEE MORE TIRE PROBLEMS AT MARTINSVILLE?
“The difference is that we go that extra mile and effort on how we cool everything.  Even though the brake temp is three times as much, so is the cooling.  That’s the thing about Bristol is it’s a fast race track that you don’t use a lot of brake so when you just look at brake temperature, you think, ‘Well, we don’t need all that cooling.’  There’s still temperature that is being built and gets up into the wheel that gets up into that bead.  I didn’t even know this until this weekend that bead can only handle 400 degrees.  That’s not much.  We obviously got it higher than that and when you’re at Martinsville, it’s not going to be much different than that.  It’s going to be about the same, but it’s amazing how much our cooling, our ducting and we have little heat shields and all these things to keep all that temperature that’s there from getting up into that bead.”
 
DOES THE WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION AND REAR SWAY BAR PLAY INTO THE HEATING?
“The rear sway bar I think has played a role for us.  We had that mapped out very well in how to balance the car out and it’s been a challenge for us to get the car to turn the center of the corner and have the security in the rear on entry and exit without that rear bar.  The weight is so insignificant, I couldn’t even tell you it’s there.  When they start pulling 500 and 600 pounds of weight out of these cars then I’ll make a comment on weight.”
 
ON NATE RYAN CALLING YOUR BEARD ‘AN AMATEUR EFFORT’?
“An amateur effort.  Okay.  I didn’t know there was a competition on beards now too.”
 
ARE YOU READY FOR A WEEKEND OFF?
“Yes, I’m looking forward to a weekend off.  We’ve got some great plans to do some skiing in the mountains with my whole family.  Looking forward to that.”
 
ON TOURING A STUDIO WITH RON HOWARD:
“I did, it was awesome.  He’s (Ron Howard) an amazing guy.  I’ve enjoyed getting to know him and it’s not surprising to me that he’s successful.  He’s passionate about what he does.  He’s been in the business for so long.  He works extremely hard and cares so much about it.  He’s a smart, smart guy.  As long as he’s been doing this, when he’s got a new film, he’s nervous for people to see it and their reaction.  He really wants to please the audience and I think that’s so cool.  That’s why his movies do so well.  This movie ‘Rush’ is going to do well.  It’s a very cool story and they’ve done an amazing job.  Just the little bit of it I’ve seen of what is portrayed of what went on back in that day.  I could not have asked for a better tour guide around Universal.  He grew up there and he’s got a lot of great stories and history that if these walls could speak and through him they do in a lot of ways.”
 
DO YOU EVER GET STAR STRUCK?
“Yeah, there’s definitely people that I look up to over the years.  You see on the big screen and it’s hard to understand that’s a real person at times.  I got a chance to meet Tom Hanks a couple years ago and that was very, very cool.  I think he’s a great actor, obviously an Oscar winning actor.  It’s always nice when you meet somebody like that and they’re down to earth and very nice.  Just a real person.”
 

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES
AUTO CLUB 400
AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 22, 2013
 
KASEY KAHNE, NO. 5 FARMERS INSURANCE CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media in Fontana and discussed his new tattoo, racing at a 2.0-mile track and many other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
WHAT WAS THE TIMING OF THE DECISION TO GET A TATTOO?  IT’S YOUR GRANDPARENTS INITIALS RIGHT?
“Yeah, it’s my grandpa’s initials.  I’ve thought about it.  For a while there I wasn’t really into tattoos.  Then over the last probably year I’ve thought a lot about it.  It’s been really the only thing that I wanted up to this point.  I was thinking about maybe doing it in (Las) Vegas or something a few weeks back and then figured out how to do it here in California.  A good friend of mine out here set it all up with one of the guys that he works with.  It was great.  It was first class and I enjoyed every bit of it.  Tim Hendricks the guy that actually did the tattoo was a stand-up guy.  A great guy to talk to I laid down, laid there, he drew it on my arm and that was it.”
 
WAS IT PAINFUL?
“It was little bit.  It kind of just pulls.  It’s like sharp and then it just pulls for 30 minutes or however long it took.  Then probably the next two hours after that it stung a little more.  Right now it just feels like a bit of a scab or something it’s not a big deal.”
 
WAS THAT AS KIND OF OUTSIDE OF THE LOW KEY PERSONALITY THAT YOU HAVE AS ANYTHING YOU HAVE EVER DONE TO GET THAT?
“No, I think I have probably done stuff at that level maybe other things over the years, but this is a first tattoo.  I don’t know I felt good about it.  I’m glad I did it.  I saw it this morning when I woke up and I was like ‘man I like that.’”
 
WILL YOU BE GETTING MORE TATTOOS’ IN THE FUTURE?
“That was my first one.  I liked it, so who knows.  For now though that is really it.  I just kind of enjoy the part of good memories, lots of memories.  It’s just right there something I will see all the time now and think more about some of those memories.  I like what I did.”
 
ARE EITHER OF YOUR GRANDPARENTS LIVING?
“No, they both passed over the last… it’s been a little while.”
 
WHAT WERE THEIR NAMES?
“Well, it was Kenny and Richard.”
 
WHAT WERE THEIR LAST NAMES?
“Kahne and Peterson.”
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW CAR ON A 2-MILE TRACK WHAT DID YOU SEE, WHAT DID YOU FEEL DURING PRACTICE?
“We battled ours for a while there.  Just trying to get it right, get it to drive right, the track is rough and keep the grip.  I felt like you could drive into the corner a little further; pick the throttle up a little more similar to some of the other tracks.  It wasn’t near the adjustment or change that I expected.  It was less than I expected for this track.”
 
ARE THE SEAMS STILL A BIG DEAL HERE?
“They are and they weren’t quite as bad in the first practice, but the track was also pretty green, pretty clean.  So, I would say the longer it goes the seams will just keep getting worse and worse like they always are.  You just have to battle them and drive over them the right direction and just use them to your advantage.  You can’t put yourself on top of one at the wrong time.”
 
HOW IMPRESSIVE IS WHAT (BRAD) KESELOWSKI HAS DONE SO FAR WITH FOUR STRAIGHT TOP-FIVE FINISHES?
“He’s been great.  He’s been really good.  Every week he’s… I never even saw him at Bristol until however they got to the front then he stayed there the rest of the race.  There is something that they do and they are really good at doing.  I think probably him and Paul (Wolfe, crew chief) and the way they look at things and work together on stuff. They know what they need to do.  I have been impressed with it.  I think he is going to be right there all year.”
 
HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO DO THAT?
“I think that is pretty difficult.  I would say that is why he is leading points and nobody else has really come close.  Dale (Earnhardt, Jr.) has started off really strong with top-10’s, but four top-five’s is tough, it’s good.”
 
THIS IS THE FIFTH DIFFERENT TRACK YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN TO WITH THE GEN-6 CAR WHAT TRACKS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GOING BACK TO WITH THIS NEW CAR AND WHICH ONES ARE YOU GUYS WORKING ON AND MAYBE STRUGGLING A LITTLE BIT?
“Well, I thought Las Vegas, to me so far as the driving and things I have enjoyed it the most there.  You can drive so hard the entire race and things.  Tracks similar to there, Texas I think is going to be really good in that car I’m really looking forward to that.  When we go to Loudon and Martinsville and places like that it will be interesting to see how it drives.  I think the 1.5-mile, high bank stuff, I look forward to all of those.”
 
YOU’VE GOT A WIN; JIMMIE (JOHNSON) HAS A WIN THAT IS HUGE TO GET THAT WIN OUT OF THE WAY EARLY.  HOW IMPORTANT WOULD IT BE FOR JEFF (GORDON) AND DALE (EARNHARDT, JR) TO GET A WIN?  FOR ALL FOUR TEAMS TO GET A WIN EARLY AND OUT OF THE WAY?
“I think it’s a big deal to get one early and then hopefully we can get more as the season goes.  I think Jeff and they both are fast so they will get their wins eventually whenever they hit on it perfectly.  I feel really good about getting a win early in the season.  I don’t know if it is the soonest I’ve ever got one, but it seems like it.  It’s nice.”
 
DOES (DALE EARNHARDT) JUNIOR SEEM LIKE HE IS ON THE VERGE?  HOW CLOSE DO THINK THEY ARE? 
“It’s tough to say.  I mean I think when you run in the top 10 each week the first four weeks I think you are close.  They are right there.  They probably just need a little bit here and a little bit there to make it happen and get that win, but I know that they have been racing in the front too.  I would say they are probably pretty close.”
 
HOW DOES THE NEW CAR SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO WORK FOR THESE 1.5-MILE TRACKS?  WHY DOES THE NEW CAR MAKE THESE RACES BETTER?
“I think as a driver it just gives you more overall grip so you can just push harder.  You can push harder on entry, pick the throttle up, be underneath another car and not be so worried about losing it, getting loose, sliding, spinning out any of that stuff. I think it just gives you just a little bit more security with what you are doing.”
 
DID ANYBODY TELL YOU NOT TO GET THE TATTOO?  DID YOUR MOM SEE IT?
“I told my mom I got it after I got it.  I didn’t really tell anyone else about it.  I just kind of did it on my own quietly.  I don’t know. I haven’t had too many people get mad or anything about it yet.  I think it’s fine.  I think that if it’s meaningful and something that you want to do then go for it.”
 
WHAT DID YOUR MOM SAY ABOUT IT?
“She actually really liked it.  She thought it was pretty neat.  I didn’t know which direction she would go.  She was pretty happy about it.  She said it brought a little tear to her eye so it was good.”
 
IS KENNY FRANCIS (CREW CHIEF) NEXT?
“I don’t know if Kenny even knows I have it. (Laughs) And no he will not be getting a tattoo.”
 
CAN YOU EXPERIMENT AT ALL WITH THIS CAR CONSIDERING HOW STRONG YOU HAVE BEEN? CAN YOU DO SOME EXPERIMENTING DURING A RACE?
“I don’t think so.  I think we just need to give all we can.  The last two weeks I felt like we had one of the best cars each week.  Then today we were 15th at best in first practice.  It’s definitely you need to just put everything you’ve got into it and keep tweaking.  Hopefully, we will hit on something even
a little bit better for tomorrow.  It’s kind of a learning curve everywhere we go right now I feel.”
 
DOES THE FACT THAT THE BUMPERS DON’T LINE UP MAKE A BIGGER DIFFERENCE AT A 2-MILE TRACK?
“I would say probably bigger than maybe a 1.5-mile just because 2-mile, there are times here where you will bump and push a little bit.  Not near as much as other places, but yeah, I think this place you will see it some.  Our bumpers aren’t far enough off that I don’t think it would be too big of a deal at this place as little as we do push.”
 
THERE SEEMS TO BE TWO SEASONS AT FONTANA EITHER REALLY HOT OR RAINING YOU GUYS HAVE SEEMED TO HAVE DIALED IT IN AS FAR AS THE WEATHER GOES:
“It’s a nice day I got here yesterday afternoon and went to the beach and was down there.  The weather is great out here right now.  It seems like it’s going to be like this all weekend long.”
 
A LOT OF PEOPLE DO NOT THINK OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AS REALLY A NASCAR PLACE. YOU HAVE A LOT OF FANS HERE:
“It’s good.  I enjoy coming out here once a year.  I think it’s good when they cut it to one rather than two.  Just have a good race here.  I really enjoy racing at this track it’s wide, there is lots of room, you have to move around some in order to find the grip or get on the part of the race track that works best for your car.  It’s a good place.”
 
YOUR CREW REALLY HAS TO BE THERE FOR YOU DON’T THEY?
“The crew is a huge part of this.  The whole team thing, preparation things like that it’s all about them and how well they prepare and my guys do a really nice job so it’s a lot of fun driving the car I drive.”
 
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO ABOUT GOING TO MARTINSVILLE?
“Just having Jimmie (Johnson), Jeff (Gordon) and Dale (Earnhardt, Jr.) as my teammates.  I think those guys run really well there.  Being part of Hendrick Motorsports they bring a really nice package to that track.  Last year was the best I’ve ever ran there, the most comfortable I’ve been and I feel like it will be like that again this year just because of the guys I’m surrounded with.  That was one of my hardest tracks and now I’m feeling like I’m figuring it out and I think it’s because of those guys and listening and learning from them.”
 
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO WITH THE OFF WEEKEND?
“I’m going to race my sprint car.  I’m going to race a couple of nights in Ohio Friday and Saturday next week.  So that is what I’m looking forward to.  I’m excited, I haven’t raced it in I think since the Charlotte race last year maybe.  It’s been awhile.”
 

Chevrolet IndyCar V6 Paces Combined Practice Friday for Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
 
ST. PETERSBURG (Fla.) (March 22, 2013) – Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, set the pace in the combined results of today’s two practice sessions for the season-opening Grand Prix of St. Petersburg for the IZOD IndyCar Series, turning the fastest lap of the day of 01:01.4467, 105.457 m.p.h.
 
Joining Power in the top-four fastest of the day were Team Chevy teammates: defending Series’ champion, Ryan Hunter-Reay, No. 1 DHL Andretti Autosport Chevrolet; Simona de Silvestro, No. 78 Nuclear Entergy Areva KV Racing Technology Chevrolet and Oriol Servia, No., 22 Mecum Auction Panther Dreyer & Reinbold Chevrolet.
 
Qualifying will be Saturday at 2:05 p.m. ET with live TV coverage beginning at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network. The race is scheduled to start on Sunday, March 24 at 12:00 (Noon) p.m. ET with live TV coverage of the 110-lap event on NBC Sports Network. The IMS Radio Network brings the action live to fans. Both the radio broadcast and live timing and scoring can be found on www.indycar.com.  Radio broadcast can also be heard on XM Radio 211/Sirius Radio 211.
 
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES:
 
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FASTEST IN PRACTICE: Q: Your thoughts on the Big 3 teams (Penske, Ganassi, Andretti…)? “Andretti is right on the pace. They’re two drivers: Hinchcliffe and Hunter-Reay are no question going to be right there all year. Ganassi, guess we will see when qualifying comes, I think that’s when everyone knows where everyone stands.”
 
Q: Track records…”Just the year of development. The engine manufacture got a bit more power and just through the development gets a little more down force and a lot of grip. I think the power needs to climb and the grip can stay the same. The grip going away would be awesome. I would love to actually brake in Milwaukee, that would be a dream for me.”
 
Q: Good start to the weekend…”This is normal. We expect to be at the front and we are always disappointed if we are back because we have the team to do it. We’re not doing our job if we’re not.”
 
RYAN HUNTER-REAY, NO. 1 DHL ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, 2ND IN PRACTICE: “It feels great to be in the first official IndyCar session of the year. It’s still early days; we’ve only done a total of five runs so far between the two sessions. The guys have done a great job in the offseason, the car has a lot of grip in it, but we just need to refine it a bit. We need to make it work for the drivers where they need it. We’re struggling a little bit coming off the corners, so we know there’s lap time there, we know where it is, and we just need to go get it.”
 
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, NO. 78 NUCLEAR ENTERGY AREVA KV RACING TECHNOLOGY CHEVROLET, 3RD IN PRACTICE: “It’s a big difference. Last year we came in here and we knew it was going to be a struggle, and this year we come after a really good Barber test and it showed right away. Even this morning I thought we were pretty quick even if we still have a little bit of work to do on the car. It’s definitely a relief to know we can be fast and we can be right up there with the other guys.”
 
ORIOL SERVIA, NO. 22 MECUM AUCTIONS PANTHER DREYER & REINBOLD RACING CHEVROLET, 4TH IN PRACTICE: “It feels good to have our name up there. It was a legit time; we only used one set of tires. This morning, I thought we were on a good path with the car; we just needed to tweak it and be able to match the track. We just need to keep it up and be fighting for the pole tomorrow and a win on Sunday. It just feels so good to be in the game and know it’s in our reach!”
 
HELIO CASTRONEVES, NO. 3 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, 6TH IN PRACTICE: “It was a great day for the Hitachi Chevrolet, we were able to find some speed and improve the car from the first session to the second. The Team Penske guys did a great job as always so we feel good for tomorrow and hopefully the weather holds up so that we can keep getting better.”
 
TONY KANAAN, NO. 11 HYDROXYCUT KV RACING TECHNOLOGY/SH RACING CHEVROLET, 7TH IN PRACTICE: “Man, I couldn’t wait any longer for the season to start. It was so cool to see all the fans coming into the track in the morning, and also all the cars on track. Today it was a good first day for us with both KV cars running up front in the charts. I still want to find a little more grip to be comfortable with the car for Sunday’s race, but I believe that we had a good start for the weekend.”
 
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE, NO. 27 GODADDY.COM ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, 8th IN PRACTICE: “Overall it was a pretty good day for the Go Daddy car. We unloaded with a fairly strong setup, and this morning the track was really great. Everybody was kind of blowing the cobwebs out and getting used to the circuit again. One of the great things about having four cars is that we can try a bunch of different things, and now we get to take the best developments off each of the four cars and put them all together and try to make a strong package for tomorrow.”
 
MARCO ANDRETTI, NO. 25 RC COLA ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, 10TH IN PRACTICE: “I think we are within striking distance, which is all I can ask for on day one. A half second is a lot, but at the same time it’s not. Obviously a half second is ten positions, but a half second is easier to find. I’ve made improvements on myself. The direction and set up that Ryan (Hunter-Reay) has is what we will take for the RC Chevy towards qualifying and into the race on Sunday.”

E.J. VISO, NO. 5 TEAM VENEZUELA PDVSA CITGO HVM ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT CHEVROLET, 15TH IN PRACTICE:  “We had a pretty good morning finishing fourth – it was a good performance for the team. There were three of us in the top four so that’s telling us that we have some good fundamentals in the car. In the second session we tried experimenting with some other changes which we ended with the conclusion that they were not the way to go. So today the plan is to regroup the whole team and start making some decisions for tomorrow based on the experiences that we acquired today during the two practice sessions.”

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS, NO. 7 MCAFEE DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, 18TH IN PRACTICE: “It was a bit of a tough day for us, we are still trying to understand the changes with the Firestone tires. We are not sure where we need to be heading, but we are going to take a close look at the data this evening and see how we can generate more grip.”
 
SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA, NO. 6 TRUECAR DRAGON RACING CHEVROLET, 22ND IN PRACTICE:  “We struggled a bit on our first outings today at St. Pete, but we are going to work hard tonight to see what changes we need to make for tomorrow’s final practice before qualifying. We need to focus on finding the right pace for qualifying and the race in tomorrow morning. It’s been an interesting day to see where everyone is finishing in the practice sessions today with the new tires.”
 
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 4 NATIONAL GUARD PANTHER RACING CHEVROLET, 23RD IN PRACTICE:
 
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S ULTRA PREMIUM VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, 24TH IN PRACTICE:  “It was much improved over our first day here last year.  We still have a lot of cars in front of us and that is frustrating.  But the gap is much tighter this year.  We learned a lot today and we made some good changes.  Of course, we tried a lot of things and some were good and some bad.  But that is what the first day is all about.   I think we left some time out on the track in both sessions today.  So I think we can get some more out of the car on Saturday.  We have a chance to move up the grid for qualifying. It just feels good to be back in the cockpit and back racing again.  It has been a long winter.”
 
POST PRACTICE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT: 
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO, RYAN HUNTER-REAY AND WILL POWER met with the media at St. Petersburg following the first practice session and discussed getting on track for the first time this season, what they expect for the rest of the weekend and other topics.  Full Transcript:
 
Q – WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES. HOW WAS YOUR FIRST OFFICIAL PRACTICE WITH KV RACING?
SIMONA DE SILVERSTO: “Yes, a big difference. Last year we came here knew it was going to be a struggle.  This year we come here after a real good Barber (Motorsports Park) test and it showed right away.  This morning I thought we were pretty quick even though we still had a little bit of work to do on the car.  It’s definitely a big relief to know that we can be fast and we can be right up there with these other guys.  I really have to thank KV Racing and Team Chevy to give me this opportunity.  After a year like I had last year you cannot think of what is going happen next year and to get this opportunity and also with my sponsor, Nuclear Entergy Areva, they stuck with me.  Hopefully, we are going to have a really good race so everybody can be proud.”
 
Q -THIS PLACE HAS BEEN KIND OF SPECIAL FOR YOU SINCE 2011.  CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE BACK HERE AND WHY IT’S SO IMPORTANT FOR YOU?
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO: “I don’t know why, but it’s definitely where I had my best results before Indy cars.  I like this place.  It’s the season opener so you get really excited to finally go racing.  I think I really like the track I’ve always had a lot of fun here.  When you know you have had really good results here I think that really helps because you know you can be fast so you can have a little bit less doubt in you I guess.”
 
Q – HOW DID IT FEEL TO WORK WITH TK (TONY KANAAN)?
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO: “I think we are still trying to learn how to communicate with each other.  I think for me I have never had a teammate.  It’s getting better but I feel like we drive a little bit differently so we both need a little bit different things in the car right now.  I think we are communicating and it’s getting there.  I don’t think our relationship is perfect right now.  I think it’s going to take a little bit more time, but it’s really cool to have information going your way.  I can ask him some question and he can ask me some questions.  I feel like we have a little ways to go to really be perfect.”
 
Q – HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE A REAL ENGINE?
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO: “It’s unbelievable.  I think to be with Chevy they won the championship last year and you know to me just the work ethic they have.  Every test we have done so far they always try to accommodate every driver to their driving style and the engineers every session will go out there to try to make it better.  That is the biggest thing to be with a manufacturer like that makes it very special.”
 
Q – WITH COMPETITION SO TIGHT WHAT ARE YOU FOCUSING ON TODAY?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: “It’s certainly great to get a day in here at St. Pete.  I always love starting the season off here.  It’s early still.  The track is rubbering in it’s going to be changing possibly every time we go out on track to try some set-up changes.  Rubber is going down and it’s changing.  It’s amazing how frequently these tracks change, street circuits.  Every car that is out there is making a difference putting rubber down.  The car is evolving and we are making changes trying to keep up with it.  I think we made some good ones there about half way through the session.  But, we’ve got a pretty good gap to close to Will (Power) it’s about two tenths or something.  It’s good to go in tomorrow knowing that we are at least somewhere close.  The guys have done a great job in the off season.”
Q – TALK ABOUT TODAY’S PRACTICE SESSION:
WILL POWER: “Still fighting the normal things you fight around here handling-wise.  A good lap made there early, we weren’t that good on old tires so we’ve got a little bit of work to do.  The Honda guys seem a little bit on the back foot, but comfortable as part of the Chevy guys.”
 
Q – HOW DO YOU THINK IT’S CHANGED WITH THE EXTRA 10 LAPS THIS YEAR?
WILL POWER: “Pit stops will be different, what happens if it’s in the rain, things like that. It will be an interesting race no matter what I’m sure.”
 
Q – TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT GETTING OFF TO A FAST START THIS SEASON:
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: “Yes, it definitely does feel good.  Better than having a bad that is for sure, but it’s still early so it’s nice to go the first day and be up at the sharp end.  We have done a lot of work in the off season and we are validating some things today so it’s nice to be there.  It’s close though.  If you miss just a little bit.  If you miss one corner or get one corner wrong you know you are eighth from second.  You definitely have to get everything right in the race car and the teams got to get everything right.”
 
Q – HOW MUCH DO YOU EXPECT TO SEE SIMONA DE SILVESTRO GAIN?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY: “Simona is the real deal we have seen that from day one.  She is quick very quick; scary quick at a lot of times and that is with a good team and with a great manufacturer like Chevrolet.  She has got the horsepower to do it this year.  Hopefully, she takes it easy on TK (Tony Kanaan) too. We will see.”
 
Q – ARE YOU EXPECTING WILL POWER TO BE YOUR PRIMARY THREAT FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP?
RYAN HUNTER-REAY “Will (Power) is always great and we fully expected that.  We, from last year, needed to work on some of our consistency early in the weekend, being up there early in the weekend and making the best of it.  It’s good where we are, but it’s the usual suspects.  It’s the guys you would expect and it’s obviously great to see Simona (de Silvestro) up here with a new team.  Will and I, I’m sure it will be a season-long thing.”
 
Q – ARE YOU EXPECTING RYAN HUNTER-REAY TO BE YOUR PRIMARY THREAT FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP?
WILL POWER “It will be interesting with the competition, I’m sure it will be Ryan (Hunter-Reay), (James) Hinchcliffe. I think that with the championship over the year, it doesn’t come easy in this series.  It’s good for the fans, let’s see who can make it to the last race and the last lap and don’t know who’s going to win.  That’s IndyCar.”
 
Q – IS THE BUMP COMING OUT OF THREE HEADING INTO TURN FOUR WORSE THAN LAST YEAR?: WILL POWER: “I don’t really think so, it’s not bad.”
 
Q – DO YOU THINK INDYCAR NEEDS RIVALRIES AND DO YOU CONSIDER RYAN HUNTER-REAY A RIVAL?
WILL POWER: “I hate him (LAUGHS WITH MEDIA) Why did he have to win a championship? (MORE LAUGHTER).  The rivalry is on the track.  It’s tough racing.  I don’t think you need fighting off the track to be exciting.”
 
Q -TALK ABOUT QUALIFYING:
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO: “For me, going into qualifying, I’m not nervous about it, but it’s something new again.  Last year, every time I went out for qualifying, I would be out like right away.  We’ll see how it is.  We’ll see how the car is and hopefully we’ll try to do the best.  I think starting up front always makes it a little easier.  It’s like you’re closer to the front so you’re more able I think to finish up front.  Hopefully we’ll be right where these two guys (Ryan Hunter-Reay and Will Power) are and then we should be alright.”
 
Q – DO YOU BELIEVE THERE ARE ‘NO MORE EXCUSES’ FOR YOU THIS YEAR AND YOU HAVE TO PERFORM?
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO: “Yeah, I think that is true, I have been in the series for three years and felt like we always struggled at something.  I think we have something to prove and I think
the series is more competitive. You really have to be on your ‘A’ game every weekend to win a race.  I think the tools are here to treat me really good and be real competitive.”
 
Q – HOW DOES THE CHEVY COMPARE TO THE LOTUS?
SIMONA DE SILVESTRO: “It’s really different.  Literally, it felt like I was still driving in another category last year.  The first time I went into a Chevy car it was such a difference.  The biggest thing is that there are so many more tools.  Last year we didn’t even have a yellow map, and now there are more aids that can help you during a run and that’s really helpful.”