Pocono 500: Top 10 quotes after qualifying
Pole Position for Mikhail Aleshin at Pocono
Photo by: IndyCar Series
P. | N° | Driver | Team (Engine) | MPH |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 7 | Mikhail Aleshin | Schmidt (H) | 220.445 |
"It's my first pole in INDYCAR and I am so happy to bring up the car, the No. 7 SMP Racing, up there, the team did an amazing job. We had a couple of moments in turn one, but I decided to keep it flat and see what would happen. (Hitting) the wall didn't happen, but pole position happened. Amazing.In the practice this morning, we were P1. What I know for sure is that in the practice, we were very good in the race mode. I hope it's going to stay like this tomorrow and that's what's going to be really important. I mean, I'm happy to be fast by myself on the track but it's not going to be like this in the race. We need to prepare for running in the pack tomorrow. The race is what's important. That's where you get the trophy." | ||||
2 | 21 | Josef Newgarden | Carpenter (C) | 220.195 |
"I think where we rolled out with would have been enough," Newgarden said. "It's my fault that we changed it. I'm disappointed about that. You always want the pole. We have a great chemistry and group with our people, but sometimes I mess up. Congrats to Mikhail, great job by him. We didn't have enough today, but tomorrow is what counts." | ||||
3 | 14 | Takuma Sato | Foyt (H) | 220.067 |
"Very, very happy about our qualifying run. We had a very good baseline car. We tested here a couple weeks ago, which helped massively, and we gained a good understanding for the strong superspeedway package that Honda worked so hard on and it looks like we have a pretty strong car." | ||||
4 | 3 | Helio Castroneves | Penske (C) | 219.781 |
"I'm very happy with the result. The Hitachi Chevy was good this morning and that continued into the afternoon. We did get some luck with the cloud cover that cooled the track down. We haven't had a lot of good luck this year; maybe it's starting to change. I wasn't really expecting fourth, but I'll certainly take it. Now, we'll get some more work in later at practice." | ||||
5 | 26 | Carlos Muñoz | Andretti (H) | 219.647 |
“I wasn’t sure if our run was going to be enough to get the pole, but it was nice to be the second (car) out. You have to wait for the whole field to go, but you get to give information to your teammates. It would be good to be in the front, for sure, but here it is a long race so qualifying (position) is not as important. I think we have a good car all around and I love this place.” | ||||
6 | 5 | James Hinchcliffe | Schmidt (H) | 219.463 |
"It was a solid effort from the whole Arrow Electronics team. It's awesome that Mikhail is on pole and we have another one for the team this year. We came here feeling fairly confident with the speedway package after the month of May, then we went one-two in practice and now we have two cars in the top six to start the race.We'll see what we can do with a five-hundred mile race. Obviously a lot can happen in that time but starting at the sharp end of the grid is definitely good. Also, huge credit goes to the Arrow Electronics crew for all the effort they put into these speedway cars and hopefully we can bring home a good result for them." | ||||
7 | 98 | Alexander Rossi | Andretti-Herta (H) | 219.326 |
“I think at the (Indianapolis Motor) Speedway we were strong, and here we seem to be strong. The Honda package has really been developed over the winter coming into this year so the results of that are strong and we’re very proud. It seems to be very suited for the speedways. Glad to see Honda hold onto P1. Hopefully we can have a good day tomorrow.” | ||||
8 | 12 | Will Power | Penske (C) | 218.617 |
"The car has been loose and we'll have to make some adjustments for tomorrow's race. On the other side, the Verizon Chevy is really fast, but just a matter of getting the handling right. Just not connecting when we go into the corners, so practice tonight and making some adjustments should help." | ||||
9 | 10 | Tony Kanaan | Ganassi (C) | 218.606 |
"I think we took a conservative approach today for qualifying with the NTT Data Chevrolet. We knew that we were going to have a challenging session based on the feedback from my teammates that went out before me. We didn't want to take any chances. It's a long race - 500 miles - and I think we'll have a good car for the race." | ||||
10 | 20 | Ed Carpenter | Carpenter (C) | 218.424 |
"It's a tricky day. The conditions are a little different, especially with the wind, from when we practiced. That's when it's hard to be early in the line. It is tricky, there's a lot of different downforce levels. I wish I could have got that first lap back. After I got the tools in the car adjusted to where I wanted them, that second lap was pretty good. I wish I could have had a couple of those." |
(C) = Chevrolet, (H) = Honda
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