Race report
Watkins Glen IndyCar: Top 10 quotes after race
Alexander Rossi led a 1-2-3 Honda sweep of the podium Sunday at the INDYCAR Grand Prix of the Glen
| Cla | # | Driver | Laps | Time | Gap | Mph | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 98 |  Alexander Rossi |
60 | 1:42'03.9024 | 118.865 | 54 | ||
| "An amazing job by the whole team today. We had an issue in the beginning with some fuel, the fuel (probe), but whatever. It doesn't matter, the team recovered. We had the pace to do it, but it's pretty amazing. It's a huge team effort. I've talked so much about how much we've improved, I'm so happy we're finally able to win." (About battle with Scott Dixon at end of race): "We had a fast car. I knew we had a fast car because we were hitting a fuel number before the final stop and we had pace. I knew he was going to be pushing like hell at the end, and so it was really 12 qualifying laps, and I had the car to do it. We had time, we had the pace, the performance, the tire life, everything was going our way. A huge hats off to Andretti Autosport. Thank you to NAPA Auto Parts, thank you to Honda. We're coming really hard for 2018." | ||||||||
| 2 | 9 |  Scott Dixon |
60 | 1:42'04.8538 | 0.9514 | 118.847 | 41 | |
| "It was definitely an exciting day for the No. 9 NTT Data car. I locked up the tires on the first stop and I don't think we got any fuel. We had to save fuel on the next stint as a result and battled our way back. I think we passed a lot of cars today and it was fun to contend with (Alexander) Rossi there for the win. Big congrats to him and good to see Honda run strong at Watkins Glen." | ||||||||
| 3 | 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay |
60 | 1:42'11.0616 | 7.1592 | 118.727 | 36 | |
| "The guys did a really good job on pit lane today - amazing job. It got us a lot of track position. It was strange where the yellows fell. We had to come through the field a couple of times. All in all, we had a pretty good car, we were just lacking a little bit of front grip to keep up to these two. We have to be happy with a podium, but congrats to the No. 98 team and Alexander (Rossi) on his win, he was certainly in top form this weekend." | ||||||||
| 4 | 3 |  Helio Castroneves |
60 | 1:42'12.7962 | 8.8938 | 118.693 | 33 | |
| "The Hitachi Chevy was so awesome today, and it was a great job by the No. 3 car guys. We were really fast out there - it's been a long time since I was able to go flat out through the carousel in the race, but we were doing that today. We had some issues on the black Firestone tires, but we were able to recover and really pushed hard there to finish fourth. I feel really bad for Josef (Newgarden) with his incident. It's unfortunate for the team, but it's mixed feelings for me because it tightens up the championship. We definitely have a good chance heading into Sonoma and I feel really good about our setup there. We'll be ready to go for it and finish strong." | ||||||||
| 5 | 15 | Graham Rahal |
60 | 1:42'15.7887 | 11.8863 | 118.635 | 30 | |
| "It was a good day. There was a lot of passing because a lot of us expected rain and with the downforce levels being all over the board, there were some guys that were really draggy and some guys a little more rimmed. I was right in the middle. There was a lot of passing going on all over the place. We're going to fight on here. I didn't have anything to lose (in the championship fight) coming here but as we saw today with (Josef) Newgarden, things can happen so fast. We're out of winning the championship, but we're certainly not out of finishing the top three or four. We're seventh in the points. The way I look at it is, we didn't score points in the first four races of the year, but we were the hottest team through the middle of the season and it got us back in contention. We didn't score as many points as we would have liked, but we have a lot to be proud of. We're going to be in attack mode for sure. It's a shame the last two races didn't go our way when they should have because we would have been right in the middle of the title fight, but that's the way it goes. That's racing." | ||||||||
| 6 | 12 |  Will Power |
60 | 1:42'19.2811 | 15.3787 | 118.568 | 28 | |
| "It was just an up and down day for the Verizon Chevrolet group. There were times the car was really fast, but that first set of tires didn't agree with the car at all. I thought the car was broken. It wouldn't do anything I wanted it to. After that, it was good. I can't be unhappy about sixth. I don't know what kind of legitimate chance at the championship I have, but stranger things have happened, I guess. We'll go to Sonoma and give it everything we have. " | ||||||||
| 7 | 83 | Charlie Kimball |
60 | 1:42'20.0663 | 16.1639 | 118.552 | 26 | |
| "I'm really proud of the No. 83 crew for what they've done this weekend. All the way from the problem in the first practice, to qualifying in the top five and then battling back all day today. We didn't have the best restarts today and part of that is on me and part of it was being light on downforce. I'm proud of the guys, but I think they deserved more. The car was probably a little better than seventh - I think we could've been in the top five. I just raced a couple of guys harder than I needed to at that point of the race and with 10 laps to go I was just about out of push-to-pass. That made it a little harder to make up spots at the end, but like I said these guys never gave up and I'm just really proud of them." | ||||||||
| 8 | 8 |  Max Chilton |
60 | 1:42'31.9434 | 28.0410 | 118.324 | 24 | |
| "I didn't think we had the fastest car, but the team gave me a great strategy and good pit stops. I think I raced pretty well to be fair, and it's really great for Gallagher to come out with a positive result from where we started in the back. But there's Sonoma next and we are looking forward to an even better result there." | ||||||||
| 9 | 1 |  Simon Pagenaud |
60 | 1:42'32.1965 | 28.2941 | 118.319 | 22 | |
| "We fought for the best finish we could today in the Menards Chevrolet. We were really prepared for a wet race, and if it would have been run in the rain, I think we would have been tough to beat. But we just had too much downforce to run in the dry and make up the ground we needed to. Still, everyone on the team did a good job to finish ninth and we come out of Watkins Glen still in the hunt for the championship. We know what it takes to win at Sonoma and that's what we'll be fighting for (in Sonoma)." | ||||||||
| 10 | 14 |  Carlos Munoz |
60 | 1:42'33.3996 | 29.4972 | 118.296 | 20 | |
| "The race was good. We did have a little problem and we lost some positions on one stop. The first stint was really good on the reds. We had an intermediate setup, so it was a compromise in case it rained, but we never had rain in the race which we were expecting. There was more downforce so it was slower on the straights. We have another top 10. I think that's three in a row, so we have to continue to do that." | ||||||||
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