Watkins Glen: Top 10 quotes after Friday practice

	N°	Driver	Team (Engine)	Time/deficit
1	9	Scott Dixon	Ganassi (C)	1:22.8740
"What a new track surface does is reduce the difference of having rubber down. When you get a big rainfall, the loss of speed is not as wide the next morning. Even at the test here, we ran about a second slower because it was a lot hotter, but whatever the conditions, the new surface will produce the kind of speeds we're doing now. The Target car is fast and it's been a good start to the weekend. I hope we can carry on through to the race."
2	3	Helio Castroneves	Penske (C)	0.1587
"I have to say that it's amazing. I'm not sure what (Scott Dixon) feels, but amazing how much G-force we're pulling in the Carousel. I literally feel my face going like this. You know, it's like an amazing experience, and what a lot of fun this place is. It's unbelievable. I wish you guys were standing in Turn 5, which is the Carousel, because you guys are going to see how fast the Verizon IndyCar Series goes in that corner. The Hitachi Chevy looks good. We are very, very slowly but steady working in the car, and lot of details. I could not believe how many details. Since this track is so much smoother compared to what it used to be in the past, there were so many details not only in the setup, the driving, and the grip. Every time you put on new Firestone tires, the track changed. I mean, we started turning laps at 84 (seconds) and then 83s, now only this guy (Scott Dixon) did 82. But it just goes to show that I believe tomorrow is going to be on the lows 82, if not 81s, as well."
3	12	Will Power	Penske (C)	0.1977
"Verizon Chevy was fast today. We made a few changes earlier to see if that would help and it definitely did. We're pretty confident going into tomorrow in qualifying. The track is great here. Weather has been great, which has been a plus for us. We'll see what happens tomorrow."
4	10	Tony Kanaan	Ganassi (C)	0.2952
"It felt really good to be back on-track at Watkins Glen - this place is just so fast. The No. 10 NTT Data Chevrolet was really good today and we were able to get a lot out of the car in both sessions. We got a lot of track time today, especially in that second session, and we were able to take some bigger swings trying some different things out on-track without feeling the pressure of not having enough time. I'm one of the drivers out there that has had the opportunity to race here before with the series, but I'm actually not sure that's a major benefit. The cars are so different now and where the new guys are able to learn as they go, I have to get old observations about this track out of my head because they just don't apply anymore."
5	2	Juan Pablo Montoya	Penske (C)	0.4906
"The PPG Automotive Refinish Chevy was great today. We were able to try a few things out and still were good in both sessions. The conditions were perfect. The track surface and the weather were great. I'm really looking forward to qualifying tomorrow so we can set ourselves up for a good day on Sunday."
6	41	Jack Hawksworth	Foyt (H)	0.5723
"It was a fun day. We hadn't tested here so we worked our way into it and ran through our plan. It was good because we worked systematically. By the end I think we had a decent understanding of the track. Really nice conditions, a really cool track, incredibly fast, I've never been to a track like this in my entire life. Literally... never! So, so fast and the grip level is incredible. I mean it's a three and half-mile track and we're doing 1:23s, I don't know what the average speed is but it's insane. Really enjoyed it and we did some good work so we'll try to continue that in tomorrow and see if we can put it together in qualifying."
7	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal (H)	0.7223
"It was a very good day I think. We are competitive. Are we 100 percent there? No, we have a little work to do. We had a lap that was up on time but I came up on (Takuma) Sato. That lap might have been two tenths quicker but we're still a solid few tenths (of a second) off of where we need to be so there is a little work to be done for sure. We're all chasing Dixie (Scott Dixon) as per usual. We're going to work hard and see what happens tomorrow."
8	21	Josef Newgarden	Carpenter (C)	0.7539
"It was a productive day. It was nice to have a two-hour practice session at the end and work through several things. We still have a little speed to find and a bit more work to do. We've got a good car, I think we can push it into the top five and possibly the top three tomorrow. That's our priority right now. All hands are on deck trying to figure out exactly what we need. We'll get after qualifying tomorrow, then see how we do in the race."
9	11	Sébastien Bourdais	KVSH (C)	0.7842
"Overall, a good day for the Hydroxycut - KVSH Racing Team. We tried, and found some good things, but it feels like we are losing touch with the front when the track grips up. Towards the end, physically, I think it took a toll and I didn't extract the best out of the car so that's a bit frustrating. We are going to make a couple of adjustments and see if we can make it a bit easier to drive because the car is really quick, but if you can't run the wheel it doesn't really help. It's just a matter of getting the best out of the car. We will come back tomorrow and see what we can do."
10	8	Max Chilton	Ganassi (C)	0.8367
"I'm pretty happy with the start to the weekend in the Gallagher car. This track is very fast and smooth and it's very similar to the tracks I've run in Europe. It's very challenging physically and definitely a rhythm track. Scott is fast for sure, so I'm sure the team has a lot of data to look over tonight. I hope we can continue to translate what we learned today into more speed for tomorrow."