CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
CHEVROLET DETROIT GRAND PRIX
STREETS OF BELLE ISLE
TEAM CHEVY POST RACE RECAP WITH DRIVER QUOTES
JUNE 2, 2018

WILL POWER LEADS TEAM CHEVY EFFORT IN CHEVROLET DETROIT GRAND PRIX DUAL #1
Finishes in Seventh Place Following Indianapolis 500 Win

DETROIT (June 2, 2018) – Will Power, driver of the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, finished in seventh place to pace all Team Chevy drivers in the first of two Dual in Detroit weekend rounds in the Verizon IndyCar Series at Raceway on Belle Isle Park on Saturday. Power qualified sixth and ran in the top 10 for pretty much the entire afternoon, following wins in the INDYCAR Grand Prix and Indianapolis 500.

Power now has nine top-10 finishes – including two wins – in 13 starts on the 13-turn, 2.35-mile street circuit.

Defending series champion Josef Newgarden (No. 1 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet) finished ninth after qualifying 14th.

Spencer Pigot (No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet) finished 10th in the 70-lap race, part of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear event weekend. The second Dual in Detroit race is scheduled for 3:50 p.m. ET on Sunday.

Tony Kanaan (No. 14 ABC Supply A.J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet) – in his 350th career start, third on the series’ all-time list – ended up 14th.

Qualifying for the second Dual is set for Sunday at 10:45 a.m. ET. Live television coverage for ABC will start at 3:30 p.m. ET. The race will be streamed on RaceControl.IndyCar.com in conjunction with the INDYCAR Radio Network broadcast, and can be heard on INDYCAR Radio Network affiliates, IndyCar.com, indycarradio.com, the INDYCAR Mobile app, and Sirius 214 and XM 209.

DRIVER QUOTES:

WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 7TH: Obviously we have good top-end speed, which is great for Indy and some of these tracks with longer straights. I drove pretty hard for seventh place. Our car is pretty good; the handling is not bad so there’s not much I could pick out to gain us some speed. If we could qualify a little better like in the top-four, it would make a big difference. You could do something there with strategy.”

JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 1 HITACHI TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 9TH: “That was a lot of work for a ninth-place finish. I’m worn out. This place really takes it out of you. This is a place where you have to be up on the wheel all the time. If you aren’t, it can bite you. We saw that today with (Graham) Rahal. But I need to thank everyone at Team Penske and Team Chevy. We really want to do well here in our backyard. But we just didn’t have enough here today. I think the max were we going to be was fifth or sixth. We know we are going to have to try some things. We are going to do some experiments overnight and try to come up with something different tomorrow.”

SPENCER PIGOT, NO. 21 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 10TH: “Overall, it was a pretty solid race for us. We made improvements throughout the weekend we were able to move up during the race. Unfortunately, we had a stall on our first pit stop which cost us a little bit of time, but I don’t think it had a huge effect on the finishing position. It was nice to get our first top ten finish of the season. I feel like it should have come a lot earlier, but hopefully this can be the start of a good string of results for us. Thanks to all of the Fuzzy’s Vodka guys in the pit lane for another day of hard work!”

TONY KANAAN, NO. 14 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 14TH: “We passed a lot of cars today. We gambled with the strategy and we knew it could work or not and that last yellow killed us but it is what it is. We have to qualify better which we are working on because track position is so important. When you start playing with strategy like that, I told the boys we were either going to finish inside the top 10 or we’re gonna finish where we started. But I’m happy, the pit stops were good so we just have to keep working on the items we need to make better.”

MATHEUS LEIST, NO. 4 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 15TH: “It was a tough race starting 21st. I think we were ok until the yellow came out for Graham, it messed up our strategy. I think we made some improvements in the car but the race didn’t go our way at the end. I think we could be a little bit faster than that. So we will improve the car and try to have a great race tomorrow.”

JORDAN KING, NO. 20 ALLEGIANT INTERNATIONAL CHEVROLET, FINISHED 16TH: “The second half of our race was quite good, we were quite strong the second half pace-wise. I am a bit confused as to why I couldn’t get much of pace out of it at the start of the race, we were just kind of holding on to everybody but not able to do anything. After that, we got into quite a good rhythm and made some good progress. Starting at the back just made it difficult, we overtook a few people but I think our pace was a little better than where we ended up. It’s tough out there, the field is quite close which makes strategy calls difficult as well. It was good to get a first full race with no issues in! That’s quite nice, but it’s annoying in that we’re further down the field than we want to be.”

SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 DXC TECHNOLOGY TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED 17TH: “Not a good race today. We struggled big time. We need to understand why and need to understand what we got wrong on the car today. Sometimes, you need to have those bad moment to bounce back and get better. That is something that Ben (Bretzman) have been good at in the past. I’m sure tonight will be a lot of thinking as to how we can improve for tomorrow. We will come back, qualify on the front row and hopefully win the race.”

GABBY CHAVES, NO. 88 HARDING GROUP CHEVROLET, FINISHED 18TH: “We just finished the first part of the Detroit Doubleheader weekend. We learned a lot out there during the race today. I know that the guys are going to work hard to take what we learned out there to make the necessary changes before tomorrow’s race. I know we’ll have some improvements so we can make sure the #88 is closer to the front.”

CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 23 TRESIBA CARLIN CHEVROLET, FINISHED 19TH: “I’m really proud of the effort by the Carlin boys today. The No. 23 Tresiba Chevrolet was good, we had great pit stops, and we made great fuel mileage. I got caught out on contact with a rookie. Honestly that one was on me, because I expected him to be a little more consistent than he was. With a rookie, I should’ve given him more benefit of a doubt. I feel badly for the team on that front, but the good thing about the Dual in Detroit is that we get to come back and try again tomorrow. We’ll try and qualify a little higher up, so we don’t have to fight quite as hard in the back to get back up front.”

MAX CHILTON, NO. 59 GALLAGHER CARLIN CHEVROLET. FINISHED 20TH: It’s unfortunate that we ended up where we did in today’s race, especially after we qualified so well this morning with a top-10 qualifying effort. We lost some positions on the start and then we went on an alternate fuel strategy that just didn’t work out the way we were hoping in the end for the No. 59 Gallagher Chevrolet. While we aren’t where we need to be yet, we’re seeing more and more progress being made every race. We’re excited to get back out there tomorrow, and we’ll hope to have a similar qualifying effort but a different race result.”

RENE BINDER, NO. 32 BINDERHOLZ JUNCOS RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 21ST: “The race went ok, however early in the race I went in the run off area and took a minute to get back on track. I tried to push and get a better feeling of the car. Our lap times were really competitive this afternoon compared to qualifying earlier today. I was able to find a good rhythm, so we need to keep this momentum going into the next race tomorrow.”