CHEVY INDYCAR AT PORTLAND: Power, Newgarden Team Chevy Front Row and Driver Post Qualifying Quotes

CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
GRAND PRIX OF PORTLAND
PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
PORTLAND, OR
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER
POST FIRESTONE FAST SIX QUALIFYING QUOTES
SEPTEMBER 1, 2018

Power and Newgarden Give Chevy Front Row at Portland

Seventh Time in 2018 Season Pair of Bowtie Powered Drivers Lead Field to Green Flag 

PORTLAND – With two races remaining in the season, and the finale carrying double-points, Will Power is focused on winning everything he can at Portland International Raceway and then on to Sonoma Raceway. He made a step in that direction today in Firestone Fast Six Qualifying.

In pursuit of his second Verizon IndyCar Series championship, Power got the very valuable point for winning the Verizon P1 award in the Series’ return to the Oregon road course.  Power won the pole behind the wheel of his No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet with a blistering lap of 57.3467 seconds/123.292 mph.

Defending Series’ champion Josef Newgarden, No. 1 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, laid down a lap of 57.6877 seconds/122.563 mph to grab the second starting position and giving the Chevrolet 2.2 liter twin turbo charged direct injected V6 the front row for the seventh time this season.

Other Team Chevy Qualifiers are:

No. 20 Jordan King                                     12th

No. 59 Max Chilton                                      15th

No. 21 Spencer Pigot                                  17th

No. 4 Matheus Leist                                                19th

No. 88 Gabby Chaves                                 21st

No. 22 Simon Pagenaud                            22nd

No. 32            Alfonso Celis, Jr.                             23rd

No. 14 Tony Kanaan                                   24th

No. 23 Charlie Kimball                                25th

Alexander Rossi, Sebestien Bourdais, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Zach Veach (All Honda) made up the remainder of the Firestone Fast Six Drivers.

NBCSN will telecast the 105-lap/206.22-mile race on the 12-turn, 1.964-mile road course live at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Sunday, Sept. 2. The race will also be broadcast on INDYCAR Radio Network affiliates,XM209.

WILL POWER CAPTURED HIS 4TH VERIZON P1 AWARD OF THE SEASON AND 54TH OF HIS CAREER.  JOSEF NEWGARDEN JOINS TEAMMATE ON FRONT ROW:

DRIVER QUOTES: 

WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, POLE WINNER: THIS IS YOUR FOURTH POLE THIS SEASON, AND 54TH IN YOUR CAREER.  HOW DIFFICULT WAS THAT FOR YOU GUYS?

“We actually were pretty good every session. I was just determined on focusing on what I had to focus on. I’m very stoked to get the pole. That was the focus coming in. Pole, win; pole win, and we can win the championship.”

YOU JUST WANT TO BE IN FRONT OF SCOTT DIXON NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS?

“Yeah, Dixon and (Alexander) Rossi, simply. If he finishes ahead of us tomorrow, Dixon, it’s over. It is. So, that’s what we’ve got in our head.”

HOW GOOD IS THE RACE CAR?

“I think it’s pretty good. The car has been fast all weekend. A qualifying car around here would work well.”

ARE THE REDS THE WAY TO GO IN TOMORROW’S RACE?

“Yeah, they are definitely faster. I think the reds are going to be key.”

JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 1 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 2ND: ARE YOU HAPPY WITH WHERE YOU FINISHED?

“Yeah, second is great, you know? We’re on the front row, so we can’t be disappointed. I have a suspicion we’ve built a stronger race car, which is good for tomorrow but obviously we want to be good in qualifying. The guys did a good job. We were strong on blacks (tires) but we just couldn’t match it on reds. It seemed like we had the pace to beat everybody on the blacks, but red tires, I don’t think we had the set-up for that. Our Verizon car is quick. And we have the Penske cars one-two, so that’s good.”

IS THE RACE TOMORROW GOING TO BE A RED TIRE RACE?

“Yeah, I think so. I think we’ll probably see a lot of reds running tomorrow just because the tire is quicker.”

JORDAN KING, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 12TH“The first session, we did a good job and I was quite happy what the car. The track really changed between Rounds 1 and 2. I was two or three tenths slower than I did in the first session so I’m a bit annoyed. We should have been solidly inside the Top 10. The difference between blacks and reds seems quite big here, so it will be interesting to see who has a good car on what tire during the race. Portland is good fun!”

MAX CHILTON, NO. 59 GALLAGHER CARLIN CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 15TH  “It’s a very fast, challenging circuit and it’s such a short lap that it’s hard to avoid traffic even with the field split into two groups. We didn’t have the pace coming into qualifying today, so we went red, red for tires which we’ve done a few times before this season. I think that strategy has worked well for us, because it has put us a few places higher than we would’ve been otherwise. It’s so hard to overtake on this track, so the chance that anyone will move forward that much because they have an extra set of red tires is unlikely in my opinion. I feel like we made the right strategy call. We’ll keep working tonight and try to find a bit more speed in the No. 59 Gallagher Chevrolet for tomorrow’s race.”

SPENCER PIGOT, NO. 21 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 17TH:  “It’s frustrating, the car felt a little strange. It just really didn’t have the grip to lean on the fronts or the rears. I was just all over the place. We really didn’t change the car too much, so we’ll have to look at everything and see what we can do for tomorrow. We’ve been quick at points over the weekend, so hopefully we can get the car fast again for the race.”

MATHEUS LEIST, NO. 4 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 19TH:  “Qualifying was difficult. We are just struggling a little bit with the car, we didn’t find a great pace in the setup. We have to keep working hard and try to make the right choices for tomorrow. We’re going to debrief tonight and see what we can do for tomorrow.”

GABBY CHAVES, NO. 88 HARDING GROUP HARDING RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 21ST“Frustrated with our qualifying session because we have had a pretty good car all weekend. We were just getting ready to open up our fastest lap and unfortunately got traffic right ahead of us and it was really hard to get the right gap, well that was it. We have some work to do before the race tomorrow now, so far we’ve had a good car so we’ll keep positive with that.”

SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 MENARDS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 22ND:  “The Menards Chevy is still just super tight.  I didn’t have enough speed to make it through to the next round.  I just need to keep working on understanding the track and getting the best out of the car.  We are starting at the back, but we have some red Firestone tires for tomorrow.  Some good strategy could bring us back to the front and that’s what we will try and do.”

ALFONSO CELIS, JR., NO. 32 JUNCOS RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 23RD:    “Qualifying has finished and day two has gone by. I would say in general I am happy with the direction we went in today and the pace we picked up. Even though we did not qualify where we wanted to be I think we made a lot of progress as a team this weekend. The car is the best it’s been so far. We will keep improving and tomorrow I think we have some great pace to battling with everyone in the pack. It’s a big step forward so we will now focus on the race.”

TONY KANAAN, NO. 14 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 24TH:  “It’s been a difficult weekend for us. We’ve tried absolutely everything we could with the setup since Thursday and nothing seems to give the No. 14 ABC Supply car a direction. I’m not sure exactly what to expect from the race, the only thing I can say is that I’ll give my 110%, like always.”

CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 23 TRESIBA CARLIN CHEVROLET, QUALFIED 25TH“Obviously I’m disappointed with how we qualified today. We made some big strides forward yesterday with the No. 23 Tresiba Chevrolet after Thursday’s test. Even this morning I was still feeling pretty good with where we were, but we just missed the window on tires and qualifying didn’t go our way. I’m still confident in our race pace and I think with a little bit of strategy we could still come out of Portland with a good result.”