CHEVROLET RACING IN THE NTT INDYCAR SERIES

BOMMARITO AUTOMOTIVE GROUP 500

WORLD WIDE TECHNOLOGY RACEWAY IN MADISON, ILLINOIS

TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUALIFICATION RECAP & QUOTES

AUGUST 23, 2019

Team Chevy Driver and Points Leader Newgarden Earns Pole Position at World Wide Technology Raceway

Three Chevy drivers vying for championship to start in top five

MADISON, Illinois. (August 23, 2019) – NTT IndyCar Series championship points leader Josef Newgarden, driving the No. 2 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet, will start from the pole August 24 in the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway.

The pole is the eighth of Newgarden’s career and is Chevrolet’s ninth in 15 races so far this season. Chevrolet will also be seeking its ninth victory and fourth in the last five races on Saturday night at the 1.25-mile short oval track. The Bowtie Brigade has prevailed in all four oval races, including two victories by Newgarden, who will be aiming for his sixth win of the season.

Newgarden’s Team Penske teammates, Will Power and Simon Pagenaud, who are also in contention for the NTT Series Championship, join him with top five starts. Power, last week’s winner, posted the third fastest time while Pagenaud was fourth.

NBCSN will telecast the 200-lap race live at 8 p.m. ET August 24.

JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 2 PPG TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET (qualified – Pole Winner): “It rolled off perfect. We needed to make it a little bit better, but right off the truck it was fast. It was like let’s not do too much to this thing before qualifying. So we didn’t touch it, we just tried to go out and to the same thing we did in practice. It was enough . I knew we had a fast car, it’s just about putting it together most of the time. And we did that. We need to get rolling again. It is going to be all about traffic. So we will take the PPG car and work with Chevy on fuel mileage.

“The pole helps with the championship. Every practice. Every qualifying session. Every race. You just keep marching on until this thing finishes off. Every weekend you come in invigorated that you can put together a winning car and come in and win the race. I think that is why we show up. We are going to try and do that tomorrow night.

“It is good. It is going to be tough in this championship. Even though we have at 36 point gap, I don’t think that a big gap. This race can change dramatically. Then you have Portland in between and with double points (at Laguna Seca), you just don’t know what is going to happen in this thing.You have to stay on our toes. You have to be alert and hopefully it’s enough and we can average better than everyone else the last three races.”

WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET (qualified 3rd): “On the second lap had a big moment in turns one and two. Just cost me a little. The car is good, just had that moment,I think it would have been close.I don’t know how close it was…but think it was close. It was on the right rear and then it just let go and I had to catch it and get off the throttle and get back on it again.”

SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 MENARDS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET (qualified 4th): “”The first lap was very difficult. The car was very active in turn three then turn four. It came alive on the second lap so it was time to be very aggressive on the second lap. I am very happy with the performance. The 22 team did a tremendous job. Team Penske and Chevy as usual gave me a very fast car.”

SPENCER PIGOT, NO. 21 AUTOGEEK ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET (qualified 13th): “It was tricky there in Turns 1 & 2. There was oil dry down right there at the bottom of the corner where you want to be. It was a difficult run, it just felt like the whole car lacked grip all of the way through. We definitely made some improvements from practice to have a solid run. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”

ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 SONAX ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET (qualified 17th): “We really have gotten better as the day has gone on, but where we unloaded was too far outside the window. We used up a lot of time in that first practice correcting that. During my qualifying run, I bottomed a little too hard on the second lap and got loose in Turns 3 & 4. We’ll have to work our way through the field tomorrow night.”

CONOR DALY, NO. 59 GALLAGHER CARLIN CHEVROLET (qualified 18th): “It’s just such a shame – it’s an ice skating rink out there. These Carlin guys did an awesome job with the No. 59 Gallagher Carlin Chevrolet and we had a really good session this morning, but with the oil dry down we just didn’t have a chance. We didn’t even really get to show our true pace this morning because we saved a set of tires, so I feel like we could’ve been even stronger if we weren’t the first one out again in this qualifying session. There was just no grip at all in turn one, which is where you need it the most. It is a shame because the car was good and we were really aiming to start in the top 10, which was completely realistic with the car we had in this morning. We’ll just work on our race car tonight and work our way up from the back like we did last weekend.”

CHARLIE KIMBALL, NO. 23 RIPKURRENT CARLIN CHEVROLET (qualified 19th): “The track was just a lot different for our qualifying run than where it was this morning in practice after that oil dry went down. The car balance caught me out in turn one and I had a big moment on the warm-up lap just trying to carry some momentum. It’s tough because you only have two laps to get the most of the car and when you’re first out and the track conditions aren’t where they should be, it’s just extremely difficult. The No. 23 ripKurrent Carlin Chevrolet is definitely stronger than where we qualified, but we just didn’t have a chance with track conditions the way they were. Thankfully we have another hour of practice under the lights tonight and 248 laps of racing tomorrow night.”

TONY KANAAN, NO. 14 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET (qualified 20th): “It wasn’t a good run for us, the car had a lot of oversteer which was the opposite of what we had in practice and that slowed the car quite a lot. We’ll have to work on the race setup this next session and see what we can come up with for the race.”

MATHEUS LEIST, NO. 4 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET (qualified 21st): “I thought we had a better pace but we just struggled with oversteer in both turns and I don’t think it was because the track was a little bit dirty, I think overall we were more to the oversteer side. We’ll work on the car to make some changes for the last practice and try to get a good baseline car for the race tomorrow.”