Bommarito Automotive Group 500
James Hinchcliffe
No. 5 Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda
“It was an up-and-down weekend for us. Practice One had a lot of problems, so we lost a bunch of track time. Luckily Marcus had been out here and tested, and we were able to put his setup on our car for qualifying and got the 5 Arrow car a decent spot for the start of the race. It was a really tough race. Every single set of our tires were vibrating. That first stint, we were actually able to stay out longer and kind of manage our tires a bit better than everyone else. We caught a lucky yellow that cycled us up to the front. From there, we spent the first half of the race just trying to manage our tires as best we could. We weren’t good over short runs, but we were decent over a long run, so the early part of the race, it was fine. Then unfortunately we had like five yellows in a row and with a car that just wasn’t good on a short run, we just kept getting hosed. That last restart, [Ryan] Hunter-Reay hit us pretty hard, put us down into the grass in Turn 1 and bent something in the car, so from there we were just trying to hang on. It’s unfortunate. The Arrow SPM guys deserved better today. They were killer in the pits, we made up spots every time we came into pit lane. Unfortunately the yellows, and the way the race fell, just didn’t fall in our favor.”
Marcus Ericsson
No. 7 Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda
“It was like a race with a lot of different faces. First off at the start, I got chopped in Turn 3 and I sort of half-spun the car and managed to stay out of the way of other cars in the wall, so that wasn’t the best start to the race. There was no damage, so we could come in to clean up the grass on the car and get after it again. From then on we had a really fast car. The Arrow SPM guys did a great job to adjust the car after practice yesterday because we were struggling a bit in traffic yesterday, and I think the changes we did for today were really working. The Arrow car was fast out there and we were moving up through the field. Unfortunately on one of the stops, on the out lap, I had a moment in Turn 3 and made contact with the wall, so that sort of put our day in a bad place and we lost two laps. Still, the guys did a great job to repair the car very quickly. From then on it was a tough race, but again we showed a lot of pace, and I don’t think there were a lot of cars out there that were faster than us. It’s a bit like our season: a lot of potential, a lot of pace, but not the results to show for it. Today was disappointing, but we’ll take the positives and move forward.”