Juncos Hollinger Racing Rebounds in Toronto
Following a hectic week, Juncos Hollinger Racing (JHR) ventured north this weekend for the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto, which saw JHR and the NTT INDYCAR SERIES take to the Streets of Toronto for a 90-lap contest around the 1.75-mile street circuit.
Conor Daly qualified the No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet inside Row 11, starting Sunay’s race in P21. Teammate Sting Ray Robb qualified the No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet in P25. Sunday morning storms washed away all grip that had built up throughout the weekend, providing drivers an extra challenge on an already slippery street course.
Cautions plagued the race, but also presented ample opportunity for different strategies to emerge. The No. 76 crew took advantage of this, while Conor stayed out of trouble to finish the race on the lead lap in P15.
Conor Daly, driver of the No. 76 Chevrolet: “Toronto was a tough one for us. We tried to make a strategy work, but we just need to work to find a bit more grip for us to fight with. Today was a challenge, there was a lot of work to ultimately lose a few spots from where we were running. We tried to salvage what we could, but we had a huge number to hit for fuel saving which made it tough. We knew this would be a hard weekend, but I really appreciate the team for working with me and trying to get me to the end. We’ll move on to Laguna, a great track that I love. I haven’t raced there in a while, so it’ll be good to get back to a high grip circuit which I think we can capitalize on.”
On top of an already chaotic week for the No. 77 crew, Sting Ray Robb had two extremely close calls but avoided trouble on both occasions. He brought the car home cleanly in P17.
Sting Ray Robb, driver of the No. 77 Chevrolet: “Toronto! You were chaos yet again, but we fought through it. Thank you to the team, it was a herculean effort today. We had some wild pit stops there in the middle of the race, but the guys were able to maneuver the car a bit closer so our fueler could plug in, which is something you never want to see at a stop, but that’s just the way the day went. We witnessed a lot of crashes, a lot of chaos, but we were able to make it home with a P17. Going into Laguna, I think we learned a lot this weekend, and hopefully we can apply that to the rest of this year. I’m excited for this next one though. Laguna’s my favorite track on the calendar, and this group is just working their tails off. They did a great job recovering from the fire earlier this week, so Juncos Hollinger Racing, you guys are my heroes, great job this whole week.”
Dave O’Neill, Team Principal of JHR: “I can really only reference the 76 for this one, so started basically at the back of the grid in P21. During the race, we elected on Conor’s car to start on Greens, and we planned to pit after lap two, whatever the circumstances were. So, we came in on lap three or four, we got rid of the greens, which left us just the blacks, and another two stops on the blacks and fuel. From there, when the second yellow came out, we were on the blacks and wound up near the sharp end around P3. We knew we had to come back in again to service the car, but we stayed out as long as we could. With all the cautions, the race ended up going from a non-fuel-save race to a fuel-save race. We tried to see if Connor could do 40 plus laps on the blacks at the end but he wasn’t having any of it, and it was a pretty tall order to try and achieve that. So we set about our race. We knew if we were lucky and we had another yellow towards the end, we could have done alright on fuel and also, at that point, we would have probably been around 10th, 11th, 12th. But while we fuel saved, it got to the point where we were going to have to switch the engine off over the line. We ended up luckily having the yellow. Thankfully no one was hurt, but that yellow saved the day for us. All the pit stops I saw were fantastic, which made it that much easier for Conor to go to work on track. Last but certainly not least, I need to say a massive thank you to the entire JHR staff for their resilience all week, from the Iowa aftermath all the way through the end of today’s race. They didn’t falter one bit, and the teamwide effort is what allowed us to go racing this weekend.”
Ricardo Juncos, Co-Owner of JHR: “Toronto, well we finished! This has been a crazy, crazy week. Everyone knows what happened after Iowa, with that unfortunate fire in the #77 transporter. It was very, very, tough to even make it here this weekend. But finishing P15 and P17, I think those are amazing results for the team. Last year we were good here, but we couldn’t give the cars the correct setup after the fire. I need to give a massive thank you to the team, it was nothing short of a huge effort, but we had great chemistry through the whole weekend. We’re already looking ahead to Laguna Seca. Four more races for this season, and it’s just awesome being part of INDYCAR. I want to once again thank the whole INDYCAR community, the teams, the series, and of course the fans. We’re looking forward to these last four races!”
The NTT INDYCAR SERIES heads back out west next weekend, returning to Laguna Seca for the Java House Grand Prix of Monterey on July 27, live on FOX at 3:00PM ET.