Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi in the No.7 VELO Chevrolet had a solid Hy-Vee 250 race 2 at the Milwaukee Mile on Sunday. The 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner came home in sixth place and speaking following the action he said:
We were having a great day until the last yellow when we didn’t have any new tires to put on, and that put us in a tough spot in that last stint. It’s unfortunate because I think we had a good shot to win that one. That last yellow really created a bad situation for us.
Pato O’Ward in the No.5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet was forced to retire from the race due to a gearbox failure and speaking following the action he said:
“I think this weekend represents our year so far – the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. We won the first race, but then had a gearbox issue in the second race. It’s a bummer because I thought we had another chance to take a win. But now we have one more to go in Nashville with the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, and hopefully we can help make a pretty special race.”
Nolan Siegel retired from the race and speaking following the action he said:
This was an extremely disappointing weekend. We had a lot of pace in the No. 6 Big Machine Music City Grand Prix Arrow McLaren Chevrolet but we didn’t really get to take advantage of it. Yesterday, I made quite a few passes and we made up spots on every exchange, but then we caught a bad yellow that sent us to the back. Today, we were running in the top 10 with a shot at fighting for a top five or a podium, but a gearbox issue ended the day. Chevrolet helped give us a lot of power, but we have no results to show and we are disappointed. Hopefully we do better in in the finale at the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix in two weeks.”
Arrow McLaren Team Principal Gavin Ward says:
Ain’t that the highs and lows of racing? We’re still looking into the two gearbox-related failures that we had with Pato and Nolan. It appears to be a failure of a standard part within the gearbox, and we’ll do everything we can to understand what we can do better as a team. Alex was doing a good job managing a race of attrition, and it looked like we were on for a top-two day, but the timing of that late caution was pretty unfortunate for us. Trying to manage tires across two days with qualifying and two races, we just didn’t have as good of tires as some of our competitors there at the end. You roll the dice, and sometimes it doesn’t go your way, but he did well finishing where he did.”