Juncos Hollinger Racing had their best Firestone Grand Prix of St Petersburg presented by RP Funding at the season-opener on Sunday—Conor Daly in the No.76 Chevrolet as he looked on target for a top twelve finish but came home in 17th place and speaking following the action, the Noblesville native said:
“I think we had a tremendous start which was a lot of fun. Gained a lot of positions. Got off of the greens (alternate tire) right when we wanted to. Honestly, I think we had great pace during the race. Just our used set of primaries kind of hurt us in the middle of the race. We definitely know to keep only new primaries from now on. Bit of a shame to not capitalize on a top-12 that I think we had. We were running ahead of a lot of those guys to finish up near there in the top-10. Decent start, we learned a lot, and I think we can carry a lot of this to the next few races.”
In his debut with the team, Sting Ray Robb in the No.77 Goodheart Chevrolet started the race from 26th and ended the race in 21srt place but had a great race as he managed to hold off race leader Alex Palou for extended period which allowed Scott Dixon to close in on and overtake Josef Newgarden to claim second in the race. Speaking following the action he said:
Today was okay. I think we had a good car, we are still learning the tires. It really hurt us at the beginning of the race. Our ending stint was really nice. I know we were there in front of the leaders trying to hold Palou off, and it is very hard to hold off that guy. I felt like we had decent pace in the car. I think we could have gone a little more forward with different tire pressure. Overall, I’m happy with it. I think we had decent fuel save, and decent power. So I am hoping that the No. 77 Goodheart Chevrolet goes faster at the next one, and I think it will.”