Scott Dixon, the driver of the No.9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, says that starting fourth in the BitNile.com Portland Grand Prix is a good starting position. The Iceman managed to outqualify his teammate and championship leader Alex Palou in the No.10 American Legion Honda, who starts the race from fifth place.
Speaking following qualifying, Dixon, who goes into the race 74 points behind Palou, commented saying:
“I think it’s a good starting position. We were surprised how many teams were using a lot of tires. There’s definitely a few cars that are compromised for the race. You need at least three sets of blacks, and a lot of teams only have two. We are going to go with blacks in Q3, but opted not to so we won’t be compromised for tomorrow. The car’s got good pace. I would say our peak pace is maybe not quite where we’d like it, but our second run and this morning’s long-run pace was pretty good. Lots of good strong Hondas up there, it’s good to see!”
Alex Palou commented on the qualifying result saying:
“It’s going to take a lot of work tomorrow! It’s a super tight place, and we were pretty good in Q1 and also in practice, and we’re still starting P5, but of course we wanted a little bit more and couldn’t get it. Our car is really good. We’ll see in the final practice how our long-run pace is, but we’re expecting a good race for tomorrow!”