Romain Grosjean in the No.28 DHL Honda starts his final NTT INDYCAR SERIES race with Andretti Autosport from tenth place at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca later today.
Grosjean set a fastest time of 1:07.1292s and speaking following the action, the French-Swiss driver commented saying:
“I think we had a very good recovery in Q1 and an amazing Q2. The car felt really good. Everything seems to be working okay, we picked the red tires, but we just didn’t have the same pace we had as the first time around. I don’t think that’s on us, so we’ll try to recover tomorrow.”
It is unclear what Grosjean’s plans are for next season, but there have been suggestions that Andretti Autosport will run three cars full-time in 2024 with Kyle Kirkwood, Colton Herta, and Marcus Ericsson.
It has been reported that team owner Beth Paretta is in talks with Michael Andretti and team co-owner Dan Towriss about running the four Andretti car, with Tatiana Calderon being tipped to make her NTT INDYCAR SERIES return next season.
Colton Herta has been promoted to 14th following a grid penalty for AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci and speaking following the action, he commented by saying:
“That definitely wasn’t the qualifying result we were hoping for. We’ve been quick in practice all weekend, but with only one lap to get it done we just didn’t have the speed to make it happen today.”
Kyle Kirkwood starts the race from 18th place with a time of 01:07.4029s and speaking following the action he commented saying:
“We planned for two laps, but we got impeded by traffic on our second lap. You take that risk when you go out early on Reds. People came out in front of us and were going really slow. I was up about four tenths before I kind of ran into the back of them around the Turn 5, Turn 6 area. I just lost a ton of time from there. It was unfortunate. I was stuck on the gearbox of Palou starting the next lap so I couldn’t go for another lap. I just dove into pit lane and figured that was it. We made a change to the car and tried to cool down the tires and go back out. It just wasn’t enough. We took that gamble to go early, and it just bit us. We got in traffic and the I think the track got better at the end. It’s unfortunate, we definitely had a car we thought we could fight for the pole with.”
In what Paddock Eye understands is his last race with Andretti Autosport, Devlin DeFrancesco starts the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey from 26th place and speaking following the action he commented saying:
“I’m disappointed in how qualifying went for us today. We’ve been struggling to find pace all weekend and unfortunately we just couldn’t get the fast lap we needed today.”