In the No.28 Delaware Life DHL Honda, Romain Grosjean says that the result in Barber Motorsports Park on Sunday hurts. The French-Swiss driver started the race from the pole and dominated the event, leading 57 of the 90-lap race and following a furious battle with Team Penske’s Scorr McLaughlin, Grosjean finished the race in second place and is fifth the standing heading into May.
“This one hurts – I’m going to be honest. The three-stop never wins at Barber until today. The pits staying open gave McLaughlin the edge on the three-stop strategy. I mean look at the other two-stoppers 20 seconds behind us – the No. 28 Delaware Life/DHL Honda was just incredible and drove really well today. We gave it 100 percent, but we just got unlucky with that yellow. Thankfully, we got good points today and I know our day will come, so onto the next one.”
Kyle Kirkwood, who won last time out in Long Beach, had a disappointing race here in Barber as he started the event from 12th, and that is where he finished and speaking following the action, he said:
“It’s hard to see how the strategy played out, but we started 12th, finished 12th and were banging on the door of a top-five there for a little while. Our middle stint wasn’t great and our last stint could’ve been better. We were really fast on the alternate tires, but for some reason we were just missing a little bit of something on the primary tires. We were able to come away with some points, so ultimately we did what we needed to do and I feel like maximized what we had in the No. 27 AutoNation Honda.”
Colton Herta in the No.26 Gainbridge Honda had a disappointing event as he also finished where he started which was P14 and speaking following the action he commented saying:
“It was an unfortunate weekend here at Barber for the Gainbridge team. We just didn’t seem to have the pace today, or all weekend to be honest, that we were hoping for. I know we’ll rebound and come swinging in Indy.”
Devlin DeFrancesco in the No.29 Damon Honda started the race in 18th and came home in 23rd place and speaking following the action he commented saying:
“It was quite a tough day for the No. 29 Damon Honda. We lost a lot of time in that last pit sequence and we were honestly just struggling after that. We need to regroup over the next few weeks before we move forward to the Indy road course and hope for a better result there.”
Andretti Autosport Chief Operating Officer Rob Edwards said:
“We saw the same results in qualifying that we saw in the race today with one car up front in qualifying and one car up front in the race. Hats off to Romain, because he definitely didn’t have the fuel that the No. 3 and No. 12 cars had but he hung in there and made a great race for it. He’s doing a great job. I think across the team as a whole, we’re a bit disappointed that we didn’t have more pace in the race, but we keep picking up points and moving forward. The group as a whole is working really well together and we’re looking forward to Indy.”