Arrow McLaren Team Principal Tony Kanaan says it was a special day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner was back in the cockpit of an INDYCAR for the first time in two years.
Kanaan is on standby if Kyle Larson is not available to participate in next weekend’s Indianapolis 500. He is preparing for the double, which includes NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte next Sunday.
Kanaan said:
“It was a pretty special day. I don’t think you can ever take driving an INDYCAR for granted, let alone at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. There’s a lot of memories, small things here and there that people don’t usually realize. My entire career, Kyle Sagan always buckled my belt, and today he surprised me to do it again. This is just this place, right? My first radio to the crew was that I definitely have the best and coolest job in the world. It’s done now, and I’m feeling amazing, so back to my real job.”
Pato O’Ward in the No.5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet ended the day in fourth place with a speed of 224.467MPH and speaking following the action he commented saying:
“There are two different beasts you’re trying to make go fast, to be honest with you. Just because you have a good car in traffic doesn’t mean you’re going to have a good Qualifying car, and vice versa. I’ve done no Qualifying stuff because the car changes a lot with the boost. It could feel good today trimming wise but then tomorrow you put the boost on and it’s like, “What the hell happened to the car?” We had a read at the Open Test that I was somewhat happy with, so tomorrow we’ll see what we’ve got once the boost comes on. In traffic, I think we’ve gotten better, but there’s still a handful of other cars that I believe are a lot stronger than we are. There’s still work to do.”
NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson in the No.17 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet was 17th fastest with a speed of 222.222MPH and speaking following the action he said:
“Practice went pretty good today. I thought our car was a little bit more competitive in dirty air, so I’m happy with that.”
Christian Lundgaard in the No.7 VELO Chevrolet was 18th fastest and speaking following the action he said:
“Today was thankfully a good day. It was interesting running on the hotter track and seeing what that does to the car. I think tomorrow will definitely be different with colder weather and potentially more wind. We’re just trying to dial in the race car, verifying things that were good early in the week, and we’re moving around some things. We’re finding good items and applying them to see what works further down the road. I think where we are now is a pretty good spot. I’m looking forward for this weekend.”
Nolan Siegel in the No.6 NTT DATA Chevrolet was 23rd fastest and speaking following the action he said:
“We worked into traffic, and I think we made a lot of progress there. I’m very comfortable there. Now we’re shifting focus to Qualifying, and hopefully we have a good Fast Friday. I’m looking forward to more boost and more speed. I think the car will continue to be comfortable. The team is making good changes, and I have no doubt we’re going to have a fast race car. I’m excited to show what we have.”