Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Christian Lundgaard in the No.45 Hy-Vee Honda will start Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St Petersburg presented by RP Funding from 12th place on the grid with a time of 01:00.0172s and speaking following the action he commented saying:
Qualifying was tough but we managed to get through to Round 2 and I think we’ve got to be happy about that. The car was something to drive out there. We hadn’t struggled with rear (wheel) locking on the 45 car until qualifying so that was a shame. Throughout the weekend, have had moments of shine but we haven’t been able to put it together. Overall, it’s good to be back in the 45 Hy-Vee Honda and we will try to capitalize on opportunities that present themselves and move forward in the race.
Graham Rahal in the No.15 Fifth Third Bank Honda starts the race from 22nd place with a time of 01:00.0953s and speaking following the action he commented saying:
An inch is a mile nowadays in INDYCAR racing. We were two-tenths (of a second) off transferring to Round 2 — or a little less than that, I think it was actually 0.17 — but that is 10 positions. It is so competitive, it is so close and you have to be on your game and we’re struggling really mightily with braking and downshifting into Turns 4 and 10. In those two spots I lost over two-tenths so it’s really frustrating. I’ve been trying everything I can to try to figure out how to get the braking bias right or get the downshift timing correct and we’ve got to figure it out overnight because it’s going to make for a long day tomorrow if we keep having the issues that we’re having. Unfortunately, it’s so competitive. Between Christian and myself, is only over a tenth-and- a-half and we start 10 positions different. That’s the world we live in today and we’ve got to put our heads down tonight and try to improve and see what we can do in the race to try to get the Fifth Third Bank car up front.
Pietro Fittipaldi in the No.30 OAKBERRY / Pneustore starts Sunday’s race from 26th place with a time of 01:00.5336s and speaking following the action he said:
We’ve been making steps throughout the whole weekend from Practice 1 to free practice 2. I was hoping for a bigger step in qualifying but we just couldn’t put it all together. Because honestly the delta between me and Christian and Graham in free practice 2 was four-tenths / five-tenths so we made a big step and I was like alright now we will be there for qualifying but couldn’t put it all together. The car felt a little bit spicy. I knew it was going to be a tough first race weekend. New track to me and first time on a street circuit with a INDYCAR coming off only two days of testing. So now I’ll just focus on the race and maximize the race. Get a clean race and learn as much as we can and for sure we’re going to be much better in the races to come.”