Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports David Malukas had a great qualifying for today’s PPG375 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Malukas in the No.18 HMD Motorsports Honda starts the race from tenth place and speaking following Saturday’s track action he said:
Today went well for us. It was the top three big teams with McLaren, Ganassi, Penske and then us in P9. So, we’re really happy with that. I think that was near ultimate performance of what we could get out of the car for qualifying. And it was really good. We tested the high line a little bit, it was a little bit sketchy for us initially, but we managed to make some changes and we got there. In final practice, we did a lot of racing with other drivers. Overall I think we’re missing just that little bit from the other top eight in front of us on the grid but I think we’re right there where we need to be for the race tomorrow. I think it will be a good race. If we keep everything underneath us, not lose our car and not do anything super risky, we should have a top ten here, but of course you never know. There’s always a chance for anything in this race.”
Sting Ray Robb makes his INDYCAR oval debut from 23rd place in the No.51 Honda with RWR.
We just finished up final practice here, and wow, this place is insane. I don’t know what it’s going to be like tomorrow for the race, with 28 cars out there. Overall, though, I think we learned a lot today. Qualifying wasn’t near as good as I wanted it to be. David (Malukas) did a good job qualifying in the top 10, but we’re lacking some speed to him. Our race running seemed pretty good though. I’m learning a lot about aero wash and tire degradation. It’s all the things that go into making a good time around here. But yeah, it gets busy really fast out there, so dealing with traffic was fun, and interesting. Now we’re going to go back and review everything and hopefully get better for tomorrow.”