Josef Newgarden in the No.2 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet starts today’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach from eighth place after saying that although there is time in the car, he hasn’t been able to extract the maximum out of the car.
The Tennessee native set a time of 01:06.645s and speaking following the action he said:
“I meant lucky because we went out early in Q1 with the greens and the track just got better. Kind of scraped by there. Obviously, we‘d do it different if we could now. Yeah, it’s just frustrating. I think there’s time in the car, I just can’t extract it. I just can’t put the lap together. Even there, I as up a couple of tenths, and I just can’t reel it off. I guess we’ll start eighth which is okay. I think we’ve got a good piece, it’s just difficult this weekend to put it all together.”
Speaking about the pursuit of outright pace this weekend, Newgarden said:
“You really want both, ideally. Sometimes you don’t get to pick. Your car is an eight one way or the other. I don’t know where we’re at on long-run this weekend, but certainly on the short run, it’s just been hard to piece together.”
Scott McLaughlin in the No.3 Sonsio Team Penske Chevrolet starts the race from ninth place following a time of 1:06.725s and speaking following the action the New Zealander said:
“Unfortunately, man I’m pissed. I’m being honest, this Sonsio Chevy feels really good. It felt really good in practice, it just I never got a lap in there. I just couldn’t get the fronts up, unfortunately. A couple of others behind us couldn’t go in front of us. We’ve got to work a little bit harder to try and figure that out. As a driver, I could do things better as well. Really proud of my Sonsio Chevy team. I think we’ve something for them tomorrow, see where we’re at.”
Defending series champion Will Power in the No.12 Verizon 5G Chevrolet starts the race from 13th on the grid.