Pato O’Ward in the No.5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet will start Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St Petersburg presented by RP Funding from third place which is where he started from last season and says that the result in qualifying gives them plenty of options in terms of strategy for tomorrow’s 100-lap race and looking ahead to the event he said:
“We’re rolling off P3 tomorrow. Inside Row 2 was exactly where we were last year, so it is a great spot to have many options in the race. I’m pretty stoked about that. I think we will be in good shape to do some good things tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it.”
Alexander Rossi starts the race from 15th place on the grid and speaking following the action where he set a fastest time of 00:59.8164s he commented saying:
“That was very disappointing, because we had a pretty strong car. I was happy with the changes that we’ve made from yesterday and through the day today. We didn’t get a clear run on the Firestone Alternates, and it is so close that you can’t afford that. So, it is very unfortunate that we are so far back, but I do think the car is pretty strong. We’ll see what we can make of it tomorrow.”
Callum Ilott who is filling in for David Malukas this weekend starts the race from P16 and looking ahead to the race on Sunday he said:
“We were eighth in our group, so it’s a bit disappointing not to transfer to the top 12. We’ve learned a lot over the course of the weekend so far, and again, it’s a long race tomorrow. A big thanks to the No. 6 NTT DATA Arrow McLaren Chevrolet crew. I’m sure we can squeeze a bit more pace out of it, but it’s been a bit of a learning progression so far. It’s a slightly different car than I had last year and than I’m used to. I’m trying to put everything together, but it’s good and I think we can get there.”
Arrow McLaren Team Principal Gavin Ward commented on qualifying saying:
I think overall, it is hard to be too happy when you only get one car out of Round 1. That one car got pretty close to putting it on pole, only seven hundredths of a second off of pole position. It was a great job by Chevrolet, who we’ve been working super hard with during the offseason to improve our competitiveness. Street courses were a particular area where we wanted to improve, so it’s great to see a bowtie get the pole here at St. Pete.
“I think we have two Chevy cars that can easily race for the win. I’m not writing off our other two cars after just missing out on Round 2, but that’s the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. It’s tight, but racing is where the points are scored. We showed last year that you can make up a lot of ground with a clean race and sound strategies. So, we’ll try to do that tomorrow.