Will Power in the No.12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet was the biggest mover in Sunday’s Thermal Club INDYCAR Grand Prix.
The Australian who started the race from 21st and came through the to finish sixth.
Speaking following the action he commented saying:
Yeah, that’s a big day for the Verizon Chevy team considering it was full green. They didn’t get any lucky yellows or anything. That was pure pace there. The guys had a great strategy and we had great speed. I was really patient and methodical getting through the field. I think we’re all pretty disappointed with qualifying. I thought we certainly should’ve been in at least the top 10. That’s racing. That’s a good day. You look on those days and that’s the sort of thing that will help you win a championship there. We had an extra set of reds there. It helped, yes. Big time. It was kind of cool because at St. Pete, you didn’t have that luxury because the green was so soft, you couldn’t even use it in the race. But in this race, the (alternate) was the preferred tire. It was just, man, you had one lap to do it. Made a mistake starting the lap. The tire wasn’t quite in and I was disappointed with that because I’d been very fast in practice, running in the top six most of the time. But, you know, this is INDYCAR, anything can happen. Keep your head on and keep rolling.”
Scott McLaughlin in the No.3 XPEL Chevrolet started the race from 25th and was hit by Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Devlin DeFrancesco spinning the New Zealander.
McLaughlin suffered a mechanical issue which forced him into retiring from the race.
Speaking about the action, McLaughlin said:
Not the day we wanted for the XPEL Chevy. Tough weekend all around, really, but I was very confident going into today that we would have good race pace. I’m confident that we could have moved up through the field like Will (Power) and Josef (Newgarden) were able to do. Unfortunately, the issue we had with our MGU (motor generator unit) caused it to go into critical mode and we had to sit on pit lane for several laps while draining the battery and resetting everything. Very thankful that we got a solid finish to start the year at St. Pete. We’ll just go about climbing back out of this points hole.
Josef Newgarden in the No.2 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet said it was a tough day as he came home in 13th place and speaking following the race he said:
“Just a tough day for us on the No. 2 PPG Chevy. I had more potential, but I probably missed out on the tire game today, not utilizing the reds enough. That’s still a really strong effort from the team to try and make the most of it which I think we did with the 13th place. We can take those points and move forward. It’s a long season, so we had a tough weekend here, and we’ll try and get things turned around in Long Beach and get back towards the front.”