Dale Coyne Racing with RWR’s Sting Ray Robb in the No.51 Biohaven Honda will make his NTT INDYCAR SERIES race debut in the Firestone Grand Prix of St Petersburg presented by RP Funding from 23rd place having suffered a crash in second practice and speaking after setting a time of 01:02.3711s Robb, who starts the race ahead of Rinus VeeKay, Simon Pagenaud and Conor Daly said:
“It was a bit of a tough day. We made contact with the wall in practice this morning, but the team did a great job getting the car back together and I was able to jump back into the car right before qualifying. It’s not the position we wanted to be in today, we wanted to be further up the grid but we’re ready for the race tomorrow and ready to put some experience under my belt.”
David Malukas in the No.18 HMD Motorsports Honda starts Sunday’s 100 lap race on the streets of St Petersburg from P16 commented saying:
“Unfortunately, it was a short qualifying for us. From first practice to second practice, our car was actually very quick, and we were always in the top half of the field. Even with being in the top 10 or top 12, we didn’t really have a clear lap because it’s obviously a busy field. Going to qualifying we went out on primary tires and I think we set the fastest or second-fastest time on that tire before changing to the Guayule (alternate) tire. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the set up quite right. We didn’t make a big enough change coming from practice and it was too much understeer, so it’s a mistake on our part. We weren’t expecting the track to change that much. So at the end of it, we finished eighth in our group.”