NTT INDYCAR SERIES rookie Louis Foster in the No.45 Droplight Desnuda Tequila RLL Honda took his maiden NTT P1 Award at Road America on Saturday.
Speaking following the action, Foster said:
I said to the guys as we got into the Fast 12 to not put reds (Firestone Firehawk alternate tires) on because I wasn’t confident we would make it through to the Fast Six. “Boy, was I wrong. Absolutely awesome. The 45 crew has been amazing all weekend.
“Couldn’t ask for a better start to the weekend. I still can’t believe it. We went fast on old and new (tires). I’m going to celebrate well tonight.
The Englishman went to say:
I don’t really know what to say. Obviously a massive thank you to the team. They’ve done an amazing job. Yes, I guess it’s the moustache. I don’t know, man. If I’m honest, we kind of struggled a little bit throughout the three practices. When we got through to the Fast 12, I was surprised because I messed up my lap. We were sitting there before the group stage, the Fast 12 stage. I said to the guys, ‘I don’t think I have the car to make it through the Fast Six. Do you want throw some used tires on and maybe get a sport or two and see how it goes?’ They were confident in the ability of the car and myself to be able to push into the Fast Six, which obviously was the right call in the end. When we did the last run, again, we were just conserving reds. We were in the Fast Six. Top six starting spot for us is awesome alone. We just ran out, did the out-lap and pushed on the used reds. By the time I went through turn one, I was about 2/10ths up, then maintained that throughout the lap. Gained about a 10th or so in a couple corners. The reds held on really, really well clearly. Yeah, still a little bit in shock.
“The boys have been working their asses off, I’ll be honest. We had the crash in Detroit with the suspension failure. Then last weekend at St. Louis. Massive props to the 45 Droplight / Desnuda boys. They needed this to kind of push themselves through the summer stretch. All credit to them because, yeah, they worked endlessly these last two weeks. They’ve rebuilt the car twice. My target now is to focus and be with the team and make sure that we’ve got the race car to be able to battle up front and try to retain our position as long as possible up front. We’ll go for a win if we can. We have a fast car. Full focus on the race. We have to bring in some solid points. It will probably sink in after this weekend, for sure (smiling).
“I think teamwork is really the key for us at Rahal Letterman Lanigan. As soon as Graham finished his group stage, he jumps out of his car, the first thing he does is runs to me, let’s me know about certain things that he learned in the session. If that’s not teamwork, I don’t know what is. I don’t see any teams or drivers doing that. It’s really a family feeling at RLL. All three of us are super close. I think that really helps us push the program forward.”
Graham Rahal in the No.15 Hendrickson Honda starts the race from sixth and speaking following the action he said:
Qualifying was good. It was a good day for the Hendrickson team and a good day for the team overall. I would have liked to be further up in the Fast Six but we made the strategy play to run the primary tire (in Round 3) because we didn’t need them for tomorrow because we’ve got so many tires. We didn’t use a lot in practice so it was like ‘Well, we’ve got an extra set so we might as well use these freshies and we’ll try to keep the reds for the race in case it magically turns into a red race.’ It’s good. I’m very happy for Louis but I’m just happy for the whole team.”
Devlin DeFrancesco starts from 19th after Scott Dixon was found to have impeded the Canadian and speaking following the action he said:
It was a disaster of a day. With the speed that we had, we were easily just as fast as my teammates. We seemed to be a little strong than the other two in both practice sessions, on both compounds. Big congrats to Louis for pole and for Graham being in the Firestone Fast Six. I think it was a huge missed opportunity for us because I think we should have been fighting Louis to be on pole.”