Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward in the No.5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet says that Scott Dixon did Scott Dixon at the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway on Sunday.
“Scott Dixon did Scott Dixon today. “When they were telling me on the radio the 9 car is trying to make it to the end, he’s going to make it until the end. I was happy with the strategy today; I was happy with my car. But, yeah … Scott Dixon.”
O’Ward started the race from third and came home in second place.
It’s another P2 for the books this year. I haven’t quite gotten that one last spot that we want which is P1, but I’m happy with that. The team did a great job in the pits, but Scott Dixon did a Scott Dixon today. We’re onto Portland and Laguna, and we’ll keep pushing.
Alexander Rossi in the No.7 VELO Chevrolet started the race from seventh and finished just off the podium in fourth place.
Speaking following the action the 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner said:
We’ll take P4 today. It was probably all we could do. It was tough to race here. I think the Firestone Alternative tires brought a good element of differentiation. You just can’t follow close enough, and it makes it really difficult to race, not being able to pass cars that are laps down. But it was a good day for the team. We have two top-five finishes in a row, which coming off a really difficult summer is good. We’ll aim to keep going the last two races.
Felix Rosenqvist in the No.6 onsemi Arrow McLaren Chevrolet started fourth and finished in eighth and speaking following the race the Swede said:
Given the circumstances, we actually had a really good race. We had good speed. Strategy didn’t really play out well, and also we had Nick, our front right tire changer had a problem with his back, so we had a teammate step up as a replacement. He did really well getting thrown into the race like that but when you have a change like that to the crew, it’s never optimal, so we lost a bit of time in the pits. This track is such small margins, so if you don’t do a perfect race, you’re not going to be in the top five. P8 is pretty good for what we had, and the car felt good. Good job to Pato and Alexander.”
Arrow McLaren Race Director Gavin Ward commented on the race saying:
That’s seven podiums for Pato so far this season, which is a wonderful tally, but somehow feels a little bittersweet when you’re missing that little bit to get a win. It was a strong day for the team, really good points with second, fourth and eighth. We’ve got to look into what let Felix down there, but we had a really strong pace out of all three cars and a clean day when a lot of other people didn’t have those. So we’ll take that and move on.”