CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
HONDA INDY 200 AT MID-OHIO
LEXINGTON, OHIO
TEAM CHEVY PRACTICE REPORT
JUNE 30, 2023
PATO O’WARD TOPS FRIDAY NTT INDYCAR SERIES PRACTICE AT MID-OHIO
- Topping the leaderboard after 75 minutes of practice at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Pato O’Ward, driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet at Arrow McLaren INDYCAR, led the session with his fastest lap of 1:06.4935.
- Chevrolet showed strength early in the session, with Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist, and Team Penske’s Will Power and Josef Newgarden occupying the top-three positions 15 minutes into the session.
- Chevrolet occupied four of the top-10 NTT INDYCAR Series Friday practice session results, with the top-10 separated by 0.7231 seconds and continuing to show how tight the field is in the series.
TEAM CHEVY TOP-10 PRACTICE RESULT:
Pos. Driver
1st Pato O’Ward
7th Josef Newgarden
8th Scott McLaughlin
9th Alexander Rossi
Qualifications and the Firestone Fast Six for Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio take place Saturday, starting at 2:45 p.m. ET. A final warm-up will start race day Sunday at 10:30 a.m. ET. All practice and qualifying will be live on Peacock, INDYCAR Radio, and SiriusXM Channel 160. The 80-lap, 180.64-mile race Sunday, July 2 will take the green flag at 1:30 p.m. ET live on USA Network.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING (QUOTES):
Scott McLaughlin, No. 3 Chevrolet at Team Penske:
A good start to the weekend for the No. 3 Good Ranchers Chevy team. It’s tight racing around Mid-Ohio and we had one of our best – if not our best – laps disrupted by some traffic early in the session. It happens, but I think we have a Chevrolet that can qualify in the Firestone Fast Six and run up front. We need a win to jumpstart the second half of the season for us and this is a place where we know that we can make that happen.”
Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Chevrolet at Arrow McLaren INDYCAR:
“Good start here at Mid-Ohio. We made some good changes to the car and end up from the practice in a really nice spot. Looking forward to tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if the rain decides to make an appearance or not, but so far, so good.”
ALEXANDER ROSSI, driver of the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet – End of Day Press Conference:
Q. Alex, you talked about having a fast teammate out there in Pato. Is it surprising to see? Is that about the speed you thought we might be seeing?
ALEXANDER ROSSI: I don’t know that I actually knew what we predicted. I think it was certainly surprising how quick, like, Josef went. Usually this track takes a while to evolve and come in. It’s kind of very rubber and temperature sensitive. With no Firestone rubber, hot day, he was the first car out, like to do a 7.3, we were like that’s pretty quick.
I don’t think turn one is that much faster. Obviously they repaved turn one. It’s certainly a chunk quicker. I don’t know that I know. It was a surprise, for sure.
Q. Last race at Road America was not what you were wanting. When you had the strong practices that started off that weekend, a couple weeks to digest that, do you feel like you continued to make some progress, trying to figure out a way to piece a whole weekend together?
ALEXANDER ROSSI: Yeah, I think so. We had some issues in the race that we were kind of able to identify. Yeah, for the most part I think the big priority prior to Road America was really qualifying and figuring that out.
I think we certainly unlocked a little bit in the test and the subsequent race weekend we had there. It’s tough. Like just because you were good last weekend doesn’t mean you’re going to be good this weekend.
The car started off in a good enough spot that we don’t feel like we’re playing catch-up. We feel we can continually stay on top of the track as the weekend progresses and it should be okay.
Q. Alex, you got T.K. around now as a special adviser. You got to work with him at Indy. What is it like having him in the role that he has on the team?
ALEXANDER ROSSI: He was really with us from St. Pete. It was Indy we obviously shared the track with him.
But, no, he’s a huge asset for the organization. Just being someone who obviously has recent experience in the car. It’s not really that. It’s just him as a team leader and someone who really understands how to make relationships and differing dynamics within motorsports work together. He’s pretty much an expert at that.
To have him in the position that he’s in, to have him around at the racetrack for the foreseeable future is a great thing for us as drivers. We all get along really well with him and enjoy the time with him. I think it will only help us in terms of our performance on and off the track.
Q. Alex, tomorrow there’s a chance of rain. Can you explain to people that don’t understand when you put all these laps in, all of a sudden it’s raining, you put on rain tires, but do you throw a lot of downforce on the car? Explain what you do.
ALEXANDER ROSSI: It really depends on, like, team philosophy. You’ll have teams that never change a car from wet to dry. They’ll kind of adjust brake balance, aero balance, that’s really it. You have other teams that kind of make mechanical adjustments.
It also depends on is it going to be wet for the entire day or just start wet and go dry. There’s a lot of variables in it.
Ultimately the rain is an equalizer. It’s more the driver that can make the difference versus the car performance, right? We don’t get a lot of wet races in INDYCAR, wet sessions in general. I think it would be a cool wild card to throw into the season this year. Yeah, maybe Alex Palou isn’t good in the wet. I’m sure he is, but maybe not (smiling). It could help the rest of us.
About Chevrolet
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