NTT INDYCAR SERIES News Conference
Thursday May 22, 2025
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Conor Daly – Juncos Hollinger Racing
Starts 11th
Q. Scott and Conor, where did y’all watch the game from last night? How much fun was that?
CONOR DALY: I sent Scott a text and he lied to me. He said he wasn’t watching the game. What were you watching?
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: “Summer House.”
CONOR DALY: You’re a liar.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I was watching it.
CONOR DALY: I was in the bus lot. Felt really good, honestly.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: 20 minutes of that game I paced around my bus.
CONOR DALY: I shouted a lot, yeah.
Q. Conor, you’ve had some really good race cars here, led laps. Compare this to your previous cars going into a Carb Day and your confidence level for Sunday.
CONOR DALY: You know what, thanks for asking the question. I’m excited.
This has been a fun one so far. This is going to be a crazy one. I feel really lucky. I think I’ve been in multiple different situations at this race before, obviously with some fantastic cars and some cars that have struggled to make the race.
This one all month — actually, the first day, I would say, Tuesday I was a little nervous, didn’t have the best day, found our issue. Every day since then, the car has been a joy to drive. That doesn’t happen often here. Qualifying trim stuff was hard. That was challenging for sure at times.
This car in race trim, it’s very good. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be fighting for the win. We have a decent starting position as well, obviously. This team has just done a great job. For ampm to be here with ARCO as well for their first Indy 500, they love it. The car looks awesome, everybody is pumped.
A lot of wild number stats people have thrown at me about cold days, pit box numbers, moon signs, but I’m just going to stay focused on one day at a time and do my job every lap and see what happens.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: When Rossi won, I was in the middle of the one and two on the silver bullets.
CONOR DALY: When he won, I was sitting on the couch in my bus because I already crashed.
ALEXANDER ROSSI: Good job.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: The winner is coming from this row.
CONOR DALY: Does feel right.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Could be a party.
Q. How was it at the card shop? Did you get anything fun?
CONOR DALY: Shout-out Parkside. We got new INDYCAR trading cars. Go get ’em. I got some Alexander Rossi autographs. That was cool. A lot of great stuff out there.
Again, INDYCAR, a lot of good things going for INDYCAR. I think that’s one of them. Our fans have been super pumped about that, which has been awesome.
Q. It feels like this year it’s really a little bit more wide open. No one has come in and said this person is absolutely the favorite. Nor has anyone completely dominated every session. Is that fair? Do you feel this is perhaps a little bit more wide open? Can you think of someone or some team that you think is the absolute favorite going into the race?
CONOR DALY: I mean, I guess, yeah. You see the grid. I would say there’s cars scattered all over the place that you’re like, We didn’t expect that.
After the open test, I would have honestly predicted these fellas over to my left to kind of sweep the front row. Penske front row sweep. I was very wrong.
What PREMA did, what a cool story. Takuma Sato on the front row. Cool story. Pato. All of it’s just, like, cool. The Fast 12, that was I thought pretty exciting. You have Felix Rosenqvist in the Creed car, that was cool. There’s people all scattered throughout this field you wouldn’t really expect.
Qualifying was really difficult I think for a lot of people. ECR, those guys, again, solid, but normally they’re always in the front row. That kind of throws in a little bit of a new, Hey, seems like a different year. Something about the car that’s definitely challenging.
I think that again makes it must-see television on Sunday. I completely think there’s going to be more overtaking. After Monday, it was cool to see that. Cool temperatures. That helps racing, as well.
All of it leads to hopefully just a great event.
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