NTT INDYCAR SERIES News Conference
Thursday May 22, 2025
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Sting Ray Robb – Juncos Hollinger Racing
Starts 17th
THE MODERATOR: Sting Ray, for you, how important will those two hours tomorrow be?
STING RAY ROBB: I think for us it’s critical. We found an issue in the car on Monday with something that was affecting the handling, and so I had been struggling with it, and we couldn’t figure out what it was because it was one of those things that wasn’t bad enough yet. Finally it got bad enough on Monday and took it back to the garage and went, Oh, there it is.
I don’t really know what kind of race car I have, but I do know that it’s fast. Even though the balance hasn’t been good, the car has been very, very quick, which is kind of out of the ordinary. Usually it’s the other way around. You get really good balance but the car is not quick. This year it seems like these cars are just rapid.
I’m excited to see what we can did do for the race. Conor has been happy with his car. We both like a similar thing, which is nice. We can kind of use his foundation to build from.
Tomorrow is important for us. I think that we need to have that experience to find out what we need for the race.
Q. Sting Ray, about the speed on the car, do you feel like you can compare what you feel last year with this year, like the little things that change with the hybrid and the things that are changed just for the setup of the car? How do you can explain us a little about this difference?
STING RAY ROBB: Compared to last year it’s a new team for me on the 500 setup, and the car is quite a bit different with the hybrid as well. It’s hard to compare, right? The hybrid unit itself, I don’t think it has changed too much of what the cars are. It’s added weight, but it’s also added a little bit of the tools in the deployment region in how you maximize those.
I think that the balance change has been pretty minimal in that sense. Then going from last year’s team to JHR this year, I think that the speed that’s naturally in the car this year is better than what I had last year, which is kind of nice. I think that that comes down to the preparation.
So I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes. That’s not necessarily my job to know every little detail, but I do know that these guys have worked super hard to get these cars ready.
To be honest, I think it’s the same throughout the paddock, right? We see guys where they have their primary car and then an accident happens and they go to their backup car, and it’s just not the same. Thankfully for us we haven’t had that as far as an issue so far. We’ve been running our primary car, and it’s been very, very quick all week.
THE MODERATOR: Speak of experience for you, Sting Ray, Conor has led a lot of laps around this place. How has he helped you as a race car driver?
STING RAY ROBB: Yeah, Conor has been a great teammate for me this year. For him it’s nice to have some familiarity coming back to a team that he’s run at least a part of a season with.
I think that the things that he needs from the car is similar to what I need from the car, which is nice. Usually you have a certain driver going one way and a certain driver going another way, but this year it seems like we are kind of pushing the team in the same direction, which it’s nice when you can get two cars going in the same direction. Things happen a lot quicker that way because you don’t have to compromise.
So it’s been nice to kind of have a teammate that has similar feedback and is driving a similar car that I find to be good. We’ve seen it in other places other than here, right? I think Long Beach was a place that based off our street course setup we kind of pushed the team in the same direction. They had already been developing that way anyways.
Now coming to a track that Conor has done so well at, has so much experience at with different teams, he has a lot of knowledge, and also his approach to the car has been really good.
That’s the thing with the month of May. You can’t just outdrive anything. You kind of have to work up to it. You have to go through the process. You have to check all the boxes. That’s where the experience comes in is which boxes do I need to check today? Conor has done a good job to kind of help check those boxes for me throughout the week and the week prior to get ready for qualifying and all that, so it’s been very good.
THE MODERATOR: Setup similar between you?
STING RAY ROBB: Identical. You could copy one setup sheet to another. Part of that is I don’t know what kind of car I have, so we’ve just been following his leads.
THE MODERATOR: It’s a good leader certainly.
Q. Just got one for Sting Ray. Obviously your two previous race setups have been different. The first time was quite difficult, and you had that incident after running. Last year you were running at the front for quite a large period of it. I guess from your perspective, how unusual is it to have such two vastly different experiences that you carry over into the race this year?
STING RAY ROBB: Yeah, those are very, very two different experiences, but I think that the last two years here have been very unique experiences for me just because it’s overwhelming the month of Indy 500. I think this year I’m in a much better place mentally, physically. I understand and have expectations that are much more appropriate for what this is.
I’ll take my leading experience from last year, and hopefully that will come in handy for this season. Starting a restart from first is a little bit different than starting it from 20th. Now I know what that’s like. Hopefully I’ll have another chance to do it again this year.
Q. Especially in your rookie year you sort of said the off track stuff, all the commitments you have to do and all the other stuff got quite tiring. Now you’re in your third year. Has anything really changed? Have you got the schedule off track where you can manage all this?
STING RAY ROBB: The schedule has been way better this year compared to the first year I was in INDYCAR. I remember it was my mom — my momager as I affectionately call her — that was scheduling everything for me at that time. She just said yes to everything that she could.
Whether it was talking to someone about doughnut at their doughnut shop or someone that was with FOX Sports. You name it, we did every interview that we could that rookie season. I remember I didn’t interview in the car driving from one speaking event to another while eating my lunch. I was, like, Okay, that’s it, I’m not doing that again.
Now I have scheduled naps into my routine, which is way better. I like it a lot more.
THE MODERATOR: Just after having experienced the Indy 500, both of you, once, twice, what’s your favorite part of race day?
STING RAY ROBB: I think for me outside of the racing there’s a lot of tradition here, and I’m still learning what it means to be an INDYCAR driver at the Indianapolis 500. Every year it seems like there’s another layer added to it.
I actually got to sit in on Jake Query giving a little bit of a speech earlier this month and just kind of the history of how the speedway came to be. It makes you appreciate the grounds a little bit more, the fans a little bit more, the city a little bit more, and it makes you realize the impact that we’re having is more than just driving race cars around a racetrack.
I think one of my favorite moments that I’ve experienced so far, and it’s been the same answer the last two years, but when they do the playing of the “Taps,” and it’s dead silent after, and you look around, and you can just see the sort of solemnness that’s in the air. It’s one of those things where it’s, like, Yeah, racing is cool, but it’s not everything.
It’s kind of a neat perspective to have on Memorial Day weekend being from America and appreciating that these are the freedoms that we’ve been doing to steward well. That’s part of the reason why we have the livery on the car that we have this year. It’s been a pleasure.
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