CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
GALLAGHER GRAND PRIX
INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY ROAD COURSE
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
TEAM CHEVY RACE ADVANCE
AUGUST 11, 2023
CHEVROLET QUALIFIES TWO IN THE TOP-SIX FOR SATURDAY’S GALLAGHER GRAND PRIX AT INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY ROAD COURSE
- Alexander Rossi and Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren INDYCAR will represent Chevrolet in the second row of the starting grid for Saturday’s Gallagher Grand Prix, qualifying third and fourth respectively in Firestone Fast Six qualifying.
- Arrow McLaren teammate Felix Rosenqvist will round out the top-10 in starting positions for the Bowtie brand, starting 10th.
- Rosenqvist led Team Chevy by finishing second in the first Gallagher Grand Prix practice with his fastest lap of 1:09.9267. Rossi followed in fourth with his lap of 1:10.1333.
- Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske, third), Callum Ilott (Juncos Hollinger Racing, fourth), Rinus VeeKay (Ed Carpenter Racing, sixth), and Agustin Canapino (Juncos Hollinger Racing, ninth) finished in the top-10 of final practice that wrapped Friday track action at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
TEAM CHEVY TOP-10 QUALIFYING RESULT:
Pos. Driver
3rd Alexander Rossi
4th Pato O’Ward
10th Felix Rosenqvist
TEAM CHEVY TOP-10 FIRST PRACTICE RESULT:
Pos. Driver
2nd Felix Rosenqvist
4th Alexander Rossi
6th Scott McLaughlin
8th Pato O’Ward
TEAM CHEVY TOP-10 FINAL PRACTICE RESULT:
Pos. Driver
3rd Scott McLaughlin
4th Callum Ilott
6th Rinus VeeKay
9th Agustin Canapino
Green flag for the 85-lap, 207.32-mile 2023 Gallagher Grand Prix waves the green flag live from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course Saturday, Aug. 12 at 2 p.m. ET on USA Network. Additional coverage of the race can be found on Peacock, INDYCAR Radio, and SiriusXM Channel 160.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING (QUOTES)
Josef Newgarden, No. 2 Chevrolet at Team Penske:
“Frustrating day for all of Team Penske, not just the Hitachi Chevrolet. It has been a strange year for us when it comes to qualifying. I’m sure we will have good pace tomorrow and hopefully we can catch a break with a caution or two to get some track position. We just need to be a better hold on qualifying moving forward, particularly over the off-season. It’s something we’ve been working on but we still need to keep improving.”
Scott McLaughlin, No. 3 Chevrolet at Team Penske:
“Not too bad today for the Gallagher Chevy. We will roll off P10 after the penalties tomorrow. The car isn’t the fastest but I think we’ve made some sort of inroads, but we’re still trying to look for a little balance here on the Indy road course, compared to all the other road courses. I think we got a really good race car, just a matter of qualifying at outright pace. So keep working, keep trying to find things. I think there is still a lot more work to be done but still start at the top 10.”
Will Power, No. 12 Chevrolet at Team Penske:
“Definitely a little disappointed in our qualifying results. It was just quite difficult for us to put a good lap together. I think we do have good Verizon Chevrolet here – we did when we raced here in May – and there are a lot of good cars and drivers starting back where we are so it will be a very interesting race. It’s a tough track and it should be tough. This is INDYCAR and you just can’t leave anything on the table.”
Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Chevrolet at Arrow McLaren INDYCAR:
“In Practice, we made a few changes to go in the right direction. We’re still not where we have to be and we’d still like to make it better. From when we raced here back in May to now in August this place has completely changed. Some of the drivers who are usually near the front aren’t today. I feel like we have had some very good Qualifying sessions here in the past but we have sometimes struggled to capitalize. It was a different story earlier this year in May when we did well. I hope we can get ourselves starting from there and hopefully make it go a little bit better.
Firestone have brought a different red tire and it hasn’t been the same, so it’s been tough to judge where that line is. Historically, this has been a red race – in May, it was a coin toss whether it was used blacks or used reds. Now, the tire is behaving really differently and I’m trying to cater to that, but it’s not quite in the window yet.
Tomorrow, we have to make things a little easier on ourselves by making the car better.”
Alexander Rossi, No. 7 Chevrolet at Arrow McLaren INDYCAR:
“Qualifying today was good for us. It’s our best Qualifying of the year, the team did a really good job. This is the first track that we’re seeing twice in the season, so starting from where we do on a familiar track; I’m happy with that. We will see what we can do tomorrow, we know we have a great car. It is of course disappointing to feel like we’re missing out a little bit, being close to the Front Row, but with a great car for tomorrow we can get a great result.”
Ryan Hunter-Reay, No. 20 Chevrolet at Ed Carpenter Racing:
“Qualifying is always super close here. Unfortunately, we just got a little loose on our run and had a little bit of rear instability. A few tenths of a second would make all the difference in the world. We’ll keep searching for some grip in warm up and hopefully move forward in the race tomorrow.”
Rinus VeeKay, No. 21 Chevrolet at Ed Carpenter Racing:
“I was pushing so hard, it’s so hard to get it right! My lap time was way down, but it looked like we were going to get through on that last lap. The entry of Turn 10, previous lap it was fine. Last lap, it was too loose and I lost three-tenths or something. It’s a bummer. At this point in the season, advancing for us would mean a lot. It would have been very nice, but unfortunately, there was that one moment.”
Santino Ferrucci, No. 14 Chevrolet at AJ Foyt Racing:
“Obviously just with the qualifying, you’re two-and-a-half tenths off of advancing and you’re P11, so it’s tight here at Indy. We’re just two-tenths off in practice from being in the top five, so yeah, that’s all we need.”
Benjamin Pedersen, No. 55 Chevrolet at AJ Foyt Racing:
“Unfortunately not the result we were hoping for as a team for both cars. We were trying a lot of different things in practice one to get the car ready and unfortunately with both cars we couldn’t quite get it right for qualifying but we have one more practice today to try and figure out what will be a good package for the race and see what we can come up with to finish the day as strong as possible.”
Agustin Canapino, No. 78 Chevrolet at Juncos Hollinger Racing:
“We finished P24 and will start there for tomorrow. Of course, it’s not the position we wanted but on the personal side, I’m happy because I qualified with the best car of the team. Tomorrow we will have the chance to finish in the top-20, perhaps top-15, and we will try to do it.”
About Chevrolet
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