CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
107TH RUNNING OF THE INDIANAPOLIS 500
TEAM PENSKE PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT

MAY 19, 2023

WILL POWER, SCOTT MCLAUGHLIN, JOSEF NEWGARDEN, TIM CINDRIC, and RICK MEARS, met with the media prior to NTT INDYCAR Series Fast Friday practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Press Conference Transcript:

THE MODERATOR: Good morning, everyone. So many great traditions here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and these Fast Friday news conferences have become among them. We’ll start with Team Penske.

Joining us today, Tim Cindric, who is the president of Team Penske.

Josef Newgarden, driver of the No. 2 Shell Powering Progress Dallara Chevrolet.

Scott McLaughlin to his left, driving the No. 3 Pennzoil Dallara Chevrolet.

To his left, Will Power driver of the No. 12 Verizon 5G Dallara Chevrolet.

And of course to his left and far right, the legendary Rick Mears, four-time Indianapolis 500 winner for Team Penske.

This marks the 49th year for Team Penske at the Indianapolis 500, the first one coming back in 1969 with the late great Mark Donohue driving a McLaren.

Team’s first win came with Mark just three years later in 1972. From there, names like of course Rick, Unser, Hornish, De Ferran, Power, Castroneves, they’ve all won 500s for the captain.

13 different drivers have won the 500 for Team Penske. Team Penske earned its 17th and 18th Indianapolis 500 victories in back-to-back fashion Will Power in 2018 and Simon Pagenaud in 2019.

Josef Newgarden has finished inside the top 5 in two of his last four starts in the 500.

Scott McLaughlin will make his third Indianapolis 500 start this year in the iconic yellow submarine livery. Think about this, the team has a combined 711 years of INDYCAR experience this year, 711.

Of course Team Penske coming off a historic season in which they became the first team to win both the NTT INDYCAR Series Championship and the NASCAR Cup Series Championship in the same year with drivers Will Power and Joey Logano.

Quite a year last year, and it’s already turning into a great season here in 2023.

Tim, earlier this year it was announced you’ve got a big honor coming up, something about the Hall of Fame, which is well deserved. Not bad for a kid who grew up in Indianapolis and hit the garage with your dad all the time. Now here you are on the world’s greatest stage in INDYCAR.

Are you looking forward to the week?

TIM CINDRIC: “Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being here so early. No doubt, as a kid growing up here, it’s not something that I ever thought was possible, to have that honor from your peers, and the rest of it is really just a testament to the people that have been around. Whether it’s the drivers or the crew or guys like Roger and Herb Porter and some of these people that I hung around with.

Yeah, to be part of that club is going to be really cool.”

THE MODERATOR: If it’s not Indy — honestly, it’s not Indy if Rick isn’t hanging out with us. It’s great to have you back here in 2023. Your first season with the team back in 1978. You’ve always been a fixture here, which is tremendous.

What do you think as you watch the season unfold this year, the quality of racing, the parity that once again exists in this series? Just your overall thoughts about 2023.

RICK MEARS: “I think it’s great, and thank you to everybody for being here. I think it’s great. Just like I think that’s what INDYCAR has always tried to do, is get that parity. That’s what we always strive to try to make happen.

But I think really, these past years with the rules, the way they’ve been lately, with the new less downforce package and all that, the proof is in the numbers.

It’s been stable for so long that everybody is figuring it out, which makes it tighter across the board.

When you start to look at the numbers, I look at one of the road races here a couple races ago, there was like seven or eight cars in the same tenth, 24 within a second.

So I think everything being stable and everybody playing with the same — it’s probably the easiest time to get into the series and be competitive with the cars and being able to establish yourself, get the right people, because you’re getting the same blocks everybody is playing with.

Now it’s figuring out how to stack them. As people learn how to stack them, it gets tighter and tighter.

I think it’s great across the board, and I think it’s going to continue on that way.

One thing about it I say it’s probably the easiest time to get involved. On the other hand, it makes the competition probably one of the toughest times to win in that respect.

But that’s what it’s all about.”

THE MODERATOR: We’ve had some of the tightest qualifying Firestone Fast Sixes in the history of INDYCAR racing lately.

Will, congratulations to you. An outstanding year last year. You talk about wins, the championship, poles, and so on and so forth. Bottom line, here we are at Indy. What is it going to take to win another 500 for you?

WILL POWER: “Yeah, we’ve worked extremely hard in the off-season development-wise. Just sort of two days in of running I feel like we’re in a pretty good place, definitely in race work.

The no-tow laps look good right now, but you never sort of can rely on that. I think today we’ll get a pretty good idea of where we stack up pace-wise.

It’s like Rick said, there’s so many good team-driver combinations now, people — all these teams turn up, they just improve every year, and the car doesn’t change. So there’s a ceiling.

I think Ganassi was the top, and everyone is sort of getting up there now. I think it’s going to be one of the tightest qualifyings in history here, especially to get in the top 12.

I think we’ve done the work and I think Chevy has improved a bit, and I’m really hoping all three of us are in that top 12, and if everything goes really well, fighting for a pole.”

THE MODERATOR: Josef, for you, you haven’t been shy about talking about the whole team needs to up their game a little bit when it comes to the 500 to get that first win for you and the group.

Was there a change of approach that was needed? Or maybe not? What will be the key, I guess, come a week from Sunday in the 107th running of the 500?

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: “Well, it’s great to be back. I feel really good this week headed into this weekend with the No. 2 Shell car, Powering Progress, and I don’t know necessarily change of approach.

I think Indy, there’s a lot of recipes that can work here, and I think our approach of trying to get the details right has always been true at this team. I don’t think we’re going to change that.

But sometimes there’s different elements that we may not look at the right way, and we go back and we look at them again and say, can we look at them differently.

I think that has been a core thing for us, just trying to reassess every little detail in the way that we’re examining it, and hopefully we’ve got a better recipe this time around.

I think our approach is similar to always; this race, this team knows how to win this race. They’ve won it the most of anybody. They’re very successful at doing it.

I think the core principles need to stay the same as always, but we know we need to elevate our game with regards to speed and we’ve been chipping away at it. There’s been a tremendous amount of effort from everybody. There’s no shortage of effort.

We’re excited for this weekend. Hopefully we’re going to have enough, and then obviously the big show is next weekend, so let’s see where we land.”

THE MODERATOR: For Scott, Tim has always talked about year three being the year to show the most improvement. For you, where is that room to grow this year.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: “There’s always room to grow. It’s been an up-and-down few years, but obviously last year was fantastic in terms of my development, and then this year having a win already before coming to Indy is a nice feeling.

But as the guys have said, I think as a team, I think we’ve really worked together well between the three drivers, between the engineers, between everybody that’s behind the scenes and put in the hard work to make sure we get speed.

But also, it’s not just here. It’s all the other tracks, as well. I think we’ve really worked together and the camaraderie in the team has been great.

From a personal perspective, there’s always times where I can find a bit more of myself, and I’ll continue chipping away at that. New stuff will pop up every year, doesn’t matter if it’s third, fourth or the tenth year.

I feel like I’m in a good place right now, feel comfortable in the car, feel comfortable here at this place, and hopefully that bodes well for the rest of the month.”

Q. It used to be we would come to Indy and we could expect to see the established teams fighting for the pole, fighting for the front row, but it really seems like now there could be a couple of surprises that get up there. Is there anybody in particular that you expect that we’ll see a variety of teams in the first couple of rows this year rather than the two dominant teams?

TIM CINDRIC: “I guess when you look at the past few years, there hasn’t been a dominant team, obviously, in qualifying here. Ganassi and Carpenter have been the ones at least we look at as having the most consistent speed here in what I call the wind screen era.

Prior to that, I think you could look at us and a few others.

But it’s been something that for us every little detail is really, really important in qualifying, and every condition, as it’s closer, the conditions and when you run and what you do there are that much more important, at least getting into the top 12.

Once you get into the top 12 and you go through that process, it becomes — for who actually gets the pole, typically the fastest car is the one that gets the pole here.

I think over the years, when you look at the past few years, you’ve got to start up front when you look at who’s won the race and where they’ve started from the past three or four years.

It’s much tougher in the race to get to the front from the back. It’s really, really important for everybody to at least get to that top 12.”

Q. For Rick, should Scott Dixon get the pole this weekend, he would tie you for most poles in Indy 500 history. He would also become the first driver to ever win three poles in a row. Obviously you have a lot of respect and admiration for Scott Dixon, but when you look at his ability to qualify well here, he’s the best that’s been here since you.

RICK MEARS: “Yeah, if it happens, it happens. That’s the old saying, records are meant to be broken.

Obviously would I like to hang on to it? Sure. But if he gets it, he’s earned it. The job he’s done to be able to get to that position, I definitely respect that.

In one respect I’d be happy for him for the job he’s been doing, but in another respect I’d rather keep it.”

Q. Ganassi was the class of the field last year, and I know that it’s only two days of running here, but I presume it was mostly race setup the last two days and speed charts and everybody out there kind of indicated they’re still really good. How do you guys assess it? Do you feel like you’re closing the gap or do you feel more confident this year? Do they look good?

TIM CINDRIC: “It’s so close right now. Draft speeds, we can go do a 229 if we hang back far enough the past two days, so I think that’s circumstantial in the past few days. I don’t really think that it’s a big indicator until you get to Friday. Today you’ll start to see a bit more of that and then over the weekend, obviously.

I think it’s early days. Certainly they’re going to be tough without a doubt, but as far as assessing where we are, I think the past couple days are more about getting the confidence for these three guys in race trim and being able to actually pass the cars that probably aren’t as fast as you.

I think here it’s really, really difficult to pass the fast cars unless they’re leading. But the key for the race really is to be able to get by the ones that are struggling a couple miles an hour slower than you are, and we couldn’t do that the past couple years confidently.

I think they can talk to that a bit, but that’s kind of where our focus has been as far as how you can follow and how you can pass rather than kind of what the overall lap time is.

I think most cars out here given the right tow can go 229 in the past couple days.”

Q. Josef, what you were saying about how you go through all those minute details and go back and look at things, on Bruce’s podcast last week you said that you guys had maybe gone on the wrong path of development here last year. When did that process begin to change that and get on a new path for this year, and do you feel like you’re on a better path this year than last year?

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: “I thought we were on a much better path last year. I think unfortunately we didn’t get to show the full potential of the work that went into last year. I really think we should have had a couple more cars in the Fast 12.

Generally, not just saying that for trying to paint the picture better, but we made a lot of progress last year, and I think this year is more of an evolution of what we did last year.

We can go back and pick apart 2022 and we can make it look a lot better I think if things go differently, but we can’t. We landed where we did. Just to reiterate, I think we made a big step, and we’re just evolving within that step again this year. We obviously need a little bit more than where we were last season, and we’re going to find out this weekend if we fully get there.

I feel pretty confident at the moment that we’ve done a lot of good work to get there, and we’ve just got to execute now.”

TIM CINDRIC: “What he’s really trying to say is the guy that drew for qualifying spots last year, which was me, did a really bad job in the conditions, and that had a lot to do with it.

We’ve got new guys that are going to draw for where they start this year.”

Q. (No microphone.)

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: “He’s making us go do it.”

TIM CINDRIC: “No, no, no. You guys volunteered to do it.”

Q. (No microphone.)

TIM CINDRIC: “I think if you were there, I would have. I booed myself.” (Laughter.)

Q. Tim, a technical question for you. Tomorrow for qualifying the booster is up, then it goes back to normal for race day. In principle could you run the whole race distance with a higher boost?

TIM CINDRIC: “I think the answer to that is yes. At those levels, the engines have been able to achieve that in the past, but there’s a whole circumstance that goes behind that in terms of how many engines you could use in a year, what the cost would be, all those different things.

I’m sure the engine guys, given the time and the funding to run this level of booster power throughout the race could figure that out.

Could you do it with the engine as it exists right here? I doubt it, because it’s pretty much optimized for what you have and the circumstances you’re given.

It’s not as simple as just saying, let’s turn up the boost for race day and race it at this boost level. But certainly we’ve run that level of power, if you want to call it that, here in the past.

But there’s circumstances that you’re trying to work within, and that’s really what the challenges are.”

Q. Going off of what Tim said earlier about how tough it is to pass fast cars when they’re not leading in a line, where do you guys ultimately feel for the drivers, feel like you need to qualify this weekend to feel comfortable going into the race that you can have a shot to do some work and potentially win from there?

WILL POWER: “Top 12. I think that’s — you can come from the back. It’s just very difficult. You’ve got to have a very good day and yellows fall your way, but top 12, you can definitely work from there.”

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: “Yeah, I’ve seen the 20s, I’ve seen the teens, and would love to be in the top 12 for my third.

But like Will said, it’s definitely doable, but a couple things fall your way, and if you’re got a fast car, you can come from wherever you want.

But certainly it would be a lot easier at the start when you can get into a fuel mileage deal and look after your car before you get into the nitty-gritty stuff towards the end of the race.”

Q. We’ve seen the last couple years this move toward the end of the race that Marcus executed in terms of weaving up and down the backstretch and trying to break the draft and it seems like it’s a pretty hard thing to combat. Is there any way that you guys have over the past year in looking at it, is there any way to try to combat that or maybe defend is not the right word, but if you’re the guy in second place these last couple laps, get around that and have a shot at winning, or is that a pretty unbeatable move?

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: “There was a guy that had a shot to get around it last year, so I think it’s not the end all, be all.

They’re all going to shake out differently, too. Last year I’d be surprised if it’s the same scenario, exactly the same.”

Q. Question for the drivers. This race has a very particular qualifying format. If we compare to any other race in the world, two days, a lot of hours’ session. Can you explain the process and the psychology for the drivers and the development of the car doing all these hours of qualifying in Indy?

WILL POWER: “Yeah, I mean, the cars are so finicky, like when you’re getting down to the last little bit of speed you’re looking for, I mean, you’re trimming little bits of downforce off. It takes a lot of time to be able to do that, to understand what the car will do over four laps.

You’re trying to get clear track, as well. So that’s why we have so much time. You’re looking for — you don’t even want to see a car because that disturbs the air, and it’s hard to judge what gears to run because you’re getting a little bit of help.

Around this place, everything — there’s just the smallest of details, smallest of changes. You can’t make a big change at once. That’s why you need a lot of time.”

Q. Curious your thoughts, Rick, and maybe the drivers, out of the four laps here you’re on the razor’s edge. Which is the most important one to land right to qualify better here? Which of the four laps?

RICK MEARS: “That would vary all the time with the setup. One year you’d have tires that maybe the fronts would go off more than the rears, and vice versa the next year. That was always part of the plan that you started working on early in the month to get a feel for what kind of change you were going to get through the first four laps to adjust everything.

You might need to start the car out so loose you can’t drive it the first lap to get it to kind of come into its own in the middle, and then it’s the opposite direction at the last lap.

It was something that’s always changed.

I think today the cars are more consistent in that respect. It’s not as big a change.

I used to run for laps and never run one corner the same way twice in four laps. I was having to adjust the pattern and everything due to what the car was telling me from a previous time through.

It was just a continuous adapting, so it was always about — I think it’s more consistent today, but still, like you’re saying, attention to detail and the finer things, and everything is just a lot tighter.

It’s relative, but still a little different today.”

Q. TC, you’re the son of an engine builder, and Rick, you’re the greatest qualifier in Indy 500 history. Do you guys miss the days when you used to have the qualifying engines that you would put in just for the weekend? And from a team standpoint or a manufacturer’s standpoint, how much does it really save the budget to do it the way they do it now?

TIM CINDRIC: “Yeah, Roger and I were talking about this the other day, not only the engines but backup cars. You were required to run backup cars pretty much on the second week, because if your primary car was eliminated you didn’t start the race or whatever else.

Anyway, to your question, I think those days are over, you know, relative to the way it used to be. We used to put an engine in every day, and to ask the mechanics to do that kind of work and the budgets that went into that. We talk about running three or four engines a year through the whole season right now; we would use that many engines in one week.

These engines were 50-mile engines, 100-mile engines with really short fuses. It was fun to a certain degree, but it was also risky from a driver standpoint, because you saw a lot more failure back then. I think throughout the month you would have one or two accidents just due to blown engines. Fortunately we don’t see that today.

I think those days are gone. But in terms of funding, it was unlimited, so it’s hard to really put a number to it.”

RICK MEARS: “From the driver standpoint, it was always a lot of fun. You always wanted to see numbers you’ve never seen before as far as rpms or speeds or whatever the case may be. But it’s all relative. You do the same thing and try to accomplish the same thing no matter what horsepower range you have.

You’re still trying to trim it enough to get it on the limit and hold your breath longer than the other guys or get it freer or whatever the case may be, so you’re still hanging on.

It’s all relative in that respect, but it was always fun to have a little more and see some numbers you haven’t seen the whole month.”

Q. For the drivers, it started in ’19 with Pagenaud doing the weave to prevent Rossi from passing him and winning, and it seems like now whenever there’s a late restart at the end of this race — Ericsson did it last year, doing the dragon, or whatever, weaving back and forth. Would you guys do that? Is that just what you have to do if there’s a late restart? Would you expect that’s the way you’re going to have to win the race, and should INDYCAR do anything to prevent that from happening because it looks so weird and because there could be a safety element to it?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: “I think you do anything to win the race within the rules. But I think that for me, the only thing that’s nerve-racking about that is maybe coming off 4, and if you’re going sort of head on into the attenuator, or you go below that, sometimes you just can’t see that. You’re following the guy in front of you.

But one thing that Pagenaud did really well in 2019 was he had a car that could just hold really narrow, and he broke the tow straight away. And then as soon as they tried to come back down he went back up, so he wasn’t necessarily below the white down the back straight.

Yeah, that’s the only thing that makes me nervous about that.”

Q. (No microphone.)

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: “I don’t know.”

WILL POWER: “The rule is you can’t move in reaction to, so once a car is close to you, by the rules, you shouldn’t be able to do it. Any other race it would be a penalty for moving in the reaction to the car behind because you’re — yeah, I don’t think it makes that big of a difference, honestly.

I mean, you’re scrubbing more speed out front, plus you have more drag, and if the car behind anticipates well — it’s hard to say or quantify whether that actually makes a difference.

I mean, with this downforce level you could almost not be leading, you could be second coming off a last corner and probably get by the start-finish.”

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: “I would just add it’s not that unique to Indianapolis. People do this everywhere. Texas — it’s more dramatic here because of the nature of the track, the way the straightaways are laid out, but this happens everywhere, this technique to break the tow.

So to Will’s point, as long as you’re not going against the rules, it’s legal. I don’t think INDYCAR is going to do anything about it and you don’t have to have that strategy to win. Obviously that’s what’s been implemented by people because they saw it.

It can be effective I think at times, but it doesn’t mean it’s the only way to win the race in that scenario.”

Q. Are you guys glad the race is no longer double points, and how will that affect the championship?

WILL POWER: “Depends if I win or not. If I win, I would be really mad that it was not double points, but otherwise I think the double points was a terrible idea.”

Q. Will it make a difference on the championship?

WILL POWER: “Oh, big time.”

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: “Yeah, when you won this race, obviously you know that the point difference that you’d get was substantial. Yeah, making it the same as every other race I don’t think is a bad thing.”

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CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
INDIANAPOLIS 500
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
TEAM CHEVY PRACTICE REPORT

MAY 18, 2023

WILL POWER AND CONOR DALY LEAD TEAM CHEVY AT THE CLOSE OF INDIANAPOLIS 500 THURSDAY PRACTICE

• Will Power of Team Penske led the Chevrolet teams with his fastest speed at 228.577 MPH for fourth on the second practice day leaderboard.
• Conor Daly of Ed Carpenter Racing finished second for Chevrolet teams, sixth overall, with his top speed of 228.215 MPH.
• Will Power (second), Santino Ferrucci (third), and Scott McLaughlin (fourth) led the Bowtie brand on no-tow speeds, seeing an increase of almost one mile per hour more than Wednesday’s end of day speeds. Power led Team Chevy with his fastest no-tow lap at 224.283 MPH.
• Today’s Indianapolis 500 practice field continues to demonstrate the competitive nature of the NTT INDYCAR Series. Of the 34 cars, the differential of time from first to 34th is under one second, at 0.9931.
• Kyle Larson, competing in the 2024 Indianapolis 500 with Arrow McLaren, met with members of the media at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this morning along with Jeff Gordon, Vice Chairman at Hendrick Motorsports and decorated racer, and Gavin Ward, Racing Director at Arrow McLaren INDYCAR.

TEAM CHEVY TOP-10 PRACTICE RESULT:
Pos. Driver
4th Will Power
6th Conor Daly
8th Pato O’Ward
10th Alexander Rossi

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING (QUOTES)

Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Camaro ZL1 in the NASCAR Cup Series and 2024 Indianapolis 500 competitor with Arrow McLaren INDYCAR:

“Checking out a practice day here. Getting excited about next year’s Indy 500. Really just came here today to hang out around the Arrow McLaren team to just soak up any little bit of anything to prepare myself for whenever I get behind the wheel of an Indy car. It’s been pretty neat. I’ve been here a couple of times once to hang out, I came here for the race in 2013, but never this close to the action. It’s been neat. I think the more I can soak up, the less surprises I’ll have next year. Happy to be here, happy for the opportunity. I’m excited about the opportunity. It’s still so far away that I haven’t spent that much time preparing yet, but I look forward to the preparation to be ready and competitive. Hopefully, we have a good run next year. We’ll see. It’s been cool hanging out here today. Arrow McLaren has amazing hospitality, great people. Looking forward to next year.”

Will Power, No. 12 Chevrolet at Team Penske:

“A small issue to start the day. We had something going on with our telemetry but once we diagnosed and fixed it, it was a good day for the Verizon 5G Chevy team. We seem to be in a good position for qualifying, but tomorrow will be the true test when we get the boost increase. Qualifying up front is important in the 500, but you can win from several rows back. That’s not where we hope to be, but we have single-car speed and the No. 12 Chevy was racy in the pack.”

Conor Daly, No. 20 Chevrolet at Ed Carpenter Racing:

“Today was a good day. We had the chance to get good no-tow runs in, but know we can trim more and be even faster. The car was even great in traffic so I feel strong and that is a nice feeling.”

Josef Newgarden, No. 2 Chevrolet at Team Penske:

“My second full day and the typical up and down. It changes every day with the conditions but got a lot of good running in with the with the Shell car . Feeling really good with Team Chevy, and what we’re building towards this weekend. Qualifying — that’s going to be most important right now. There is speed in the car and hopefully stay up front. We get through that and we can worry about the race as well.”

Scott McLaughlin, No. 3 Chevrolet at Team Penske:

“I feel good. The Pennzoil Chevy is fast on no-tow and and race running. So it looks good. We get to up the boost t tomorrow so we will see we’ve got. But overall pretty good day. We got through everything what we needed to do today and I feel like we’re in a good spot.”

Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Chevrolet at Arrow McLaren INDYCAR:

”It was a tough day for us, to be honest. We’re definitely not in the spot where we want to be yet, but we’re working at it. We’ve got a plan to go through after qualifying this weekend. Tomorrow, it’s obviously a very different goal: to go as fast as you can by yourself. Boost is up, so we’re going to get everything prepared for that.”

Felix Roseqvist, No. 6 Chevrolet at Arrow McLaren INDYCAR:

”It was a very productive day. I think we did around 150 laps, so we got a lot of data – some good reads, some bad reads – but we were way more clever today than we were yesterday. Now we switch focus to going fast with Fast Friday, so we will turn up the boost. I think we’re in the game. There are a lot of strong cars out there so it is going to be tight like always, probably even tighter than last year, but our cars are definitely not bad. We just need to stay with it for the month.”

Alexander Rossi, No. 7 Chevrolet at Arrow McLaren INDYCAR:

“It was a good day. More progress was made from the whole team. I’m getting happier and happier with the car each time we go out, which is great. I think we’re in a pretty good spot for the group running. There are some small tweaks to come, but now the focus turns to qualifying – one of the most fun parts of the year.”

Tony Kanaan, No. 66 Chevrolet at Arrow McLaren INDYCAR:

”All in all a good day. We worked on race stuff all day long. We made big changes, so I think the team is happy. Now we go back and get ready for qualifying. We had to stop a little early because we want to be ready for tomorrow. There’s a little bit of a chance of rain in the afternoon, so we want to be ready to go right at noon. I’m happy.”

Rinus VeeKay, No. 21 Chevrolet at Ed Carpenter Racing:

“I am very happy today. It may not look like it in charts, but we are fast. The car feels really, really good to drive. We made progress all day and the BITNILE.COM crew has made all the right changes. We have everything that we have, now we will trim it out for tomorrow. It is always the best when you are driving an ECR car here at IMS.”

Ed Carpenter, No. 33 Chevrolet at Ed Carpenter Racing:

“Today was a good and productive day. It is funny – I feel better about the car today than yesterday, but we are deeper in the time sheet today. That doesn’t really matter when we accomplished everything we wanted to today. I still have a couple questions on what the right thing ultimately is, but we worked well as a group together. We will go fast tomorrow.”

Santino Ferrucci, No. 14 Chevrolet at AJ Foyt Racing:

“Solid day today. P3 in the no-tow, P11 overall. I’m really happy with that and continuing to progress. Got some pace, and looking forward to Fast Friday.”

Benjamin Pedersen, No. 55 Chevrolet at AJ Foyt Racing:

“Very good day. It’s starting to get fun with doing some qualifying runs. Most of the morning was race runs. This afternoon, we started doing some qual runs, and we’ve got very good speed. We’ve been pretty conservative still with our current level, and we’re pretty competitive even with that. Looking forward to getting a little more aggressive with it.”

Ryan Hunter-Reay, No. 23 Chevrolet at Dreyer & Reinbold Racing:

End of day:

“It was a challenge today. We tried throwing quite a bit at the car. We knew some of it wasn’t going to stick. But we wanted to try it anyway. More of it were things to avoid than we really wanted. But at the end of the day, we found a pretty good setting for qualifying. We ended up in the Top Ten in the No-tow chart and that was good. You always want to end the day well and I think we did that today. We are ready for Fast Friday. We’ll get the extra boost right away with Friday practice begins. So, we will be ready to go at 12 noon.”

“So far so good. You know, it’s only been two days on track that we’ve worked together. Everything so far we’re doing all the right we’re doing all the right stuff, checking off all the right boxes. And, you know, we’re really focusing on and as a group just executing on pit lane. You know, we’re all working together for the first time kind of myself at the team and it’s, it’s been really good though. I’m enjoying the smaller team atmosphere and certainly really happy to be back with Chevy. Got a lot of history there. Whether it be winning the championship, with the IndyCar championship, working with working with the same group on the inside, so Yeah, happy to be back.”

What has been the hardest thing jumping back in?

“Jumping back of the car after being gone a year? What’s been the hardest thing? I really, I mean, after two or three laps at the open test, it was like I hadn’t left so it wasn’t you know, it wasn’t something I’ve got a lot of experience here. So it was it was definitely not something that caught me off guard or anything like that. And ideally, you don’t want to take a year and a half off from being in an IndyCar but it’s yeah, it went better than expected.”

Stefan Wilson, No. 24 Chevrolet at Dreyer & Reinbold Racing:

End of day:

“Solid day for the No. 24 DRR/Cusick Motorsports/CareKeepers Chevrolet. We focused on our qualifying setup for the whole day. It doesn’t necessarily look great on the speed charts, but we were in a decent place on the No-tow listings. And we are happy with the car’s handling. Wednesday was a good day with the race car and it’s great to be back at Indianapolis for the 500. We are anxious for Fast Friday now with the additional boost in the engine.”

How much has changed since you drove two years ago? How difficult is it to jump back in the car?

“It’s actually been really smooth for me. You know, I’m used to last minute preparation, last minute deals coming together. And this year, it’s often so much earlier that we’re just several steps ahead of the game, compared to last time and I’m in the process was a big boost to my program. I’m reacquainting myself to INDYCAR and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this whole week. And never really feel acquainted until, you know, race week, really. So I just feel like I’m ahead of the game like I’ve hit the ground running this week, having had that open says to get through ROP and you know, get we got 150 laps on the board that day, so it just feels like I’m so much further ahead and the cars changed just a little bit with a bit more arrow. So it’s gonna make the race a little bit more exciting, maybe a few more passing opportunities. And I’m just really pleased with the whole drive. I’m Dreyer and Reinbold/Cusic Motorsports crew, they’ve just done an amazing job to prepare the car and because as you know, me and mine assured we’re pretty fast already. So we’ll see if we can keep that up, keep making some positive changes to try to develop the car and, and I think the goal for the team is trying to get both cars in the festival and we’ll see if that’s possible.”

Ryan Hunter-Reay is your teammate. He’s been out of the car for a year as well, so how are you guys getting through your lists so far?

“He is absolutely a legend. We have been teammates in the past, two years Andretti. In a camp that big and we barely even spoke to each other, so this is the first time we’re really truly teammates. I think we’re both hungry. You know, he didn’t race last year, the 500. And I’m coming off with like, you know, wanting very hungry to prove myself. So we both have similar mindsets. We’re both very, very determined this year and the whole crew, overdrive to that the whole drive onboard basically has something to prove. So we’re all in that same mentality. And I think we’re the underdogs and I think we can prove something this month.”

CONOR DALY, NO. 20 CHEVROLET FOR ED CARPENTER RACING – End of Day Press Conference:

THE MODERATOR: Wrapping up Thursday practice here. Joining us now Conor Daly for Ed Carpenter Racing, who next week will make his 10th Indianapolis 500 start.

No shocker, the Ed Carpenter cars are pretty good, Conor.

CONOR DALY: “Yeah, thankfully this track we’ve still managed to retain our speed. It’s been nice. It’s been fun. The couple days have been interesting.

I still think it will be very interesting come tomorrow when the power goes up because I think we’ll see a general trend on fast cars, but what is that going to look like when we got all the juice? We’ll see what happens.

But I’m very confident so far, more confident than I would say I was last year at this time, both in traffic and in no tow. So, yeah, not too bad.”

THE MODERATOR: When things get turned up, we’re pushing about 100 horsepower more tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday.

CONOR DALY: “100?”

THE MODERATOR: 90, maybe 100.

CONOR DALY: “Geez, I thought it was only 50.”

THE MODERATOR: What could it do to the cars balance-wise?

CONOR DALY: “Honestly, it depends on I guess who is developing the most grip mechanically. We could see some people, at Texas it was interesting, some people managed to run with more downforce and actually be faster.

It’s about efficiency, the less scrub the better. So sometimes you can trim out here too much and be a victim of kind of being a bit too aggressive.

It’s just finding that little window. By lap four, for sure the tires are going off. When you’re doing two hundred a ton miles an hour, the first laps feel like I got this, then three and four you’re fighting an animal – at least I have been.

I’ve always struggled a little bit in qualifying here, but I feel better already going forward, so that’s nice.

All three of our cars are similar in speed, which is encouraging. Obviously the team brings three good cars here all the time.”

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Conor, it’s been a difficult season for ECR. How confident are you coming back to the Speedway, seeing the rhythm is coming back, the cars are fast around this place?

CONOR DALY: “Well, I mean, it just shows like Rinus and I haven’t forgotten how to drive, thankfully. There’s been a lot of difficulties this year.

When we come here, though, it’s been a great two days. It’s been fun. It’s more fun to be competitive as well. Appreciate the team, the effort they’ve put in here.

Yeah, I mean, the goal is obviously to take advantage of it. It’s hard because you never know what can happen, but we’re trying to execute every day, as good as we can.

I love the new look of the car. We want to do the best job we can here for Chevrolet as well, at the Chevrolet Indoor Speedway. We want to be strong for them as well (smiling).”

Q. Obviously you had a lot of boxes you wanted to tick in the first three days. How much did you feel you have ticked and how much do you feel still needs to happen?

CONOR DALY: “I actually feel pretty good when it comes to race setup. I think we’re all still going to try to do a bunch of stuff on Monday and get a little bit more dialed in. But realistically there’s not a ton of changes overall compared to last year, I would say. We want to try to dial in a few more things.

When we come to Sunday, next weekend, raw speed is going to be really what helps. If we can just get our cars to go faster, it’s a little less work to go that fast, then we’ll be in a good spot.”

Q. Conor, is there much changes for setup or in principle can you do the car unchanged when the boost goes up?

CONOR DALY: “Honestly today, as Marcus said, we try to do a couple runs in the qual trim. We peel a lot off the car for at least kind of baseline qual trim. It is different from what we’re doing race setup-wise.

I would say what we ran today we’ll just also start tomorrow with the more power because usually it’s not too dissimilar. We’ll try to run at least what we did today for our single-car runs for tomorrow and go from there.”

Q. How difficult is it to go back to normal boost and race setup? In principle can you start from last year’s?

CONOR DALY: “It always feels wonderful tomorrow because power is your best friend. That’s going to be amazing.

Going back to the race setup, it’s actually a great feeling after you’ve done three days of all qual trim, absolutely wringing your neck for speed, it feels really lovely to go back to the race downforce. You feel like you can do anything, throw the car around.

It’s just part of the game here. You have these next three days where you’re going to be sweating a lot and it’s going to be a very, very challenging situation. We’ll see what we can do.

We want to put all three of our cars up front. I think this team next to me are going to be the ones to beat for sure. Hopefully we can show up in the Fast Six, 9 or 12, whatever the numbers are.”

Q. Anyone you worked with today that you really felt someone around you that had a strong car, were impressed with what you saw from other people?

CONOR DALY: “I mean, I think these guys are strong. The Ganassi cars are strong. I think Josef looked quick, too. Josef seemed pretty strong in traffic. All three of our cars were pretty decent, as well, when I was running around those guys.

I don’t know. I think there’s like one group, then another group. You definitely feel slightly quicker with that one group. The other group, it looks like they’re having a tougher time.

When you’re around fast cars, everyone seems fast. It’s interesting. But usually the key players are still really quick.”

Q. Conor, you talked about the changes, how that gives you a lot of encouragement. Dixon said yesterday he feels like that could help teams close the gap a little bit. Do you feel that’s the case? Are you seeing evidence with all the stuff you can try, you can find a way to decrease their edge?

CONOR DALY: “Oh, I don’t know. I mean, if you’re talking in traffic, it still is a challenge I would say. If you’re deep in the pack, it didn’t matter what car it was, it was rare to see people making progress unless people were letting people by.

The first two cars, boy, it looked like they were having a heck of a race. So I don’t know if that’s the case. I don’t think it brings us closer. I think the entire field is just closer because everyone is really good, and the teams are really good.

When it still comes to the qualifying trim stuff, everyone is going to be peeling off all the stuff we can put on, so it’s still who can generate the most mechanical grip and take the most downforce out comfortably.

I don’t know. I still think closing the gap to them, it’s a challenge, but that’s what we’re all here to do.”

Q. Conor, when the defending winner says, We feel like we’re in a better place than we were last year, should we all just go home?

CONOR DALY: “No.”

CONOR DALY: “Ed (Carpenter) has a big bag of witchcraft working over there. When we show up tomorrow, it will be serious. (laughter)

Of course they’re going to be good, it’s Ganassi. Not like they forgot how to do things.

It’s great to have really good teams like that to race against, right? If you do feel like you make progress towards them, it feels way better. If we’re in a duel for the first two rows or first three rows, it means you’re going up against the best of the best. Shouldn’t be any other way.”

About Chevrolet

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INDIANAPOLIS (Thursday, May 18, 2023) – If practice Thursday is any indication, Marcus Ericsson could start the defense of his 2022 Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge victory from the front of the field.

Ericsson turned the top lap, 39.1974 seconds, 229.607 mph, during the six-hour session under sunny skies at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the No. 8 Huski Ice Spritz Honda fielded by Chip Ganassi Racing. It was the fastest lap so far in two days of on-track activity this week, topping the 229.439 set Wednesday by Ericsson’s teammate and two-time Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato.

Not only was Ericsson fastest overall with the benefit of an aerodynamic tow, but he also was the speediest car running alone, with a best “no-tow” lap of 224.414.

“A really good day for the whole Chip Ganassi team,” Ericsson said. “Yesterday we worked a lot on the race cars. We were good straight away. Then today we built on that.

“I think we did some changes overnight that helped me in my feeling in the car. Felt really happy with my race car. The organization has done a really good job again this year, with really good cars.”

2008 Indianapolis 500 winner Scott Dixon ended up second at 229.186 in the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, as CGR went 1-2 on the time sheets for the second straight day.

The top four drivers today all are past “500” champions, as 2019 winner Simon Pagenaud was third at 228.681 in the No. 60 AutoNation/SiriusXM Honda fielded by Meyer Shank Racing. 2018 winner and reigning series champion Will Power was fourth at 228.577 in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet. Power also was second fastest on the “no-tow” list, running 224.283 alone on the 2.5-mile oval.

Colton Herta rounded out the top five overall at 228.240 in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda fielded by Andretti Autosport with Curb-Agajanian.

All 34 drivers competing for 33 spots in the starting field combined to turn 3,159 laps (7,897.5 miles) today in air temperatures that reached the low 80s.

Speeds will jump during the next practice from noon-6 p.m. ET Friday. The Honda and Chevrolet engines that power the field will feature approximately 100 more horsepower due to increased boost levels that also will be available during PPG Presents Armed Forces Qualifying on Saturday and Sunday. Public gates open at 10 a.m. for “Fast Friday.”

The 107th Indianapolis 500 is scheduled for Sunday, May 28 (11 a.m. ET, NBC, Peacock, Universo, INDYCAR Radio Network). PPG Presents Armed Forces Qualifying is Saturday, May 20 and Sunday, May 21.