CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
INDYCAR CONTENT DAYS
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JANUARY 15, 2025

SCOTT MCLAUGHLIN, driver of the No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet, met with the media at the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Content Days in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Press Conference Transcript:

THE MODERATOR: Wrapping up with Scott McLaughlin, driving the No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet, beginning his fifth full season in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, coming off a year with three wins and five NTT P1 awards and tying his career best with a third-place finish in the championship.

All that aside, we want to know how fatherhood is treating you.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Great. Yeah, she’s a superstar, little Lucy. Yeah, she started sleeping through the nights, which is good. So we put her down and we’ve got a pretty good rhythm the last three — I’ll probably jinx it now. She goes down at like 9:00 and she wakes up at 8:00 or 7:30.

But I have made the mistake a couple times, and I’ve asked — of waking up in the morning, and I’ve gone, geez, she slept through the night, and Karly goes, no, she didn’t. So that’s the drama.

But yeah, my wife, she’s amazing. She knows it’s important. I’ve got to keep training her, keep going, and that’s the best part about it, is finding how we’ve both adapted to it.

Q. Moms are amazing.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, she’s killed it. I was there for the whole thing, too. It was incredible. I cut the cord, got in there. It was awesome. I’d do it again. 40-hour labor she went through. It was crazy. Oh, man, she’s an absolute trooper. Love her. Shout out Karly.

Q. Since you’re a big football fan, do you think Bryce Young is panning out better now that he’s returned at quarterback?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: 100 percent. The question is going to be is he better than CJ Stroud. Texans are in the playoff absolutely, but I thought Bryce and his throwing, he’s been really good lately.

Q. His upside is probably better than —

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I’m just glad we’re sorted in that regard because we’re not going to make an emergency QB situation kind of like the Vikings are looking at, or Jets.

Q. Having the same gang back together, three of you push each other pretty good. Sometimes you get along great, other times you may get a little ruffled with each other. But having that consistency at Team Penske, I guess that’s one of the hallmarks of the operation. How important is that?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Well, it’s very important to set foundations, and obviously we’ve worked together this is my fifth year full time with these guys. We’ve had our ups and downs for sure, but I think that’s just normal for guys that are really competing at the highest level, and I feel like we’ve all got a chance to win a race week in, week out.

But it’s certainly brought out the best in me. They’re the best teammates I’ve ever had in that regard.

But yeah, you’d be surprised how good we work — for how competitive it is behind closed doors like in the truck and stuff, we’re very open book and everyone sees everything, and I think that’s why we see ourselves pushing each other even harder.

Q. There’s a lot said the last year, particularly down the stretch, about Will being in the title hunt, being second a lot of the time to Alex Palou who eventually won the championship, and you kind of quietly maybe to some extent overtook him in the standings over the last couple weeks of the year. You had the second season in a row where you’re the top Team Penske driver in the championship. What kind of pride do you take in if you don’t win a championship that year to still be the best among your teammates across a 17-race season?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, it’s been a goal of mine even before I was at Team Penske. For me, I always want to beat my teammates because you don’t want to be — you have all the equal machinery, and that’s just a common ground for any race driver.

But at the same time, it was a bummer for Will. I shouldn’t have probably passed him at the end. He had a pretty — misfortune in the last few races. But that is the sport we’re in.

But yeah, I was really proud of our stretch, our homerun, run to home I guess you could in the last couple years have been great. I’ve just got to get off to a better start, and I know that. But I’ve got all the ingredients that I need to not only be the best Penske driver again but also potentially take that next step, which everyone knows is what I want.

Yeah, working really hard in the off-season, but surprisingly having the baby and stuff, it’s been great to get away from it all, as well, and just focus on something other than racing for once.

Q. I think I remember you told us coming into last year that you really truly felt like you could come out and win this championship, and you got fairly close. But coming in winning now two oval races in the back half of last year, something that you hadn’t done yet. Do you feel in any way even more prepared having gone through last year? Do you feel like you really know maybe even more what it takes as you kind of plot out your goals and how you approach the 2025 campaign?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, I think every year for me is such a learning deal, particularly from where I started in late 2020 to like now I’m a completely different race driver.

The mindset needs to change compared to other championships that I’ve been in, as well, because things can just turn on their head so quickly in INDYCAR.

I thought I had the ingredients to win last year, and I still think I did. I just hadn’t won an oval yet. We were close. But now having won the oval, obviously that’s given me a lot of confidence.

But I’d be lying to say that I feel any different to last year. I certainly feel like I’m in the same boat. It’s just a matter of circumstances and me putting myself in different positions, and hopefully sometimes you’ve just got to have a little bit of lady luck, as well. It’s jut got to go your way.

I don’t think that has been kind to us, but it’s been kind in other places. We’ll keep working, but I’m as confident as ever for sure.

Q. As you reflected on last year, are there ways that you feel like you could improve or the team could improve or maybe what are the missing pieces to put a championship program together?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, I look back at two races, probably Toronto. Obviously that was a teammate drama. But that was a race where I was probably in my head that I was just going to finish where I finished, but it didn’t happen, and that hurt.

Then Laguna, where I made a move on Will which didn’t need to happen, whether it was Will or whether it was Kyle Kirkwood. That was a move that I probably didn’t need to make at that point, and I cost myself a ton of points for what I was ultimately going to gain if I made the move come off.

That was a big learning after that race, and I think from that race onwards, that’s why I was probably most bummed about the Toronto incident, because I felt like I was in a spot where I had set up everything to be in a good position and just be satisfied with where I was finishing.

But yeah, you always learn, and I think that’s what I can do better, is maybe just accepting the position I’m in and taking the points.

Q. You’ve arguably been improving each year you’ve been here, and that shows on the results. It looks somewhat similar to your time in Supercars where you got better each year, each year, and then that ended with three seasons in a row in the championship. Does that feel similar to you, and do you feel like you’re on that cusp now?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah. It’s funny you brought it up because I’ve said that to Ben, my engineer, a couple of times. I feel like I am in exactly the same position when I signed on with Penske in 2017 for Supercars back then. I feel like I’ve done a lot of my learning.

I think in 2016, as well, in Supercars I finished third in the championship and had a couple race wins, and I really felt like I could have that next step. And ultimately I didn’t win that championship, I lost it on the last race, but I put myself in a really good spot.

I feel like I’m in that same mindset here. I feel like I’ve lost all my habits that I had in touring cars. I feel very — with my fitness and all that stuff, my neck and stuff that is outside of the car, I feel very comfortable with.

I also know a lot of faces in here. I know what this day is all about. I know what airports to fly into. It’s just like so many different things that you come to a new place that you forget how easy it is.

But I feel a lot more comfortable now.

Q. We were talking in Nashville and you said your 3 team, you kind of felt like you were the Buffalo Bills of INDYCAR. A rowdy fan base, Thirsty 3s; haven’t won the big one yet. Do you feel in ’25 you’re going to shed this moniker and this is almost a championship-or-bust type season?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, because the Bills are going to win the Super Bowl. That’s my pick. I love Josh Allen, man.

Yeah, I feel good. Everyone knows I have fun and muck around and whatever, but I’m pretty serious obviously at the same time. But that’s just how I go about my racing.

I think we certainly feel like we’re on the cusp of something really cool, but at the same time what I talked to Bruce about, I’ve got two amazing race drivers as teammates with exactly the same opportunities, so it’s about me trying to find the most out of myself as much as anything.

Yeah, I’ve learnt sort of things and bits and pieces that I need to learn from, but I’m going to have to evolve throughout the season like we all do to be there at the end.

Q. Have you studied the path to maybe win this championship? Alex won, five wins, won a championship; he wins twice last year. Will talked about maybe going back. He was maybe a little aggressive last year and wanted to go back to how he won the championship. Have you guys studied what’s the right method, the right path to win this championship?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I think you’ve just got to do it your own way. As much as you can plan and think about what you can do and what you can’t, we all know the right path is just consistent results. With a few wins along the way. I think you need to win a couple wins. I think you need to win a couple times for sure. But consistency is key, and we all know that.

But you’ve got to eliminate those big bad results, and we had a few of them last year which really hurt.

Yeah, I’d probably say three. Detroit, where I crashed out by myself, and then Laguna and Toronto. Regardless, Toronto, whatever, like I still crashed out and it cost us a lot of points, where Palou and Dixon were just from the back to the front and just cruised.

That hurts. But yeah, we can all learn from that and get better.

Q. All three of you guys talked about last year from Team Penske how much work you’ve done in the off-season and you were looking at maybe the short track oval program and the whole oval program, and we saw the results of that. I just wondered whether during this off-season if there’s been something that you’ve been targeting as a team, whether it be road course or oval again, to keep that improvement and momentum going?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, I think the 10 car, Alex has been really quick on road courses over the last few years, so I think ultimately maybe trying to find a little bit of speed. I think our race pace is really strong, but our overall outright pace, places like Mid-Ohio or whatnot, need to improve a little bit.

But yeah, we had a pretty solid year pace-wise on all tracks, but definitely room for improvement. I’d probably say street circuit wise I’m highlighting Long Beach. I don’t think typically I’ve been that strong there as other street tracks that I go to, so I’m circling that a little bit on the simulator.

And then yeah, obviously just continuing our work that we’ve done on short and superspeedways.

Q. Then looking at a place not too far from where you are right now and the fact that Penske took the clean sweet at Indianapolis last May and you took your first pole position for the Indy 500, that was obviously a very special moment. Going into this May, does that mindset become, we need to do the same thing again, more of the same? Does that linger in your mind, or is it clean slate, move on, new year type deal?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: A bit of both. I think we’ve got to continue to evolve and get better because everyone saw what we had last year, and they’re going to be chasing that deficit, as well, particularly in qualifying.

But I think for me mentally as a driver, it was nice to run at the front at the 500 and lead laps and stuff that I haven’t done before that put me — I think it puts me in a really nice headspace going into it knowing what that feels like and the position I need to be in.

We had a mechanical sort of issue throughout the race last year with the clutch that really honestly hurt us a lot and took us out of that lead group, or at least those first few positions.

So knowing that mistake, fingers crossed, won’t happen again, and we can know that we can race pretty aggressively at the front and I know what I need to do from a timing perspective.

Yeah, driving perspective, not going to try and change too much, but we definitely have to evolve as a team to get better because everyone is going to be chasing.

Q. You had Simon on board, as well, so that played a part for you personally, as well.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yep.

Q. One final thing. Obviously you’re teamed up in a couple of weeks’ time with an ex competitor, SVG. How does it feel to be in the same team as a former rival?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, it’s funny, it’s weird, actually. We certainly — especially over here now, we go out for dinners and have beers and whatnot and hang out a little bit more than we probably did in the past.

But not that we didn’t like each other beforehand, it was just awkward, and now we’re sort of friends and teammates and excited for Daytona. I head to Daytona for The Roar, and then the 24. It’s such a good start to the year, and I think we’ve got a really good car and a good team lineup.

Connor Zilisch is a superstar over here now, and then Ben Keating is probably the best bronze you can have. We’ve got a good shot, but it all depends on BOP and all that sort of stuff. I have full confidence in GM and Corvette that we can come with a really good package and give these European manufacturers a good go in our land.

Q. Scott, looking at the performance you put on at Indianapolis last year, taking the pole, leading that Team Penske front row lockout, as well as were it not for the penalty at St. Pete, let’s say, the championship could have been firmly in your grasp. Looking at 2025, what would it mean more to be, Scott McLaughlin, Indy 500 winner, or Scott McLaughlin, INDYCAR Series champion?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I’ve always said the Indy 500 for me because — it’s similar to how I felt in Australia. It’s not a disrespect not championship itself, but everything needs to go perfect on that one day. You have to have a perfect race and make it happen, and ultimately that’s what happened to us when we won Bathurst and then we won the championship.

But the 500 — the championship itself, you can have a bad race and come back and there’s a lot of things that can happen. Your competitors can have moments throughout the season, whatever, and look, that would be an amazing objective, as well.

But for me, the 500 one, the history of it, but also it’s just an amazing race, and yeah, that’s certainly what I dream about the most.

Q. From the Team Penske perspective, assuming the current trend continues, has the team identified anything that you as drivers individually need to do or on a team level to do to make even a budge toward the immovable object that Alex Palou has been over the last two years?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I think ultimately we were as fast if not faster than him. It was just about putting together the year that he had. As we know, he’s like a professor with half the stuff that he does. He’s very good and very consistent and have a huge amount of respect for the boy.

But we’re not overthinking it. I think there’s also plenty of other drivers that are super good. I think Colton Herta had an amazing year last year. Without a couple of incidents he was going to be right there, as well. This INDYCAR racing is going to be so many world class drivers up the front every year, and we know that.

It’s just a matter of focusing on ourselves and what we can improve. That’s all we can control, and hopefully what we’ve done is enough.

About General Motors

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CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
INDYCAR CONTENT DAYS
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JANUARY 15, 2025

CONOR DALY, driver of the No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet, met with the media at the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Content Days in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Press Conference Transcript:

MODERATOR: Conor Daly joins us, driver of the No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet, beginning his 12th year being associated in the NTT INDYCAR Series, back as a full-time driver, 115 career starts to his credit with many more to come in 2025.

What’s it been like so far, content day 2025?

CONOR DALY: Well, honestly, it’s nice to be back. I think a lot of drivers are like, oh, this is tough. But you don’t realize how much you miss it until you don’t have an opportunity to do it.

I think it’s important to appreciate it, and it’s cool to be here. It is a long day, but it’s cool to be here and just chat with everyone.

Q. Just getting to know the team again; any changes that you’ve noticed on the outset?

CONOR DALY: Yeah, obviously there’s a couple little personnel movements, and we have different suit colors, so that’s new. But yeah, it’s just been a lot of working on putting the best possible organization together as a group. We want to be successful together. We want to focus on actually preparing now instead of just jumping in and going.

With preparation comes much more success we hope and believe, so yeah, it should be fun.

Q. Of the handful of times that you’ve had a full-time situation in your career with one specific team and not those years bouncing back and forth between Carlin and ECR, how does it compare to those years being with this one group for a full year?

CONOR DALY: Yeah, honestly it definitely feels a little different only because of kind of — we got a taste of it last year. It’s almost like I got a little pregame ceremony or something like that. It all happened so fast, though, and it was so much fun.

Now it’s like, oh, we can — I can make a new seat, my first new seat since 2020, which is ridiculous. My seat has been painful to be in for the last however many years. But guess what, it costs money to make a seat, and none of these teams that I’m going to jump in for one race are going to spend money to get me a seat.

I can do something like that, which is very helpful. I can have my own steering wheel grips. That’s very nice. All those small things are — again, all of the people that are winning and contending, you have to have all those things because this is the most competitive championship right now, and it’s like, everything has to be perfect. Everything has to be right.

It’s just doing all those things feels right. And just getting a little desk in the office. I’m going to get my own desk in the engineering office. I want to have a computer so I can finally be fully integrated in the team systems. All of those things are what you are supposed to do as a racing driver at the highest level.

That’s going to be nice to be a part of. I get to work with my engineer that I’ve worked with for however many races we did last year, and I think he’s a really good young guy, and that team over there is a good group of people.

It’s just all the things that you want to have as you move forward, and yeah, we just kind of see how it plays out really.

Q. How would you describe the mentality difference of going through your day-to-day life say last year or at other times in your career where you were — maybe you only knew you were doing the 500 that year but you were wanting to be around for other opportunities? The year that you ran for MSR and RLL, things like that, versus this year it seems like you, I imagine, probably have a lot of pressure on yourself because you have this great opportunity, you want to perform really well, but I imagine there’s a different mindset or mentality that you’re living with. Can you put that into context?

CONOR DALY: Honestly, I don’t think I really need to change my mindset because I think we’ve seen recently in this INDYCAR world that, yeah, probably good to just live it one weekend at a time. You never really know what’s going to happen, and we’ve seen people just kicked out. I’ve been kicked out.

It’s just something that you have to be ready to give everything you’ve got, every single weekend, because everyone’s attention span is very short, and you’re only as good as your last lap that you’ve done.

No one is willing to wait around it seems anymore. There’s I think drivers on the out side looking in right now that shouldn’t be because there’s — it’s like, well, some of the things didn’t go great, you’re gone. It’s something that you just have to be aggressive with yourself. You have to be aggressive with the way you attack every weekend.

Honestly, I’m super lucky to just be here anyway. Just going to try to enjoy that.

Still crazy we only get like one test day before St. Petersburg. That’s kind of a bit wild. But that’s going to be the most important day of the last eight months. So use that test day at Sebring the best we can to make sure when we roll out at St. Pete we’re ready to go.

Q. Would you say that feeling that I have to take this one race at a time and do my very best because I never know when my last race is going to be, is that something you’ve always had in your career? Was that maybe really solidified to you when you had the shock of losing your seat mid-season a couple years ago?

CONOR DALY: Honestly, I think I guess just don’t mind it being like that because it does — I put a lot of pressure on myself, which I’m working on relieving that a little bit and just kind of doing what I know how to do, which is be a race car driver and be competitive.

But yeah, this sport will put you through every mental and physical battle you will ever know. I feel like I’ve experienced most of those.

But yeah, I’m super thankful to be here with Ricardo and Brad, who they want to be a successful race team. They’re trying everything they can to be competitive, to use the resources that they’ve got. We’ve got to find the resources, as well, to compete. We want to be able to make sure we find as much as we can because other people are doing that, as well.

That’s what happens when you’re competing at the top.

Q. When you look back at Milwaukee and your podium finish there, how much of a moment was that that’s really helped you get this spot that you’re in this season?

CONOR DALY: I think it’s the only reason why I’m here, honestly. That’s it. It’s a results-based industry. It’s an industry that — we showed a lot of other speed in other places, but even the 10th place in Nashville that I thought was one of our best races in a long time, we qualified sixth, finished 10th, that’s not really what matters.

You’ve got to get trophies. You’ve got to be up front. You’ve got to be doing stuff that makes people take a second look, take a third look even

.

Even still, there was times where — thankfully that I’m there, our engineering group, they’re like, Portland we were pretty fast too but no one will know because we got wrecked and we missed a session.

But in the race I think they were actually more impressed than they thought, because everyone thinks I’m just an oval guy. So it was just nice to at least show them that, too, because we’re going at this for the whole thing. We want to go at this every weekend and try to get podiums every weekend.

Yeah, it’s nice to be in the position we’re in, I think

.

Q. Also you’re one of the most recent INDYCAR drivers that have stepped outside their comfort zone and tried the Daytona 500. Helio is doing it this year. He’s picked a year where there’s a lot more entries than normal. How difficult is it going to be for him to get into that field just because there’s only a couple of spots that you can get into the race with?

CONOR DALY: Well, I mean, they made a rule for him that he’s going to make it no matter what. That was nice. I definitely wouldn’t have got that.

But honestly, I’m super pumped to see how Helio likes it. I actually talked to him a little bit about it before because I started hearing rumblings about it. I know Justin Marks. That guy is awesome. I’ve talked to him multiple times about how much excitement he’s got for the Indy 500 and stuff like that.

I think it’s going to be cool and I’m going to be cheering for him. That’s our guy. Helio is our guy.

It’s tough, though. I’m glad they have a practice session now, which before was something that I did not have. We were in very different scenarios when it comes to the situation, but I think it’s cool.

Just great to have motorsports crossover. I don’t know why we don’t have more. I think it’s huge for just the general racing community.

Q. Also because you’re involved business-wise with Dirty Mo Media, you get a little more interest in a broader aspect of motorsports because of who owns that company and how well they place their podcasts. How much has that really helped benefit you?

CONOR DALY: Well, the fact that Dale Jr. is on your side is cool. He’s a great guy. He’s been very supportive of us, and they love INDYCAR. There’s a reason why we’re there as an INDYCAR podcast. They see how exciting INDYCAR is. They see that it’s probably an under-utilized asset right now and they want to help the growth process.

So we’re going to keep trying to put stuff out there, keep getting our racing out to more and more people, and Dale is a great boss, and he loves racing of all kinds, just like I think a lot of us. We can watch all kinds of forms of racing on Saturdays and Sundays. Dale is one of those guys that loves all that stuff.

Q. (Indiscernible).

CONOR DALY: All of them but two, so I don’t know how many. No Ganassi and no Penske.

Q. As a driver, you’ve had to really put on the business hat. You’ve been really determined to stay in INDYCAR racing. You went to Vegas and then landed the Bitcoin sponsor and then Polkadot. It seems like you’ve done that pretty much on your own. You must have a sense of the whole picture now of what it takes to fund a team for a ride. I’ve heard that the costs are now maybe eight to ten million for a car ride instead of five to six million, and that can’t all be the hybrid cost. Do you know what’s contributed to raising that up so high in the last couple years?

CONOR DALY: The more money you spend, the faster you go. It’s as simple as that. That’s honestly the equation of it. If you can spend extra day at the wind tunnel, an extra day on the shaker rig, get more damper development work, that’s what it is. This is extremely competitive, and if you’re not doing everything, someone else is.

That’s the difficult part. And yeah, when I was a rookie in INDYCAR with ECR, we were happy to have like a $1 million sponsor. Like sweet. I wasn’t making any money, but we had a shot at it.

But now if you want to compete, you’ve got to do a lot of work and it is — it’s actually my least favorite part of the business is the business side. I focus — I spend 98.9 percent of my time probably on the business side for most of what’s going on, and the peacefulness of that 1.2 percent that I can actually just be like, oh, cool, driving, that’s great.

But thankfully once it’s all locked in and once we’re in the position we’re in now I can shift more of that focus to being a driver and my manager and the team at JHR to kind of take care of all the rest of the stuff.

But it is just stressful. I wish it wasn’t the way it was, but for someone like myself, I have to create opportunities for myself. Like I obviously know that. There are drivers that have plenty more trophies than me that don’t have to worry about that, which is justifiable, so I just have to work on getting more trophies, and then it’ll be easier. That’s up to me, and that’s the team and us as a group. So hopefully it becomes easier.

Q. What did you think of FOX’s commercial featuring the racing Greek God?

CONOR DALY: Well, look, I think that Josef commercial I think put a smile on everyone’s face. Got to make stars, right? Josef is a star, and some people hate him now, which is funny, but boy, is that a huge deal for us.

But it’s also cool to see. If you make something cool, it will go very far because everyone thinks it’s cool. So sometimes when we see things and we’ve seen ads or this, that and whatever, it’s like, well, that was cool if you really love INDYCAR, but it wouldn’t appeal to maybe someone who didn’t like INDYCAR.

But this was just like — it shouted at your face, like hey, whatever is going on here is sweet. I thought it hit everything exactly how it needed to. Fastest racing on earth right at the end. It was like burned into my brain. I was like, I need to see what’s going on here. I know what’s going on here, but it makes you ask the question of I’d like to see that again or I’d like to know what else is going on here. It gave you a plot twist. Alex Palou, who’s that guy? Why does this kid hate it?

There was something that I think appealed to just an audience, and it was 45 seconds or whatever it was. Very, very excited about what the future is looking like there for sure.

Q. This is content day. We have no mohawk. We have no shenanigans. Is there anything happening in the back alleys of this convention center?

CONOR DALY: Not that I’ve seen yet. It might be too early. It’s still before noon, so I don’t know if anyone has had enough coffee. Will Power, I said his hair looked like he had dad hair, and he’s like, oh, no, really? So he was upset about that because he had to put on a hat.

But Will also, it’s weird seeing Will in a white and red suit. I’m like, is that Josef but different? It’s not the black and red Verizon — I’m like, this is kind of wild. A lot of different costumes out there everyone has got on, so it’s a fun day.

And Robert Shwartzman who I have never met before, he’s like, I thought half the day has already been gone by and it’s 10:00 a.m. I’m like, welcome to the big show, brother. This is what it’s all about.

Q. What is dad hair?

CONOR DALY: I don’t know, it’s dad hair. Nathan knows. He’s a dad now. A little tired maybe, doing some work, maybe didn’t pay as much attention to it as normal. It’s not a bad thing.

Q. I want to ask you about the evolution of the team, Brad and Ricardo, if you can tell us a little bit about that.

CONOR DALY: Yeah, so Brad has been super supportive of us as a group, and then Ricardo, I mean, Ricardo is like — that guy would die for this team. That guy loves what he’s doing. He wants this group to be successful as much as possible.

Bringing in Dave O’Neill, too, Dave O’Neill is very experienced. He’s a great guy. David Brown, as well, who I’ve met, who I believe was my dad’s mechanic in Formula 1 in 1982 at Williams, which is crazy. I don’t know if that’s a confirmed fact, but I’m sure that makes them feel experienced.

But yeah, it’s a good group, and there’s a lot of young guys there, too, that I think are extremely, extremely talented mechanics and chief mechanics. The youth and the energy in that team is really, really strong.

It just feels like a great growing environment and a team that obviously — it takes a while to find success in this sport. Like any new team that’s come in, it takes you some time. We’re working our way there, and I’m excited to be a part of the journey.

We’ve got to get them — let’s try to win the Indy 500 this year together. That would be a great start. Then go from there.

Q. Talking about the young talent, did you meet Leandro when he was a kid? Last year I spoke with him and he’s arming all the strategies. What do you think about this growing even in the family?

CONOR DALY: Yeah, Leandro Juncos was a child when I met him at first. I held him like a baby when we won the 2010 championship, and now he’s on my pit stand. That makes me feel old, actually, if we’re talking about elderliness.

But the kid is smart. He’s grown up around racing his whole life, which is cool, and to have Ricardo be able to have his son in the team, that’s got to be a proud moment as a dad, as well.

Q. Everything is on the internet is real, then you are a very wealthy driver who came with budget. Can you explain to me what happened with your Subaru?

CONOR DALY: Well, it’s still in my garage, so it’s a car that I will never sell. I love Chevrolet, though. I’m a Team Chevy guy, obviously. But yeah, it’s been a long journey with my blue car in the garage, and it’s got some flat spotted tires currently, but it will never be sold. It’s an endless pit of money that never returns, but it’s been fun. It’s been fun.

Q. You’ve mentioned a lot how you want to shed the oval specialist tag and that you’re also a road course driver. How important is that for this season, to jump out of the gates in the first five races on road courses just as a reminder that I’m an all-around driver here?

CONOR DALY: I mean, super important. St. Pete is a race that my rookie year we were close to winning that race. We were in the top 3 until we had a piece of Carlos Muñoz’s front wing side pod and we overheated.

We’ve had strong runs at St. Pete. I love St. Pete. But I’ve had a lot of weird stuff happen to me, as well. And Barber is a place that I don’t really enjoy, but Thermal was a place that I got to test at. That was cool. I don’t know how good the racing is going to be there. But the Indy GP is a circuit that obviously I know very well, have had some pretty reasonable speed there before.

There’s a lot of tracks at the beginning that I’m actually very excited for. I love Long Beach. So yeah, it’s important to start strong. It’s important to start with a lot of points on the board and just a bit of — probably a bit of reassurance for sure for myself.

But we get a test day at Sebring, which could be super helpful, and yeah, we’re trying to wait to see how much simulator time we get, as well. Simulator time is going to be important with the Chevy folks, and just get ready. The team was quick at St. Pete last year with Romain. Obviously we didn’t have the hybrid there last year, so it will be a little bit different this year, but should be fun. I’m excited for it.

Q. In a previous life did you compete against PREMA?

CONOR DALY: Probably, yeah. I knew of them. They were the team that was the team in F3. I was doing GP3 and then F3 Euro Series was still a thing. PREMA wasn’t in GP3 when I was doing it, but for sure knew of them and you can pick their cars out from a mile away.

Q. Also the lineage of drivers that are in INDYCAR that have had Prema backgrounds is impressive.

CONOR DALY: Oh, yeah.

Q. How well do you think they’ll be first year out of the box?

CONOR DALY: That’s a great question. Honestly from what they’ve put into it so far, if you just do the math, they brought in a lot of good people, a lot of smart people. They did a really cool YouTube announcement which was very high level.

So there definitely seems to be no shortage of funding over there, which is the most important thing, like we talked about. Good for them, man. If you want to get in and swim with the sharks, just jump in, go for it. It’s cool, and I’m excited to see how they do.

Obviously Callum (Illott), we know he’s a good driver. I like Callum a lot. Yeah, I’m glad he’s back, too.

CONOR DALY, driver of the No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet, met with the media at the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Content Days in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Press Conference Transcript:

MODERATOR: Conor Daly joins us, driver of the No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet, beginning his 12th year being associated in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, back as a full-time driver, 115 career starts to his credit with many more to come in 2025.

What’s it been like so far, content day 2025?

CONOR DALY: Well, honestly, it’s nice to be back. I think a lot of drivers are like, oh, this is tough. But you don’t realize how much you miss it until you don’t have an opportunity to do it.

I think it’s important to appreciate it, and it’s cool to be here. It is a long day, but it’s cool to be here and just chat with everyone.

Q. Just getting to know the team again; any changes that you’ve noticed on the outset?

CONOR DALY: Yeah, obviously there’s a couple little personnel movements, and we have different suit colors, so that’s new. But yeah, it’s just been a lot of working on putting the best possible organization together as a group. We want to be successful together. We want to focus on actually preparing now instead of just jumping in and going.

With preparation comes much more success we hope and believe, so yeah, it should be fun.

Q. Of the handful of times that you’ve had a full-time situation in your career with one specific team and not those years bouncing back and forth between Carlin and ECR, how does it compare to those years being with this one group for a full year?

CONOR DALY: Yeah, honestly it definitely feels a little different only because of kind of — we got a taste of it last year. It’s almost like I got a little pregame ceremony or something like that. It all happened so fast, though, and it was so much fun.

Now it’s like, oh, we can — I can make a new seat, my first new seat since 2020, which is ridiculous. My seat has been painful to be in for the last however many years. But guess what, it costs money to make a seat, and none of these teams that I’m going to jump in for one race are going to spend money to get me a seat.

I can do something like that, which is very helpful. I can have my own steering wheel grips. That’s very nice. All those small things are — again, all of the people that are winning and contending, you have to have all those things because this is the most competitive championship right now, and it’s like, everything has to be perfect. Everything has to be right.

It’s just doing all those things feels right. And just getting a little desk in the office. I’m going to get my own desk in the engineering office. I want to have a computer so I can finally be fully integrated in the team systems. All of those things are what you are supposed to do as a racing driver at the highest level.

That’s going to be nice to be a part of. I get to work with my engineer that I’ve worked with for however many races we did last year, and I think he’s a really good young guy, and that team over there is a good group of people.

It’s just all the things that you want to have as you move forward, and yeah, we just kind of see how it plays out really.

Q. How would you describe the mentality difference of going through your day-to-day life say last year or at other times in your career where you were — maybe you only knew you were doing the 500 that year but you were wanting to be around for other opportunities? The year that you ran for MSR and RLL, things like that, versus this year it seems like you, I imagine, probably have a lot of pressure on yourself because you have this great opportunity, you want to perform really well, but I imagine there’s a different mindset or mentality that you’re living with. Can you put that into context?

CONOR DALY: Honestly, I don’t think I really need to change my mindset because I think we’ve seen recently in this INDYCAR world that, yeah, probably good to just live it one weekend at a time. You never really know what’s going to happen, and we’ve seen people just kicked out. I’ve been kicked out.

It’s just something that you have to be ready to give everything you’ve got, every single weekend, because everyone’s attention span is very short, and you’re only as good as your last lap that you’ve done.

No one is willing to wait around it seems anymore. There’s I think drivers on the out side looking in right now that shouldn’t be because there’s — it’s like, well, some of the things didn’t go great, you’re gone. It’s something that you just have to be aggressive with yourself. You have to be aggressive with the way you attack every weekend.

Honestly, I’m super lucky to just be here anyway. Just going to try to enjoy that.

Still crazy we only get like one test day before St. Petersburg. That’s kind of a bit wild. But that’s going to be the most important day of the last eight months. So use that test day at Sebring the best we can to make sure when we roll out at St. Pete we’re ready to go.

Q. Would you say that feeling that I have to take this one race at a time and do my very best because I never know when my last race is going to be, is that something you’ve always had in your career? Was that maybe really solidified to you when you had the shock of losing your seat mid-season a couple years ago?

CONOR DALY: Honestly, I think I guess just don’t mind it being like that because it does — I put a lot of pressure on myself, which I’m working on relieving that a little bit and just kind of doing what I know how to do, which is be a race car driver and be competitive.

But yeah, this sport will put you through every mental and physical battle you will ever know. I feel like I’ve experienced most of those.

But yeah, I’m super thankful to be here with Ricardo and Brad, who they want to be a successful race team. They’re trying everything they can to be competitive, to use the resources that they’ve got. We’ve got to find the resources, as well, to compete. We want to be able to make sure we find as much as we can because other people are doing that, as well.

That’s what happens when you’re competing at the top.

Q. When you look back at Milwaukee and your podium finish there, how much of a moment was that that’s really helped you get this spot that you’re in this season?

CONOR DALY: I think it’s the only reason why I’m here, honestly. That’s it. It’s a results-based industry. It’s an industry that — we showed a lot of other speed in other places, but even the 10th place in Nashville that I thought was one of our best races in a long time, we qualified sixth, finished 10th, that’s not really what matters.

You’ve got to get trophies. You’ve got to be up front. You’ve got to be doing stuff that makes people take a second look, take a third look even

.

Even still, there was times where — thankfully that I’m there, our engineering group, they’re like, Portland we were pretty fast too but no one will know because we got wrecked and we missed a session.

But in the race I think they were actually more impressed than they thought, because everyone thinks I’m just an oval guy. So it was just nice to at least show them that, too, because we’re going at this for the whole thing. We want to go at this every weekend and try to get podiums every weekend.

Yeah, it’s nice to be in the position we’re in, I think

.

Q. Also you’re one of the most recent INDYCAR drivers that have stepped outside their comfort zone and tried the Daytona 500. Helio is doing it this year. He’s picked a year where there’s a lot more entries than normal. How difficult is it going to be for him to get into that field just because there’s only a couple of spots that you can get into the race with?

CONOR DALY: Well, I mean, they made a rule for him that he’s going to make it no matter what. That was nice. I definitely wouldn’t have got that.

But honestly, I’m super pumped to see how Helio likes it. I actually talked to him a little bit about it before because I started hearing rumblings about it. I know Justin Marks. That guy is awesome. I’ve talked to him multiple times about how much excitement he’s got for the Indy 500 and stuff like that.

I think it’s going to be cool and I’m going to be cheering for him. That’s our guy. Helio is our guy.

It’s tough, though. I’m glad they have a practice session now, which before was something that I did not have. We were in very different scenarios when it comes to the situation, but I think it’s cool.

Just great to have motorsports crossover. I don’t know why we don’t have more. I think it’s huge for just the general racing community.

Q. Also because you’re involved business-wise with Dirty Mo Media, you get a little more interest in a broader aspect of motorsports because of who owns that company and how well they place their podcasts. How much has that really helped benefit you?

CONOR DALY: Well, the fact that Dale Jr. is on your side is cool. He’s a great guy. He’s been very supportive of us, and they love INDYCAR. There’s a reason why we’re there as an INDYCAR podcast. They see how exciting INDYCAR is. They see that it’s probably an under-utilized asset right now and they want to help the growth process.

So we’re going to keep trying to put stuff out there, keep getting our racing out to more and more people, and Dale is a great boss, and he loves racing of all kinds, just like I think a lot of us. We can watch all kinds of forms of racing on Saturdays and Sundays. Dale is one of those guys that loves all that stuff.

Q. (Indiscernible).

CONOR DALY: All of them but two, so I don’t know how many. No Ganassi and no Penske.

Q. As a driver, you’ve had to really put on the business hat. You’ve been really determined to stay in INDYCAR racing. You went to Vegas and then landed the Bitcoin sponsor and then Polkadot. It seems like you’ve done that pretty much on your own. You must have a sense of the whole picture now of what it takes to fund a team for a ride. I’ve heard that the costs are now maybe eight to ten million for a car ride instead of five to six million, and that can’t all be the hybrid cost. Do you know what’s contributed to raising that up so high in the last couple years?

CONOR DALY: The more money you spend, the faster you go. It’s as simple as that. That’s honestly the equation of it. If you can spend extra day at the wind tunnel, an extra day on the shaker rig, get more damper development work, that’s what it is. This is extremely competitive, and if you’re not doing everything, someone else is.

That’s the difficult part. And yeah, when I was a rookie in INDYCAR with ECR, we were happy to have like a $1 million sponsor. Like sweet. I wasn’t making any money, but we had a shot at it.

But now if you want to compete, you’ve got to do a lot of work and it is — it’s actually my least favorite part of the business is the business side. I focus — I spend 98.9 percent of my time probably on the business side for most of what’s going on, and the peacefulness of that 1.2 percent that I can actually just be like, oh, cool, driving, that’s great.

But thankfully once it’s all locked in and once we’re in the position we’re in now I can shift more of that focus to being a driver and my manager and the team at JHR to kind of take care of all the rest of the stuff.

But it is just stressful. I wish it wasn’t the way it was, but for someone like myself, I have to create opportunities for myself. Like I obviously know that. There are drivers that have plenty more trophies than me that don’t have to worry about that, which is justifiable, so I just have to work on getting more trophies, and then it’ll be easier. That’s up to me, and that’s the team and us as a group. So hopefully it becomes easier.

Q. What did you think of FOX’s commercial featuring the racing Greek God?

CONOR DALY: Well, look, I think that Josef commercial I think put a smile on everyone’s face. Got to make stars, right? Josef is a star, and some people hate him now, which is funny, but boy, is that a huge deal for us.

But it’s also cool to see. If you make something cool, it will go very far because everyone thinks it’s cool. So sometimes when we see things and we’ve seen ads or this, that and whatever, it’s like, well, that was cool if you really love INDYCAR, but it wouldn’t appeal to maybe someone who didn’t like INDYCAR.

But this was just like — it shouted at your face, like hey, whatever is going on here is sweet. I thought it hit everything exactly how it needed to. Fastest racing on earth right at the end. It was like burned into my brain. I was like, I need to see what’s going on here. I know what’s going on here, but it makes you ask the question of I’d like to see that again or I’d like to know what else is going on here. It gave you a plot twist. Alex Palou, who’s that guy? Why does this kid hate it?

There was something that I think appealed to just an audience, and it was 45 seconds or whatever it was. Very, very excited about what the future is looking like there for sure.

Q. This is content day. We have no mohawk. We have no shenanigans. Is there anything happening in the back alleys of this convention center?

CONOR DALY: Not that I’ve seen yet. It might be too early. It’s still before noon, so I don’t know if anyone has had enough coffee. Will Power, I said his hair looked like he had dad hair, and he’s like, oh, no, really? So he was upset about that because he had to put on a hat.

But Will also, it’s weird seeing Will in a white and red suit. I’m like, is that Josef but different? It’s not the black and red Verizon — I’m like, this is kind of wild. A lot of different costumes out there everyone has got on, so it’s a fun day.

And Robert Shwartzman who I have never met before, he’s like, I thought half the day has already been gone by and it’s 10:00 a.m. I’m like, welcome to the big show, brother. This is what it’s all about.

Q. What is dad hair?

CONOR DALY: I don’t know, it’s dad hair. Nathan knows. He’s a dad now. A little tired maybe, doing some work, maybe didn’t pay as much attention to it as normal. It’s not a bad thing.

Q. I want to ask you about the evolution of the team, Brad and Ricardo, if you can tell us a little bit about that.

CONOR DALY: Yeah, so Brad has been super supportive of us as a group, and then Ricardo, I mean, Ricardo is like — that guy would die for this team. That guy loves what he’s doing. He wants this group to be successful as much as possible.

Bringing in Dave O’Neill, too, Dave O’Neill is very experienced. He’s a great guy. David Brown, as well, who I’ve met, who I believe was my dad’s mechanic in Formula 1 in 1982 at Williams, which is crazy. I don’t know if that’s a confirmed fact, but I’m sure that makes them feel experienced.

But yeah, it’s a good group, and there’s a lot of young guys there, too, that I think are extremely, extremely talented mechanics and chief mechanics. The youth and the energy in that team is really, really strong.

It just feels like a great growing environment and a team that obviously — it takes a while to find success in this sport. Like any new team that’s come in, it takes you some time. We’re working our way there, and I’m excited to be a part of the journey.

We’ve got to get them — let’s try to win the Indy 500 this year together. That would be a great start. Then go from there.

Q. Talking about the young talent, did you meet Leandro when he was a kid? Last year I spoke with him and he’s arming all the strategies. What do you think about this growing even in the family?

CONOR DALY: Yeah, Leandro Juncos was a child when I met him at first. I held him like a baby when we won the 2010 championship, and now he’s on my pit stand. That makes me feel old, actually, if we’re talking about elderliness.

But the kid is smart. He’s grown up around racing his whole life, which is cool, and to have Ricardo be able to have his son in the team, that’s got to be a proud moment as a dad, as well.

Q. Everything is on the internet is real, then you are a very wealthy driver who came with budget. Can you explain to me what happened with your Subaru?

CONOR DALY: Well, it’s still in my garage, so it’s a car that I will never sell. I love Chevrolet, though. I’m a Team Chevy guy, obviously. But yeah, it’s been a long journey with my blue car in the garage, and it’s got some flat spotted tires currently, but it will never be sold. It’s an endless pit of money that never returns, but it’s been fun. It’s been fun.

Q. You’ve mentioned a lot how you want to shed the oval specialist tag and that you’re also a road course driver. How important is that for this season, to jump out of the gates in the first five races on road courses just as a reminder that I’m an all-around driver here?

CONOR DALY: I mean, super important. St. Pete is a race that my rookie year we were close to winning that race. We were in the top 3 until we had a piece of Carlos Muñoz’s front wing side pod and we overheated.

We’ve had strong runs at St. Pete. I love St. Pete. But I’ve had a lot of weird stuff happen to me, as well. And Barber is a place that I don’t really enjoy, but Thermal was a place that I got to test at. That was cool. I don’t know how good the racing is going to be there. But the Indy GP is a circuit that obviously I know very well, have had some pretty reasonable speed there before.

There’s a lot of tracks at the beginning that I’m actually very excited for. I love Long Beach. So yeah, it’s important to start strong. It’s important to start with a lot of points on the board and just a bit of — probably a bit of reassurance for sure for myself.

But we get a test day at Sebring, which could be super helpful, and yeah, we’re trying to wait to see how much simulator time we get, as well. Simulator time is going to be important with the Chevy folks, and just get ready. The team was quick at St. Pete last year with Romain. Obviously we didn’t have the hybrid there last year, so it will be a little bit different this year, but should be fun. I’m excited for it.

Q. In a previous life did you compete against PREMA?

CONOR DALY: Probably, yeah. I knew of them. They were the team that was the team in F3. I was doing GP3 and then F3 Euro Series was still a thing. PREMA wasn’t in GP3 when I was doing it, but for sure knew of them and you can pick their cars out from a mile away.

Q. Also the lineage of drivers that are in INDYCAR that have had Prema backgrounds is impressive.

CONOR DALY: Oh, yeah.

Q. How well do you think they’ll be first year out of the box?

CONOR DALY: That’s a great question. Honestly from what they’ve put into it so far, if you just do the math, they brought in a lot of good people, a lot of smart people. They did a really cool YouTube announcement which was very high level.

So there definitely seems to be no shortage of funding over there, which is the most important thing, like we talked about. Good for them, man. If you want to get in and swim with the sharks, just jump in, go for it. It’s cool, and I’m excited to see how they do.

Obviously Callum (Illott), we know he’s a good driver. I like Callum a lot. Yeah, I’m glad he’s back, too.

About General Motors

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CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
INDYCAR CONTENT DAYS
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JANUARY 15, 2025

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN, driver of the No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet, met with the media at the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Content Days in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Press Conference Transcript:

THE MODERATOR: Continuing this morning, now with Christian Rasmussen, driver of the No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet, beginning his second season in the series, had a top 10 at Mid-Ohio his rookie year after winning the INDY NXT by Firestone Championship the year before that. Back full time, new firesuit, clearly some other accoutrement as well. Are you looking forward to 2025?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: I am. A lot of cool things are happening within the ECR organization, so it’s super cool to have been a part of during the winter and seeing the change kind of happen.

I think we have a super exciting year ahead of us.

Q. What are some of the changes just off the top of your head?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: You know, just all the stuff that we’ve been able to do with the extra funding that we haven’t been able to do previously. Yeah, just more opportunity for us, so it’ll be interesting to see if that amounts into lifetime. Obviously we hope that’s the case.

Q. A lot of newness obviously for you last year. That’s in the rear view mirror. Are you more comfortable heading into year two?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: For sure. I think just having a year under your belt is a huge change. Instead of going into St. Pete with no INDYCAR experience, I have a year under my belt, and I felt like towards the end of the year, I think that things just started to click. The results were kind of reflecting that, as well.

We’ll just try and start where we left off and then see where we can go.

Q. Obviously at the end of last season you had some pressure on you to keep that car in the leader’s circle. How did you deal with that? Is that something you felt on a week-to-week basis?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: I mean, in racing there’s always pressure. I’ve been very used to that my whole career. Coming up through the ladder system, it’s very much been either I win this year or there’s a good chance I won’t race the next year.

I’ve kind of been exposed to that pressure through my whole career, and I think I kind of just leaned on that experience from previously to kind of get through it.

For me, I try to do the same thing every weekend. I focus on that weekend. I try to do the best job I can on that particular weekend and then see where we end up, kind of a deal. It’s not really a big difference weekend to weekend.

Q. Now that Abel has gotten a ride with Dale Coyne Racing, the number of drivers coming from INDY NXT keeps growing in INDYCAR, which is what that series was created to do. To see you being an INDY NXT champion, how do you feel about how that has taken hold and become a viable path into INDYCAR?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: I think it’s awesome to see, and like you say yourself, that’s what that series was created to do. It’s good to be a product of the ladder system to show that it works because I would not be in INDYCAR today or last year without that. It’s that simple.

It’s good to see. It’s a great training ground for young people like myself to get ready to INDYCAR. It’s the only open wheel junior category where you do ovals. I think ovals is a huge — I know ovals is a huge part of being fast in INDYCAR. You need to be able to do that. Yeah, it’s a good training ground.

Q. Obviously this is going to be your first full season in the series. Looking back at the end of last year, how useful was it to get those additional oval races for bringing that momentum into this year, and what did you learn from that?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: Yeah, I think it was super good. It was a good opportunity for me to practice and get a feel for what the ovals outside of the 500 feels like because the 500 is kind of a different beast compared to all the other speedways.

Yeah, it was good. It was good to kind of figure out what I need to do better, what I did well, and then kind of take that experience into 2025 so that we can be even better.

Q. Looking at the overall season last year, how would you reflect on your rookie season versus what you expected in the series?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: Yeah, I mean, always expecting more. I think the season was a little bit up and down. We had pretty good pace on multiple locations but never really had many results to show for it.

This year it’s focusing on transferring that speed into results, as well, is the main goal.

Q. Obviously looking ahead to the season, the team have gone through a lot of changes, whether that be on your team or the investments. What feels different in the team compared to last season considering all of these changes that have happened?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: I think there’s a lot of hope within the team. I think a lot of the team members are really believing in what we’re doing, that it’ll make a difference. There’s good spirit within the team.

Again, it’s cool to be a part of. Excited to get started, get back in the race car and see where we can go because I think I also personally think that ECR is on the rise for sure.

Q. I want to look forward to 2025 a bit more than looking back on 2024. First of all, when Ed Carpenter Racing announced their lineup for this year and that you were going full time, they specified yourself and Alexander had signed multiyear deals. Does that knowledge that you have yourself, locked into a team for at least the near future, change how you approach the season at all?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: No, it doesn’t. I also said previously, I go into every race weekend trying to do the best possible job that I can. It’s nice to know in the back of your mind that there’s some sort of security going forward, but it’s racing. Everything can happen. You’re never 100 percent secure. You always have to perform to stay. That’s kind of the mindset that I’m going in with. Again, doing the best job on each weekend that I can and see where we end up.

Q. We’ve talked a lot about how much time you put in on the ovals and those last three races of last season. I think you only ended up missing Iowa and Gateway —

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: Correct.

Q. Do you feel that that was sufficient practice to prepare yourself for this full time season? You clearly had things locked down at Indianapolis last year. Is there anything you still feel you really need to get on top of on the ovals side?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: I’ve always felt fairly comfortable around the oval, whether if that was USF2000, Indy Pro or INDY NXT, and surprisingly, as well, in INDYCAR. I felt pretty comfortable right away.

No, you’re always building as a race car driver. You’re always trying to get better. I think overall I was in a decent spot. I was comfortable and we were decently quick, as well, so I think we’re just going to focus on getting the car out, getting the cars as fast as we can, and that’s pretty much it. Go for some cool passes.

Q. When 2025 comes to an end, what does a successful year for Christian Rasmussen look like?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: I obviously want to do better than I did last year, and I think the expectations from the team is definitely higher with how much has been invested. It’s hard to kind of set a number of it, but eventually obviously the goal is to compete for wins, podiums, and frequent top 10s. I think if we can get a little bit of that, I think it’ll be a successful year.

Q. Obviously Splenda is a normal brand in a lot of kinds of racing, but it will be very interesting, the reflectors of this brand inside the car. How do you think about this new kind of sponsors on INDYCAR events?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: I think it’s super cool that we get more consumer brands into INDYCAR. I think it’s super important for the sport, as well, that people that are looking at the cars are seeing brands that they know. I think if you look on a lot of the cars, you’ll see brands that not really many people know about.

It’s cool to be representing a brand like Splenda that are that recognizable, and I think it’s good for the sport, as well.

Q. You will have an internal fight with Alex, with a lot of experience racing, but you will try to be in the Fast Six, Fast 12 every race I suppose.

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: Yes. We are definitely trying to get more into the Fast 12 and Fast Six. I’m not sure if I understood that question. But I think the teammate you mentioned, Rossi, obviously he has a lot of experience, so he’ll be a good benchmark for me to lean on and learn from.

Yeah, excited to work with him.

Q. The first thing you need to do as a driver is win over your teammate.

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: Yeah, that’s the first guy you want to beat for sure.

Q. Just touching up on Rossi being your teammate, you have a veteran and Indy 500 winner alongside you. How has he been valuable in your transition from the junior category until now, and do you think you’ll have this continuous season learning from him, as well?

CHRISTIAN RASMUSSEN: Yeah, I mean, I hope so. He’s going into his, what, ninth season of INDYCAR, and I’m only going into my second. To say that I have nothing to learn from him would definitely be a lie.

But yeah, I’m excited to work more with Alex. We’ve only really worked together on the sim days so far. It’ll be good to get out on the track and really work together, drive alongside each other and kind of see how we will work together.

But he’s been very valuable in the sim so far. He’s had some good feedback. He’s a good guy to lean on. Obviously he’s super fast. He’s won the 500. He has a lot of experience that he brings to the team.

It’ll be a good pair, I think.

About General Motors

General Motors (NYSE:GM) is driving the future of transportation, leveraging advanced technology to build safer, smarter, and lower emission cars, trucks, and SUVs. GM’s Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands offer a broad portfolio of innovative gasoline-powered vehicles and the industry’s widest range of EVs, as we move to an all-electric future. Learn more at GM.com.

CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
INDYCAR CONTENT DAYS
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JANUARY 15, 2025

RYAN HUNTE-REAY, driver of the No. 23 Dreyer & Reinbold Chevrolet, met with the media at the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Content Days in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Press Conference Transcript:

MODERATOR: Continuing on this morning, great to be joined by Ryan Hunter-Reay, this year driver of the No. 23, again, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Chevrolet, technically his 18th year associated with the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, back of course with Dreyer and Reinbold racing last year after making the top 12 qualifying, the 2014 winner of the Indianapolis 500, as well. We talked to you after the deal was done. Anything new since then to share? I know you’re really looking forward to being back with Dreyer & Reinbold.

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, absolutely. We got the deal done. Obviously we had the open test — I’m sorry, the October open test which we did not have last year or the year prior. It was good to get that time with the hybrid and everything else and still a lot of work to do there.

But, right now it’s just been planning phases, going through things with engineers, trying to get the engineering lineup kind of dialed in and sorted and things like that, housekeeping stuff. But I’m looking forward to getting back on track.

Q. Obviously Jack (Harvey) is with you now. Have you guys talked much shop about car setup and what do you like, what don’t you like?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: We have, generally. I think we’re going to do that more probably once we get into February. We’re going to have more physical meetings here in Indy at the shop and things like that. Yeah, still really early days on that side of it.

Q. Even though you may not be in a car every race, are we going to see you at every race?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: You know, I have no idea, honestly. James, when he would say that, you knew he was lying, but then with me, it’s now I have zero idea. I don’t know how much I’ll be around. It all depends. There’s a lot up in the air at the moment.

I’d certainly love to do some — to some extent, some broadcasting work, and I’ve done just a little bit here and there, like we mentioned before on James’ podcast when I was on there, it was Long Beach, Indy, Detroit, I did some pit reporter stuff. I did some booth stuff at Long Beach.

Yeah, I really enjoyed it. It comes naturally for me having raced these cars for 20 plus years. Having the freshest perspective on the current car is also something that I can contribute with.

Q. To be a driver, a former driver or a current driver, understanding the ins and outs of strategy and all that, do you think that that is a very big asset in a pit reporter’s role?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Absolutely. There’s so many things that I think our pit reporters do a fantastic job, and they can put things together. Even in the booth, right. But when you have that experience in the car over so many years, you know the little things, the nuances on tire wear and things like when you can see that a car is coming up to a line of traffic at Indy that just goes by a lot of announcers and pit reporters and things like that.

There’s just so many little nuances to it that would stick out to a recent or current racing driver way more.

Q. You’ve had two years with Dreyer & Reinbold doing the 500 with them. How have you seen this team grow, improve, and do you feel like you’ve really got a team around you and potentially a car when we get to May that could compete again for winning this race?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, when I first came in with them in ’22, it was just kind of getting to know each other, and limited running. We only had that one open test last year. We only had the one open test, as well. It was rained out for the most part, and we had a lot of rain during last year’s — the week. I always call it the month, but it was the week of the 500 prior to practice and all of that, so we were limited on practice.

But yeah, I’m tight with the team, really tight, with the team and tight with the crew. It’s a really good environment in that regard.

The biggest challenge we have is coming together basically one time all year. You can practice all you want, talk about hypotheticals in the race and how we’re going to deal with this and that.

Until you get in the race, in a racing environment, racing situation and you have all these people in the stand and all the strategy that’s going on and the spotters and the driver and all that interconnected, to fire on all cylinders that one day when you have all these other teams that have been racing and they’re kind of in their flow, that’s the most difficult part about doing the one-off.

Q. You’ve talked about it a little bit before, but having a guy like Jack who’s done this with a handful of teams the last couple years, from what you know working with him when he was at Meyer Shank Racing and you were at Andretti, what do you imagine you guys can do, and what’s the best part about you guys as a tandem together?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, I think the communication is going to be wide open from the beginning. We’re friends, and that helps. Driving-style wise, I think we’re similar. You never really know until you can get into really similarly prepared cars and go out and say hey, this is what I felt, this is what I want, and then see what the other driver says.

But I think working with Jack as a teammate is going to be phenomenal in that way.

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing is up against it really. When you come to any year when you have such a huge technical change like the hybrid. It’s not really just the hybrid itself, it’s the weight. It’s where the weight has been put in the car, and the workarounds needed in the setup to get that right is huge.

We’re not going to have the time and the resources that the full-time manufacturer partner teams will have. Since I’ve been there in ’22 and now in ’23 — in ’23 we were allocated more and more opportunities from Chevrolet and we greatly appreciate that. They’re a great partner. But it’s just the way it is.

Full-time partner teams are going to get a lot more information, track time, all that stuff. We’ll definitely be trying to play catch-up.

Q. You’re an Indianapolis 500 winner, you’re an INDYCAR champion, so I guess you don’t have anything to prove. I’m sort of interested in the mentality and motivation that keeps you coming back to Indianapolis and having a go at this race year on year.

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, it’s Indy. It’s unlike anything else, really. There’s something about it that is a part of who you are. That lives with me. That’s just Indy, and I’ll give almost anything other than my children and my wife to be in that group of top 3 at the end of the race to have a shot at it. That’s really what it comes down to.

Q. Dennis was looking at going full time in 2027 potentially, as soon as then. Obviously you probably wouldn’t be looking for a full-time opportunity, but would it be a project you’d like to be involved in maybe from an advisory side of things?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, certainly. It would be something I’d like to be involved with conceptually if that’s something that comes along. But yeah, it’s a long way down the road. But yeah, I’d be open to that, absolutely.

Q. There’s obviously been a lot of talk about a new car, as well, that’s coming in 2027. What would you sort of be looking at from a prospective new car?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: I feel like we have to get back to — the way the cars were in 2012, ’13, ’14, in there, they were absolutely phenomenal. They were lighter, more aero dependant. Then we had this whole experiment with manufacturer aero kits. The cars looked horrible. Didn’t make the racing any better.

Then we got back to an esthetically pleasing car, right, the 2018 car, and that was, again, another car that was good and fun to drive, lighter, very aero dependant, as well.

But then yeah, with all the weight we’ve added to it, it’s become a much different car, a much different open wheel racing car. We need to get back, I think, to that.

Q. Cusick Motorsports has been — being around Don (Cusick), the energy he brings to the team is pretty special, isn’t it?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, working with Don has been an absolute pleasure. Having the Cusick name there, in the program, on the effort, the program, the car, everything, it’s a great fit, and really enjoy working with the whole group. It feels like family.

Q. You can tell he’s caught the bug.

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Big time.

Q. Ryan, what are the biggest takeaways that come with you being a driver just only running the Indianapolis 500?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: The biggest takeaways? I don’t know. I don’t feel — like when I get in the car I don’t feel rusty at all. I don’t feel anything like that. Maybe it’s just because it’s a part of who I am. I’ve been doing it for so long I’m working off instinct.

But the takeaway is what I mentioned earlier. It’s trying to get the team and a whole group of personalities teed up and ready for almost what you can’t prepare for. You can do things to prepare to some extent, but once you get into the Indy 500 and you’re going through all these different scenarios with strategy, and now we have a hybrid monitoring all these different channels of data that we really need to stay on top of. Strategies change that way, too.

So it’s trying to get that group of people — no matter how talented they are, you have to get them all together in one day, and like I said, execute completely, 100 percent. They’ve done a great job with it in the past, and hopefully we’ll do it in the future.

Q. Do members of Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, Cusick Motorsports, do they look around at other teams to see what they’re doing and then gather data for the 500?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: No, no. We work within our own — when you’re looking at different teams, different teams have different damper programs, different shock builds and all that stuff, so you have to be pretty careful with that.

But no, we have our kind of operating range that we work within, and then we have to change a lot of that setup with the hybrid and where the weight has been put in the car.

But no, blinders on, really.

Q. Following up on things about the car, I see that people say that maybe it’s about the downforce, but also you said about the weight of the car. It’s tricky to play with downforce and horsepower, or do you think it’s the little details that we can think about the new car in that aspect of things?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Well, you’re adding a lot of weight to the car through the aeroscreen, and very, very thankful for the aeroscreen, the side intrusion panels we’ve added over the years after different accidents, different scenarios that caused those upgrades to be needed.

And then we have another one now, and when you look at with the hybrid, yeah, the hybrid being added and where it’s being placed and the weight of it, in order to have similar performance out of the car and the overall grip, you would need to really rework the tire basically.

But it is a very similar tire. It’s not the same. Yeah, it’s just sliding around a lot more. It’s like whipping that rubber band around with a lead weight on the end. If you just keep adding and adding more and more weight to that, at some point that band is going to snap.

That’s kind of where we are kind of on the edge of right now because the handling was a lot different, and that’s according to a lot of drivers that I spoke with.

Q. I just heard you in the podcast mention that the handling of the car changed a lot with the hybrid. Do you think it still has a little room to improve just in setup and little changes in aerodynamic things?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Oh, absolutely, for sure. INDYCAR drivers for years have been to different tracks and we’re like, the racing is going to be terrible, we can’t pass, and then you set a record for passes in the race and all that happens.

But yes, we’re all going to make it way better than it was at the open test in the time that we have in practicing.

However, you are grip limited, so that’s why it was so much more difficult to pass at the open test. I do think that will be a factor moving forward for the race.

We can have a rework on it for sure, and hopefully it will perform way better than expected in that regard.

Q. What’s the latest on the next generation of Hunter-Reay racers? I know for a while you were pretty active with it. Has that increased? Are you trying to steer him toward swimming and golfing, something that might be a little cheaper?

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, golf would be great, man. I’m so envious, I see these dads taking their kids golfing, and my kids are like, horrible, it’s so boring.

We’re going karting on Monday but we haven’t been able to get out of the stick-and-ball sports. Each one of the three of them is playing three different sports simultaneously, and all we’re doing, it’s like people ask me what do you do now that you’re not racing? It’s like, I draw the shades and I’m sitting in my bed just watching Lifetime Network.

It’s nonstop all the time. The hand-offs from myself, to that, to this, running all over the place in conjunction with everything else that we’re doing, the investments and rental properties and all that, it’s just nonstop. I hope to get there. I hope to.

But we’re kind of missing the ship because my oldest just turned 12 and he’s actually up to my chin. So he should definitely golf. I wish. Basketball, soccer and football right now. I think we might be at the end of the road of soccer here soon. That’s fine by me.

About General Motors

General Motors (NYSE:GM) is driving the future of transportation, leveraging advanced technology to build safer, smarter, and lower emission cars, trucks, and SUVs. GM’s Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands offer a broad portfolio of innovative gasoline-powered vehicles and the industry’s widest range of EVs, as we move to an all-electric future. Learn more at GM.com.

CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
INDYCAR CONTENT DAYS
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JANUARY 15, 2025

JACK HARVEY, driver of the No. 24 Dreyer & Reinbold with Cusick Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media at the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Content Days in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Press Conference Transcript:

THE MODERATOR: Continuing on this morning, great to be joined by Jack Harvey, this year driver of the No. 24 Dreyer & Reinbold Chevrolet in his ninth year being associated in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and he’ll compete in the Indy 500 with the team later this year.

Just 130 days away from the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500. We talked to you when the announcement was made, but how is the transition going to Dreyer & Reinbold? You’re at the shop a lot I’m assuming.

JACK HARVEY: Yeah, live in Indianapolis. I get to the shop a lot. It’s been a very easy transition. Obviously I’ve never worked with these guys and girls before, but everything that you hear about them is always very positive. What a great working environment that they provide everybody.

I’ve got to say, it’s absolutely true, their reputation is more than warranted and justified, and that transition has been so easy.

Q. What has impressed you in the last couple years about the program they’ve had for the 500?

JACK HARVEY: I mean, just generally how competitive they are. They always come and everything always looks really well prepared. Obviously they’ve always been very fast. Then you go to the race shop and it’s exactly the same way.

This is just the standard of racing that everybody at Dreyer & Reinbold hold themselves to, and they might only be in the 500 right now, but it’s a team that operates as high a level as I’ve been a part of. So whether they did the whole season or just one race, you just know that they have a basic standard they hold themselves to, and I feel very lucky to be a part of a program like that.

They’re just really nice people, as well. Dennis’ passion for the track extends to even how his race shop is esthetically, how it looks, having the old garages from Indy and whatnot.

So when you go to the track and see them be successful, it’s just through a lot of hard work and effort and passion for the track. Brett and Chase have been great to work with, as well. That kind of makes up their hierarchy there. It’s been a fantastic time so far, and we haven’t even turned a lap yet.

Q. If you can elaborate a little bit on Dennis, his background. It’s like he grew up at the 500 with the history, the heritage of that family, and just to have a guy that loves it that much in a team ownership position, even though you can’t do all the races all the schedule, he’s still full speed ahead for the 500.

JACK HARVEY: Yeah, honestly, it’s really cool when you go to the shop, just the amount of memorabilia, genuine memorabilia that he has. I don’t want to get in trouble because I don’t know how much of it is meant to be had and how much he promotes, but there are some really cool things there.

So then when you see how he runs his race team and also his car dealerships and everything, Dennis clearly just has a standard that he holds himself to, which is really cool.

But then when you see his passion for the speedway and then you start talking to him about just the events that I’ve been a part of and what he remembers and then how far back that knowledge goes. I mean, Dennis in his heart really is just a huge race fan, as well, and a huge advocate for the Indy 500 and really a lot of things in Indiana.

When you’re around somebody who has that much passion, it’s a thing that rubs off on you. Then you want to keep matching his enthusiasm and his effort level. I think that’s why they have a successful team is Dennis as a person and the way he goes about motor racing is an elevator because you don’t want to be the person not pulling your weight.

Obviously they’ve had a fantastic INDYCAR team for a long time, and I think with Ryan this year, as well, coming to do — is this his third race with Dreyer, I think? Having him stay on and have that continuity, it’s something that’s new for me, a new team. First time working with Chevy, but having Ryan there as that steady anchor point I think is going to be really good.

I’m hopeful that we have a really strong month of May because there’s a lot of effort that goes into it, and it really all just comes back down to Dennis’ passion for the Indy 500.

Q. Ryan was another thing I wanted to ask you about. He’s an Nico owe had a great career as a full time driver, former Indy 500 winner, class act. Just to have him as a teammate, how important is that to you?

JACK HARVEY: Well, I actually luckily have been teammates with Ryan before in the past when we were with MSR and the partnership they had with Andretti. I actually have done more 500s with Ryan as a teammate than I haven’t before.

I would say what’s going to be different about this coming year is perhaps it’s a bit more intimate. It’s just the two of us, whereas before it’s been a part of a very large team. I’m going to be leaning on him a little bit more, a little bit closer.

But he’s always been very open with his feedback, very happy to try and help, because at the end of the day he knows that helping me is also going to be pushing him, which helps just elevate the entire team, and ultimately that’s what we’re here to do as a single race entrant, I guess.

In some ways it’s an advantage I would say having that singular focus, and in other ways it’s a bit of a disadvantage perhaps.

The more that we can just work together and push each other along in a good way, just kind of the better really. When you look at what Ryan has achieved, there’s really nothing that he hasn’t. I think I said it when the announcement happened, I don’t have a set here’s what I do at Indy because I haven’t won.

He has won the Indy 500. He knows exactly what it takes. He knows what a successful month looks like, what the buildup can look like, when you’re in a good place, when you’ve got to do, and just having a teammate with that level of experience is always a good thing.

Q. These last two years, your 2024 season with Dale Coyne Racing and this year with Dreyer & Reinbold, very polar opposites in what you are spending all off-season focusing on. This year the sole focus is the 500. How different has this off-season and your mental approach been to this season where you’ve got essentially three hours of racing ahead of you that you’re training 365 days for?

JACK HARVEY: I mean, really it all came back down to a couple of conversations that I had with our primary sponsor, Invest, you know, just kind of throughout the year when we were starting to prepare for 2025. The decision to go racing for me isn’t entirely mine.

I have to be collaborative with people I’m working with, what are your objectives, what are your goals, and how can we basically bring these together so that everybody is happy. Not doing the 500 last year, at the start of the season we were just grateful to be racing. I think that gratitude has always got to be a primary feeling and one that you keep very high up your list all the time and very at surface.

That being said, when you are there in May and you’re on the starting grid but you’re not driving, not just for me but also for our partners and our sponsors, that was a bit of — that was a bad moment, really. It was a great moment but it was a bad moment that we weren’t going to be actually in the race.

I think it really just hit home to everybody how important doing Indy was. We’d had a few different conversations with people, and the reality was what budgets are now being required for the seats that were available at the time wasn’t going to be something that was achievable for us, and instead of trying to do another program that was a little bit pulled from numerous places to try and come together, I think we all collectively just felt that if there was a seat open at Dreyer, it was going to be the one that we pushed the hardest for because of that singular effort and focus that they’re renowned for having at Indy.

It was really just a case of a simple phrase of, is this coming season, is less more? I think in this moment it’s slightly less racing, but I think outside of my time at MSR, it’s probably the best opportunity that I’m going into Indy having. Certainly I really believe that.

Hopefully it comes to fruition.

But number one, I’m always grateful to be racing. I wouldn’t be here without some really great partners like Invest who are going to be our primary, so if they said, hey, we’re going to do all the street circuits, then I’m in. I just want to be in the car. Just want to be driving. But it really did center around the 500.

Q. You’ve been with two teams in the past, MSR won the 500 when you were with them, RLL had won a couple of years before. This Dreyer & Reinbold team has won — it’s been running just the 500 for a little while, but year after year they are constantly right around the top 10. Ryan put the car in the Fast 12 last year which was an impressive feat. I know it’s early days and you haven’t been in the car with them yet, but what do you take from this team, and does it feel like one that can seriously challenge for a 500 win one of these days?

JACK HARVEY: For sure. I think that’s the biggest thing when I went and met with Dennis, straightaway he wanted to see what my passion was for winning. I wanted to see what his was for winning, because obviously you see these people and you have a lot of respect for them as competitors but we hadn’t met in person or spent a lot of time together.

Our first conversation was just very good in the sense of we just were aligned on everything that you’d want to be aligned on. Some of the guys that go full time say just focusing on Indy is an advantage. I have no idea if it is or it isn’t. I think you could make a strong case either way that there’s aspects that that singular focus probably does free up some time and resources to focus on it.

That being said, us getting where people are St. Pete after testing and get into a rhythm with their engineers and stuff like that, clearly that’s not the case for us. That being said, they do employ a lot of people all year-round, so that car group of people are working together every day with a focus of winning the Indy 500, which one of my favorite things about Indy really is if it’s your year, it can happen for anybody.

First thing is make the race. After that, try and be on the lead lap. If you’re doing all those things and you’re in the right position and it’s your time, then I feel like anybody can win the 500. That being said, that’s something that’s easy to say, but in my heart, I really do believe, especially with Dreyer, if the opportunity comes up to win, that they are a team that is capable of winning.

That’s why in the end we felt like they were such a great place to be. Yes, I think we could feasibly go and at least know that that team is capable of it.

Q. You were on the coaching side of things last year at the 500. I was just interested, have you taken away anything from that sort of coaching side, taking that step back, which you can take into this year?

JACK HARVEY: Yeah, actually you get to see from not the driver’s seat, the flow of how a month can go, and obviously more so was working a little bit with Katherine. We were teammates at Rahal together, so I already knew Katherine.

Nolan was getting support some other ways.

But to go and just offer some experience of what good and bad months have looked like for me and pass it to them but also when you are one step removed it was wild how little pressure I felt during May which was something I’ve never had before, which really gave you just a bit more capacity to observe, things that were good, things that were bad.

At the end of the day it’s not the position I would choose to be in, but I really felt like I learnt a lot. I made the most of it and certainly will be bringing things — I will try to bring things forward into this coming May that I learnt last year for sure.

It was just a simple case of no matter what team I’m in, I want to do my part. I want to contribute. Last year at the 500 it was trying to help the guys and girls just do the best they can, and coming forward I’ll try and do the same just with new things that I’ve learnt.

Q. I know your focus is obviously on the 500 this year, but Dennis has said the team could be looking at going full time maybe as soon as 2027. Whether in a driving role or not, is it something you’d like to support the team and be involved in?

JACK HARVEY: Oh, for sure, absolutely. We already have chatted about that, not in an intense way or a way that would lock anybody up together, but from just purely if this project went ahead the way we all hope it might, it’s big time a project I’d like to be involved in for sure.

Q. You’ve had a very unique journey coming into INDYCAR racing with several different teams, and obviously you’ve mentioned that you learned a lot over those seasons that you’ve been here. Talk to me about how you’re planning to maximize the performance of the car, especially compared to preparing for a complete season, just for you as a driver?

JACK HARVEY: I’ve had very good teammates the whole time that I’ve been in INDYCAR racing really. What I’ve learnt really, you always should ask the question. I think the best environment I’ve been in is one where you can leave your ego at the door and really just immerse yourself with the team, with the engineers, and just ask. Ask as much as you can.

In terms of this isn’t the first time that May has been our first race. My first Indy 500 that was the only race we had sorted for that year. However, at this point — it’s not my first 500. I think this is actually going to be No. 8 for me. I think it gives you — you understand what it means on both sides of — a good and a bad month, what that can look like.

I don’t know if there’s any one thing that really I’m approaching it with other than a super open mind. Happy to have lots of conversations, will ask lots of questions, and will leave my ego at the door, because ultimately all I want to do is put myself in a position to compete the best we can.

Obviously if winning is on the cards we’ll go for it no matter what it takes, and if it was the final lap we’ll do whatever it takes to try and win. But I think it’s more so just the mindset of just complete openness and willingness to learn, and that’s probably my biggest thing heading into 2025 in general.

Q. Are you planning on being on call for some of the races just like Conor was last season?

JACK HARVEY: Well, I live in America all year-round, so it kind of makes sense to have my helmet available. I’m not targeting anything really before May. That was kind of one thing that me and Dennis had chatted about. If something pops up, then really it’s his call. I don’t want to do anything that would jeopardize the 500 program.

But absolutely ready in case something should happen or someone calls to do it. We haven’t got the rest of our 2025 sorted yet. There’s some things that we’ve been obviously working on and trying to put together that isn’t just driving.

Obviously the season starts somewhat soon, so that’s everybody’s timeline to get things sorted. But as far as just being ready and available, the 500 will be my first focus and my primary focus. After that, if someone wants to put me in a car, then that would be probably pretty groovy. We’ll wait and see what happens.

Obviously I don’t wish it on people, and having been someone that’s not finished the season we were meant to, we obviously won’t seek that out, but we’ll be willing and ready if someone approaches me about it.

Q. Is it a rumor that you want to be a pit reporter and you and Ryan were going to do that?

JACK HARVEY: I did hear that rumor.

Q. Is it something you’re interested in?

JACK HARVEY: Yeah, I’ve been pretty vocal about it I think a couple times that I think that’s a very — I think what FOX are doing right now is very cool. I came in yesterday to see part of content day before we got here, and I think it looks absolutely fantastic. I’ve said that I’d like to do it. Whether it comes together is not really in my hands.

Yeah, I think it would be fun. Ultimately it comes back to this. In my heart first and foremost I’m a race fan, and I absolutely love living in America. I love the INDYCAR paddock. If I could drive, then obviously that would be my very primary desire, but if this was a way to still be in this environment and in this industry and in this community, then I wouldn’t see it as a plan B or a — maybe a sidestep, but I would see it as something I would throw myself into and try and do the very best that I could because I love being here and everyone has made me feel very welcome the whole time, and I think I could contribute something kind of insightful to it.

But if it comes together, that would be fantastic, and if not, then I hope it’s a really fantastic presentation because this series deserves to have the eyeballs on it. It’s the best series in the world. It’s definitely the most competitive series in the world.

Either way, I’m a fan. I think INDYCAR really deserves to have this level of exposure.

About General Motors

General Motors (NYSE:GM) is driving the future of transportation, leveraging advanced technology to build safer, smarter, and lower emission cars, trucks, and SUVs. GM’s Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands offer a broad portfolio of innovative gasoline-powered vehicles and the industry’s widest range of EVs, as we move to an all-electric future. Learn more at GM.com.

CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
INDYCAR CONTENT DAYS
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT
JANUARY 15, 2025

ED CARPENTER, driver of the No. 33 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet, met with the media at the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Content Days in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Press Conference Transcript:

THE MODERATOR: Joined now by Ed Carpenter, who is obviously back driving the No. 33 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet, beginning his 23rd year in the series, looking ahead to qualify for what I believe is his 22nd Indianapolis 500 this coming May.

Obviously the team has got some changes, as well. A lot to talk about this morning. Good morning to you. Just your thoughts on kind of a new look team for Ed Carpenter Racing.

ED CARPENTER: Yeah, it’s been a busy off-season welcoming in a new ownership partner and a new driver to the team, a returning driver to the team. We’ve talked about it at the shop, in a lot of ways it feels like 2012 just because there’s so much new, and some changes but also a lot of the same.

Anytime you bring a new group of people in — we haven’t had this much newness since we started the team back in 2012. It’s been an active off-season.

Q. How would you describe all of this? Is it kind of revitalizing it?

ED CARPENTER: Yeah, to me it’s exciting. It’s gone really well up to this point. A lot of enthusiasm, I think especially within the team. Hopefully that will carry over to external and results and everything else. Yeah, just really looking forward to 2025.

Q. Any good Rossi stories yet?

ED CARPENTER: We’ll save them.

Q. It used to be a struggle business-wise to get a sponsor. Now you’re getting ownership partners wanting to get involved in INDYCAR teams. That’s got to be a great sign from a business standpoint. How do you see the growth of that being so positive?

ED CARPENTER: I think there’s a lot of factors. I think all of us in this room and that have been in this sport have been feeling the momentum in the paddock build over the past couple of years.

I think the charter system plays a role in that. I think the FOX announcement plays a role in that. It just feels like the whole thing is picking up steam.

It’s a really fun and exciting time to be a part of this sport.

Q. I asked Alex this question yesterday. With Ted coming in, sponsorship that he’s brought along with his ownership role, can you go into as much as you can just some of the things that that coming in allows you to do that you just weren’t able to do or couldn’t do or chose not to do to make the most financial sense for the team the last couple years?

ED CARPENTER: You know, I think Ted, he’s a very smart and successful guy. He’s built a business from nothing to what it is today, which is very impressive. He and his entire organization, they’re an asset to us, especially on the business side of things, that’s expanded our operation and creating new opportunities and resources that we haven’t had.

Then as we shift that towards the on-track product, I think it’s just allowing us to maybe move a little quicker, make decisions a little earlier, and be slightly more aggressive in what we’re trying to do to accomplish our goals of winning races, winning the 500, and being a contender in the championship.

Q. From a staffing perspective, you mentioned doing a bunch of hiring at the level you haven’t done in quite some time, if ever. Do you know off the top of your head how many new people you’ve brought in this off-season or how much bigger this team is than it was six, seven, eight months ago?

ED CARPENTER: I mean, it’s not really that much — it’s not as much change as you would think. We’ve added a couple people in engineering, and we’ve added one up front, which there will be another hopefully soon.

But then there’s the addition of just some of the shared resources and capabilities that they have within his business.

When you roll into the shop, it has a very similar look to last year. I would just say it’s more just adding layers to capabilities.

Q. The rebrand that you guys announced this week, I know you explained a little bit of it in the release, but why did you guys feel like that was something you wanted to do to kind of change the image and the story?

ED CARPENTER: It’s something I had thought about even before we went through a bit of an ownership addition. But it just seemed like a good time to do it, to reinvent ourselves isn’t the right word, but just to take the next step as an organization.

I think we want to send the message that we want to be better and stronger, and obviously changing the logo doesn’t do that, but it is part of the process, and sending the message internally and externally that we’re doing things a little different than how we have in the past.

So just one piece of the puzzle that hopefully will go successful over the course of the year.

Q. You said in the past that the addition of Ted and the new partnership sort of came about through the charter system. Are there other benefits to the charter system that we’re going to see down the road or is it just giving someone value that wants to come in and partner with the team?

ED CARPENTER: Yeah, I think there’s things that we already feel like that. It’s making people want to be involved because there are — it’s limited now, where it wasn’t before. So I think that creates value and demand.

I think as the series continues to grow and becomes more valuable as a whole, it’s just going to expand on how charters are viewed. But it’s hard to say where it’ll go, but I haven’t seen any negatives from my perspective thus far. I think the process, it was long, but in the end it was done right and went well. I think it’s been a positive.

Q. You’ve got a couple consumer-facing sponsors now. I know you’ve had both the B-to-B stuff and the consumer facing. How important to the series is it to have a little bit more on the consumer-facing sponsorship side?

ED CARPENTER: Yeah, I think that’s really exciting. It’s something that we haven’t seen at a high level in our sport in a long time, so to be able to have some of the brands that we’re representing, especially around the Splenda brand, it’s something that pretty much everyone knows. Everyone knows what the yellow packet is and means.

From there, I think some of the opportunities that we’ll be able to see and develop, just the amount of shelves that they’re on and how we eventually are able to use that not only for our team but for the series, there’s some really exciting opportunities there that are — yeah, they’re going to be good for ECR, but as it develops and matures, it’s good for everybody, and even seeing the Andretti announcement yesterday, the more, the better.

We obviously want to be successful on the business side of things and on track, but the more success our rivals and peers have, it’s good for everybody. It’s great to see announcements coming out like that.

Q. Alex mentioned yesterday about this really being kind of a long-term project in his eyes, and in light of some of the changes you’ve had as a team, what is your vision maybe not only this year but further down the road, and do you feel this maybe alters the potential that you have as a team?

ED CARPENTER: What projects were you talking about?

Q. Alex just said yesterday that he views this as a long-term project at Ed Carpenter Racing. Do you think the changes you’ve had this off-season alter the potential you have?

ED CARPENTER: I hope so. Anytime you’re out signing drivers or re-signing drivers, we have to sell ourselves and what our vision is for the future. Alex and I have had a relationship for a while now. We were pilots together. But this is now a different relationship. But I think he bought into what we’re doing. I think he’s felt pretty comfortable within our organization from the first time he visited the building.

I think so far we’re off to a really good start, and hopefully it’ll be the start of us getting back to kind of the success that we had in the earlier days of our team. There’s a lot of effort going into it. We haven’t been happy with the ultimate results that we’ve gotten over the past couple of years, so we couldn’t just keep doing the same thing.

Q. There’s kind of been a lot of talk about a possible new car for 2027. I’d just like to get your take both as kind of a veteran driver and now a team owner, what do you think INDYCAR needs to do and needs to have from a new car, if that is to come in 2027?

ED CARPENTER: You know, I think that’s a hard question to fully answer. First off, we’ve had this car a long time. I’ve been around long enough that we thought we had the previous generation car a long time, and this one has gone on further. It’s definitely time for something new.

The other part of that is our racing over the past handful of years, especially at Indianapolis, is really strong. I think it’s critical that we don’t make any mistakes in the new car process that get us away from the style of racing we have right now because I think it’s the best product in the world.

But it does need a bit of a refresh and a reset to make sure we’re staying in front of technology and everything else. It’s something that needs to happen. But we’re all still learning a lot about it. We’ve seen some of the preliminary stuff, but even what we’ve seen, I think, is still not near a finished product.

We’re all excited to see how this project develops, as well, which I’m sure we’ll see more and more as we get into this year.

Q. Obviously you are stepping back to only running the Indy 500 this year. What do you feel made this the right time to step down your commitments a little bit on the driving side?

ED CARPENTER: Yeah, I think as I get older and the team matures and has challenges and opportunities, it was getting harder and harder for me to keep my focus and time everywhere it needed to be all the time.

Much like when I made the decision to not run the full season and step away from road courses, I think Christian, when he got in the car to finish the year on the ovals, he did a good job and did what I thought he was going to do and ultimately did a better job than I did.

I’ve always said I’ll put the team first. I think I bring the most value to Indianapolis at this point, so that’s where I’m going to focus my energies as a driver.

Q. Apologies for going slightly back in time, but I want to ask you about your thought process that led to your decision to part ways with Rinus at the end of last season after five years together, strong second half. What is it that you expect Alex to bring to the team that you haven’t been able to get from Rinus, and did Ted Gelov have any influence over this decision?

ED CARPENTER: I mean, everything we do is a team decision and there’s a lot of conversations and a lot of thought, debate process that goes into it. Ted was a part of the team at that point, so he was for sure a part of the conversation. But it wasn’t solely one person’s call.

To go back to the beginning of the question, I have nothing but respect and appreciation for the years we had with Rinus. I still consider him a really good friend and a really talented driver that I hope will find a spot in the sport. He deserves to be here.

But for us, like you said, he had been with us five years, our longest tenured driver ever at ECR, and it’s never easy to make those decisions, but we just felt like it was time to move in a different direction.

It could have easily been Rinus and Alex instead of Christian, but we made the decision that we thought was best for our team. I’m not going to go into all the details of why and how we got to that exact decision, but I think the important thing is, in my eyes, we had five really good years together, and I have nothing but appreciation and respect for Rinus, and hopefully we’ll be competing against him.

Q. As for Christian, first full-time season in the series coming up. What do you expect from him after a fairly promising rookie year?

ED CARPENTER: Yeah, I think we see a lot of upside with Christian. It’s really hard to be a rookie in this sport. We weren’t as good as we needed to be last year. I don’t think our problem was with our driver lineup necessarily. We weren’t good enough as a whole. But Christian continued to develop.

Then for me, I think I learned a lot about what he’s made of when we put him in a really tough position when I got out of the car at the end of last year and where we were in points with that, and how he dealt with the pressure of closing out and keeping us in the leader’s circle.

I’m expecting a big year from him. I think he has a ton of talent and potential, and I think we’ll see that this year.

About General Motors

General Motors (NYSE:GM) is driving the future of transportation, leveraging advanced technology to build safer, smarter, and lower emission cars, trucks, and SUVs. GM’s Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands offer a broad portfolio of innovative gasoline-powered vehicles and the industry’s widest range of EVs, as we move to an all-electric future. Learn more at GM.com.