Information By: ASHLEY KELLER / CHEVROLET – NASHVILLE, TN
- Josef Newgarden, driver of the No. 2 Astemo Team Penske Chevrolet, qualified second for Sunday’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at his hometown track of Nashville Superspeedway with his fastest two-lap average of 201.352 mph.
- NTT INDYCAR SERIES Driver Championship contender and Newgarden’s Team Penske teammate Will Power, driver of the No. 12 Verizon Business Chevrolet, qualified fourth for Sunday’s 206-lap, 267.8-mile race.
- Overall, Chevrolet finished Saturday’s qualifying session with six in the top 10, including Newgarden, Power, AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci (fifth), Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Conor Daly (seventh), Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward (eighth) and Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin (ninth).
- Additionally, the Bowtie brand kicked off the race weekend with first practice Saturday morning at the 1.33-mile concrete D-shaped oval, finishing the session with five in the top 10 that included O’Ward (fourth), Power (sixth), McLaughlin (seventh), Ed Carpenter Racing rookie Christian Rasmussen (eighth), and Ferrucci (10th).
- The green flag for Sunday’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix from Middle Tennessee’s Nashville Superspeedway drops live at 3 p.m. ET on NBC. Additional coverage of the 206-lap, 267.8-mile main event broadcast via Peacock, as well as INDYCAR Radio and SiriusXM Channel 218.
TEAM CHEVY TOP-10 QUALIFYING RESULT:
Pos. Driver
2nd Josef Newgarden (201.352 mph)
4th Will Power (200.628 mph)
5th Santino Ferrucci (200.497 mph)
7th Conor Daly (200.393 mph)
8th Pato O’Ward (200.294 mph)
9th Scott McLaughlin (200.230 mph)
TEAM CHEVY TOP-10 FIRST PRACTICE RESULT:
Pos. Driver
4th Pato O’Ward (199.180 mph)
6th Will Power (198.942 mph)
7th Scott McLaughlin (198.470 mph)
8th Christian Rasmussen (198.338 mph)
10th Santino Ferrucci (198.001 mph)
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING (QUOTES):
Santino Ferrucci, No. 14 AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet:
“Solid qualifying in the Sexton Properties Chevy. Pretty awesome to start fifth and slide the top five already — we’ve been on a roll! I think our keeping the momentum going is just huge. Obviously, we were disappointed with the qualifying results in Milwaukee. We kind of knew what we did wrong, so to improve on that, come here and end up where we did was pretty awesome — and there’s still a little bit more left in it. So we’ll see how we do in the final practice and in the race.
“It was a great run, I had to crack the throttle one time, which I was a little annoyed about, but more for precautions than anything else. We had a really good run going and we didn’t want to ruin it by hitting the wall.”
Sting Ray Robb, No. 41 AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet:
“Lost fuel pressure, we don’t know why yet but the car is obviously very good and I’m very, very disappointed to end the year’s last qualifying like that because I think that we would have been running top 10 in no time. When you have to do that (start last) at a race like this where it’s going to probably be more single file it really matters how we start.”
Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet:
“I’m a little underwhelmed, to be honest. Pretty keen to be flat, and I was. Pretty bummed we didn’t get more speed out of it. I don’t know if it was trim or just missing a bit of speed, but I think we can fight from there. I think we’ll be alright. I think the race is going to be pretty tough passing-wise, but I’m looking forward to it. (Nashville) is quick. It feels a bit like Texas, to be honest. It’s probably the closest one that I can think of that’s somewhat similar to what I think we have now. This is concrete. It’s a concrete superspeedway and it’s different. It’s different on the tire. It’s quite bumpy. There are a few bumps here and there that make it pretty gnarly, so you just have to stay on top of it and really have it in the window alone and in traffic. The car changes in traffic significantly.”
Christian Rasmussen, No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet:
“So far, so good. I think it’s been a good day so far. I’ve kind of taken to (Nashville) pretty quickly never having been here before. I think I got everything out of it I could on this run, and I think maybe we were a little bit conservative on the setup side of things. But you never know. We went more aggressive than practice, and you never really know how big of a step you need to take. In hindsight, we could’ve gone a little bit more, but overall, I think it was a pretty strong run for us.”
Rinus VeeKay, No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet:
“I mean, it’s sketchy out here. Basically, in turn one and turn two it’s pretty easy flat. It’s that notorious bump in (turns) three and four. We drove a little bit less downforce than I kind of practiced with this morning. I hit that bump, and on the warmup lap and starting my first lap, I got a pretty big bump, so I had to get out of it for a brief moment. It cost us a little bit of time. I stayed flat for my two push laps. A lot faster than we were this morning. Still a great job by the No. 21 Chevy crew. Looking forward to tomorrow. We’re hanging in pretty decently. I’m confident.”
Romain Grosjean, No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet:
“I think the team has grown a lot, and I’ve done a very decent job behind the wheel. Still mad at myself for Portland, but I think the rest of the year has been fantastic, so I’m proud of my guys, proud of my season, and excited for this weekend. It’s a first (racing on a concrete oval), but it’s a great place and happy to be here. I think, hopefully, the grandstands get more and more full during the weekend, but INDYCAR has for sure has had an amazing race season. It’s good to be here. There’s still a chance tomorrow (to race to victory lane). I feel good. I’m proud of Juncos Hollinger Racing. I’m proud of the work that’s been done by Chevy this year to give us all we had from simulator to reliability, to good power on track.”
Conor Daly, No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet:
“(The track) is interesting. It’s a real challenge in turns three and four, but it reminds me of the INDYCAR racing I used to watch as a kid. Really cool high-intensity oval racing, but in (turns) three and four, the bump, I wish that wasn’t there. I feel like we could be a little bit more aggressive if we didn’t have that, but it’s kind of wild so far. You never know where you’re going to end up on the other side of it. Our car has definitely improved over the bumps. We’re definitely going to need to work on it over a long stint and heavy fuel load are going to be really tough, too.”
Josef Newgarden, No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet:
“Wish we could have been more aggressive there at the end, but you’re taking a guess at it. We all are. So, it was a good run. Our car was really solid. Just probably could have been more aggressive after doing it. The bump in turn three is going to be part of the challenge, but I think we’ll have a good car underneath us. Team Chevy’s done a great job, and I love driving the Astemo car. I think it’s good looking on the track. The race is hard to 100% say just now. I’m hoping we get a lot of drop off with the tires. That’s going to make the show good.
“Excited to be home so for me, just for qualifying, is like some of the most people I’ve seen. Milwaukee was similar, so I think Big Machine has done a great job I think we’re going to have a good crowd here, so thanks to them. I’m excited to see what tomorrow looks like.”
Scott McLaughlin, No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet:
“Not the best run, chassis-wise. We were probably a little bit aggressive on some aero and stuff like that. We’ll see what we’ve got. We’re starting a little bit further back than we want, but I feel like we’ve got a reasonable DEX Imaging Chevy and we’ll see what we’ve got.”
Will Power, No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet:
“The lap, couldn’t have done anymore. That was as much as we had. It was as fast as we could go. Wasn’t quite good enough. It’s a different package (since last here in 2008), the car is ultimately just heavier now. The track I really like. It’s a really nice track. Really nice having a cement track. It’ll be interesting to see after practice how well it races. We have a high-line (practice), see if it’s nice in the high-line and rubber that in, make it a good race.”
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, No. 2 Astemo Team Penske Chevrolet – Front Row Press Conference:
THE MODERATOR: Josef Newgarden joins us. He’ll be on the front row for tomorrow’s race, driver of the No. 2 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet, fourth front row start of the season, including the Indianapolis 500. Second straight going back to the Milwaukee race a couple weeks ago. Happy with that? Ready to start in the front row in your hometown?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Yes, I think it would be irresponsible not to be happy with it. I think it’s good. I’m a little disappointing. I wanted to preface it with we are happy, but I just think we — you can always look back at it after the fact and say we could have done this a little bit different.
I think we had one limiter hit at the end of the second lap, and I think that second lap was actually going to be faster. It was trending faster after of Turn 2.
Now that it’s all over and you look at it, you go, I wonder if that would have — I think it could have been the difference.
The team did a great job. The car was really great to drive. Honestly, it was amazing. So comfortable and very simple to put the laps together. Probably could have been more aggressive, too. The track cooled off a lot, gained a significant amount of grip just from practice.
So yeah, I think we’re happy with it. We’ve got at least a good field of view to start the race, which is fantastic, and now we get to go to work on the race car and try and figure that piece of the puzzle out. Team Chevy has done a good job for us so far this weekend and we’re going to go try to go get a win.
Q. The option tires are the softer alternate tire. How do you think that’s going to influence strategy tomorrow?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: I think it’ll be quite pivotal. It’s a very big difference to anything we’ve had before on the ovals. I think it’s going to be critical to understand what you like and what you want to run. It’s going to be almost the name of the game in a lot of ways.
Q. Do you think there’s a chance to — where do you see this track in terms of has it improved with this compound or —
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: I don’t know. We’ll probably have a better idea after tonight.
Q. Josef, front of the grid, we’ve got Willy P going for a championship, yourself and everybody else looking to win a race, just go get a victory. Talk about balancing that mindset. Obviously there’s a team goal championship potential, but you, McLaughlin, Kirkwood, Rosenqvist, you’d all love to go home with that P1 guitar. Talk about balancing those initiatives.
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think for us, and I think I’ve answered this kind of a couple times in different iterations, but I think that it’s similar to Milwaukee. You’ve really got to run your program as normal as you can. You start trying to get too clever and orchestrate something, I think that’s when you get into trouble.
The name of the game for us is to run a normal program, let’s try and do the best job in the 2 car.
Of course the priority for us is if we’re in a position to win the championship, we need to try to seal that off, and we will all do that. We’re prepared to do what’s necessary to win a championship because we’re all in it together at the end of the day.
But I think the way you get there is by running a normal race in a lot of respects. We’ve just got to go do our jobs, take care of each other, and hopefully the chips fall our way and we can button things up. If we can do that, it’ll be a good day for everybody.
Q. Trouble spots on the racetrack, it seems like between 3 and 4 there were a couple INDY NXT cars and seemed kind of (indiscernible) out there. Is that kind of a place to worry about?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: The second lane so far was not friendly, just to be transparent. I got there pretty early once and it was tough to do a lot with it. It’s tough to see how that’s going to trend, but right now it was tough.
Yeah, but I think the bump is definitely the overriding concern of everybody right now, and it’s kind of nice, it definitely has character. It’s not like all over the track, it’s just this one point, but you’ve got to make up for it, and some are setting the car up around it, too. It reminds me of Iowa in Turn 1, Turn 2 when you have huge big corner bump that everyone always had to account for, so it feels a little bit like that, but yeah, I think 3 and 4 will be the tougher spot.
The second lane, it’s just hard to say right now. I don’t know if it’s going to come in. I really hope it does. Everyone does.
Q. Qualifying second coming off — I presume is Milwaukee pretty much one you want to forget about? Is this a fresh start after what might be the worst weekend of your car?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Maybe so. That’s a good assessment. Things are going well so far. Let’s get through tomorrow and see what happens and then get to the off-season.
Q. Josef, will the bump (indiscernible) create passing opportunities?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: I think you’re going to need deg to have a race, and that’s only one factor in if this thing will race well. The likelihood of the second lane coming in, transparently it seems low, but these things are so difficult to predict.
Here’s what I will say. This is very true. It’s sometimes tough to get this package right in the first go. This is a new car from a long, long time ago when we used to run here. We put our best foot forward as a series. I think Firestone has done a good job trying to assess and bring us something that’s going to work here. If we don’t get it right this weekend, we will get it right in the future. You’ve seen that we can do this. Gateway was a great show, Milwaukee was a great show. It is very possible for us to figure out the formula, but it’s a difficult formula to work out because it requires something different every week. It’s not plug and play for each track.
It’s a tricky way to find solutions. Let’s see; I don’t know exactly how — I don’t know of us know exactly how this is going to trend yet, but we’ll get some tire degradation and we’ll see how the marbles play out and if we can use that second lane or if we can just pass using the second lane.
Q. I wanted to know what it’s like over 206 laps for tomorrow’s race because in watching the practice this morning, it wasn’t just the bump over the tunnel, it just seemed like the drivers’ heads were bobbing. Is it a rough track being cement and does that affect your body more because of the 14 degrees of banking?
JOSEF NEWGARDEN: It is a rough track. It’s quite wavy, if you think of it that way. It feels more like a street course surface throughout the whole thing. I don’t think it is more physical. You’re just kind of noticing the heaving motion of the car is different than what you typically get on an oval track, but it actually feels like it has pretty good grip on the surface. It’s more the second lane, does that have grip or not. But no, I don’t think it’s going to affect us.