INDYCAR GRAND PRIX
RACE REPORT
05.12.18
With the INDYCAR Grand Prix in the books, the Andretti Autosport stable of four grows to six as the team looks ahead to Opening Day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Tuesday, ahead of the 102nd Running of the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race on May 27.
No. 27 NAPA AUTO PARTS HONDA
•STARTED 8th // FINISHED 5th
•CHAMPIONSHIP: 2nd (176 pts.)
•OF NOTE: Captured his 20th career top 10 at the race where he earned his first // Credited with leading two laps // Battled for a podium finish in the final laps before falling into a fuel-saving strategy
“I was pretty concerned after this morning’s session. For some reason, the No. 27 NAPA AUTO PARTS Honda was losing pace through nothing more than just car balance as each run went on, so it was a little bit of a mystery to us. We’re very fortunate to have a four-car team. We were able to better the setup for Ryan [Hunter-Reay] on his car, and the No. 28 DHL car probably saved our weekend. Big shout out to them on the team effort. It was a good recovery – just disappointing that we couldn’t finish fourth. I think we had the opportunity to save fuel in that stint and we just didn’t make it happen, so we need to look into that but overall a good recovery by the whole team. I’m very excited to get to work on Tuesday – we’ve been very fortunate with such good cars here so looking to fight and go two out of three.”
No. 98 U.S. CONCRETE / CURB HONDA
•STARTED 14th // FINISHED 13th
•CHAMPIONSHIP: 10th (68 pts)
•OF NOTE: The U.S. Concrete team changed the engine on the No. 98 machine in under two-hours before the 85-lap race
“After an issue in warm up this morning, we had to bring in a new engine – so we started the race on a fresh one, which meant we literally went to the back, just waiting for the engine to get run-in. With the lost time on the engine change before the race, there were some other car changes we weren’t able to make, so we were stuck with a mechanical change that we knew wasn’t going to be good all day. We just sort of hung in there and did what we could to get through the day. It was more of a salvage than anything, but a big thanks to the U.S. Concrete boys for hanging in there.”
No. 28 DHL HONDA
•STARTED 13th // FINISHED 19th
•CHAMPIONSHIP: 9th (125 pts.)
•OF NOTE: Was contending in the top eight before an electrical issue resulted in an engine misfire // The misfire issue coupled with the need to save fuel dropped the 28 back in the field
“It was a rough day. We were running seventh and eighth and then we had an electrical issue that caused a misfire. It cut power on the bottom and top ends. We tried a couple on-track fixes, but they didn’t work and a fix in the pits would have taken too long. So, we were running all day about half of the horsepower and had to save fuel. It was pretty much a full nightmare scenario and certainly not what we hoped for today. The DHL team did a good job toughing it out during a very frustrating race, and we’re all looking forward to getting onto the oval Tuesday.”
No. 26 GROUP ONE THOUSAND ONE HONDA
•STARTED: 20th // FINISHED 23rd
•CHAMPIONSHIP: 15th (84 pts.)
•OF NOTE: Was collected in an opening lap incident, resulting in a damaged front wing and unscheduled pit stop // Worked his way back up to mid-pack before fighting a punctured tire and slow air leak, dropping the 26 to the back of the field before his final stop on Lap 71
“It was definitely one of the toughest weekends we have had. It seemed like anything that could have happened, did, in the race… we had to change a front wing, we got a cut tire. We rebounded from the damaged front wing pretty well, I think we were running around 13th – right with our teammates. Then, we started having a tire go down and that basically ended our story for the INDYCAR Grand Prix. I just want to thank everybody – especially my engineer Garrett for working so hard to figure out what our problem has been all weekend. I still think we missed the balance overall just a tad, but we came a long way from where we started, that’s a plus. I’m happy to have this out of the way and be able to focus on the Indy 500.”
MEDIA CONTACTS
Ryann Rigsby
Vice President, Communications
ryann.rigsby@andrettiautosport.com
+1 610.909.7312
Britni Allen
Senior Manager, Communications, INDYCAR
britni.allen@andrettiautosport.com
+1 740.816.2748
Phil Zielinski
Manager, Communications, Formula E
phil.zielinski@andrettiautosport.com
+1 317.373.9549
Amber Stevenson
Associate, Communications
amber.stevenson@andrettiautosport.com
+1 574.361.4325
Linkback: https://www.canadianracingonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=25976.msg118543#msg118543
