Indy 500 Saturday Qualifying Press Conference
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| 'Irrelevant Saturday' Press Conference |
Drivers
Juan Pablo Montoya
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Mikhail Aleshin
Townsend Bell
Will Power
Saturday, May 21, 2016
MODERATOR: Welcome to the Economaki press conference room. James, we didn't chat with you after your first qualifying effort. I know the circumstances, what all went into that. But I couldn't help but notice, given some of the other qualifying sessions we had seen earlier, we had a good in-car look at you. As opposed to earlier in the day we saw some really, really busy race drivers. It looked like, at least from the outside, your car was pretty stable.
HINCHCLIFFE: No, it was. It was pretty good. I mean it was really good. What am I talking about? Huge credit to the Schmidt Peterson Motorsport guys. They've worked so hard on these race cars since back in February. We've got three quick ones. I mean, the 77 and the 7 were quick as well. After our first run, we didn't quite maximize. I made some mistakes on my shifting pattern. I was kind of mad at myself about that. Kind of got in my own head a little bit. We made some changes. We knew everybody was going to go out again and try and improve. And we made a couple changes to the car, because, I mean, the Arrow Electronics car was not only fast but it held on for all four laps. The consistency was there. That was a big key today.
It doesn't mean much today; it's bragging rights. It's pay for the boys, because it validates all the effort they put into this race car. It gets us in the Fast Nine, obviously, which was what the big point today was and hopefully we can go out there tomorrow and do something similar.
MODERATOR: But given what we heard earlier today Marco Andretti say, for example, that the four laps he turned earlier in the day were as hard as any 500 laps he's ever turned. Scott Dixon referred to it as diabolical. I mean, these are top guys. And you come back here in this situation and turn that lap, it has to be gratifying.
HINCHCLIFFE: No, it is. In the heat of the moment all you're thinking about is the moment. You're thinking about the competition, you're thinking about getting the best out of your car and the best out of yourself. For sure, our first run, same thing. That was the hardest qualifying attempt I had ever done at the Speedway here.
When you kind of take a step back and let yourself think about it a little bit, it does feel good, for sure. This racetrack means a lot to everybody in the series, everybody in the sport. And the city of Indianapolis has been so behind me from day one after the deal a year ago. It's great to come out here and do something like that. But doesn't matter until it matters. Like I say, we've got the car in the Fast Nine and that's what matters for today, but let's see if we can do something strong tomorrow.
MODERATOR: We've a couple questions for James. We've got Juan with us, and then we'll let him go. Quite a few drivers to roll through.
Q: James, I just want your thoughts on today, all the activity and everything, all the drama that played out. Even if you weren't the fastest, what did you think of all the drama and the way it heads into tomorrow?
HINCHCLIFFE: I think it's cool. A lot of people were kind of giving today flack because there were only 33 cars and it wasn't really necessarily a Bump Day. But I think everybody sitting up here will tell you that the competitive spirit about trying to get in the Fast Nine, we were stressing between our first and second runs as if we were sitting on the bubble for the race. So there was definitely drama for the race teams and for the drivers with the conditions and a lot of things. Even though we only had 33 cars show up today, I think it was still a very exciting format.
Q: Most everybody fell off on laps, maybe the majority fell off on laps 3 and 4. Was it tires mostly or what was going on?
[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]HINCHCLIFFE: That's kind of always the case here. When you get this light on downforce, the tires are your biggest thing that slows you down the most at that point. So we saw today, especially with the wind earlier, making it last four laps was a huge deal. Ultimately that's what helped us out. We weren't as quick as Ryan there at the end or even Will had faster laps but the car held on. So that's something we wanted to make sure happened. We kind of did it backwards in the first run. Our last lap was actually our quickest, but that was mainly my fault. It was nice to kind of get it right the second time around.
Q: With shift with the Daylight Savings Time, Happy Hour is now 6 to 7 p.m., which is what we ran today. It seemed like it was a lot of fun, very entertaining. Would you suggest to the powers that be that we move Happy Hour from 6 to 7 with the Daylight Savings Time?
HINCHCLIFFE: I was going to say absolutely not.
MONTOYA: I thought it was cool. I'm out.
HINCHCLIFFE: Yeah, I know. But the problem is after you get out of the car — did you mean in practice or just today?
Q: Just today.
HINCHCLIFFE: Oh, sorry. Yeah, that's fine. I thought you meant every day.
MONTOYA: That's bedtime for me.
HINCHCLIFFE: It's the crews. I don't care about me, it's the crews. These guys turn ridiculous hours. They're here stupid early in the morning. I was saying for practice days we should start earlier and end earlier, but that's not what you asked, so I'll shut up.
MONTOYA: That's OK.
MODERATOR: OK. We have to roll through here quickly. Another question.
Q: James, having missed the race last year, how much are you looking forward to Race Day this year?
HINCHCLIFFE: As much as I was looking forward to it last year and as much as I was looking forward to it the year before and the year before. You don't approach the month any differently. I don't think I'm looking at it any differently I have before or any differently than any of the guys sitting up here. Unfortunately what happened last year I had to miss it, but hopefully we get through the next couple days and we line up on the grid and get to enjoy it like everybody else.
Q: How interested of a spectator were you on Mikhail's run there? He barely got out before the gun was fired.
HINCHCLIFFE: Yeah, I was in the garage watching on TV. Awesome, he just walked in. Good job, Buddy. Come up here. What are you sitting down there for? Bring your chair.
It was awesome. I mean, like I said before, it validates all the effort that Schmidt Peterson Motorsport guys put into these cars since February. Oriol was quick early and he probably could have been up there as well if the timing had been a bit better. It's great for the team. I'm really happy for all the boys.
ALESHIN: I'm coming. (Laughter)
MODERATOR: Obviously we have a full deck now. You came in early, James. You're on overtime now. It's up to you if you want to bolt. You can bolt.
Townsend Bell turned in a very quick lap really early on and did a tremendous job. Ryan Hunter-Reay went back and requalified, did a great job. Juan did the same thing.
MONTOYA: No.
MODERATOR: What's that?
MONTOYA: I didn't. I was 10th.
MODERATOR: So much action, but the first time we've seen you today. But Mikhail did. Mikhail turned in a great lap as well.
Townsend, how about you? You were quick right off the bat and then you watched the rest of this drama unfold. At any point did you think, "I could get knocked out of this deal"?
BELL: Well, the engineers have a way of starting to do calculations immediately. At first they're like, "Oh, you're fine." I forget who went out and ran. I think when Hinch went out and posted a time, you could tell they were recalculating time remaining, how long it takes to make runs. But I think for the most part we thought we were reasonably safe.
We were ready to go again. It would have been fun. The track was really good there at the end. And I didn't do a great job on the first run, so I really wanted a chance to go out and do it again. Obviously, I wasn't going to pull my time if I didn't have to. I'm excited for tomorrow. It's pretty fun to come back and have a chance to go for pole.
MODERATOR: Sure. Ryan, you came in and although your son stole the show, you didn't appear to be particularly happy, and thought you had more and you were right.
HUNTER-REAY: We were out of the window in the first run. Came back to the garage and talked with the teammates. It's been great working with Townsend as well. Thanks to him for working with me on my second run.
Put a different setup on it. Got the aero right, got the balance right and finally was feeling what the car needed. So it was a good second run and then I had to go do it again there at the end. That was hectic. You know, like James was saying, I have some bad memories of this place, being right as the gun goes off. I've done that twice in my career. That was very similar. I have to keep reminding myself it's only for the Top Nine, you're fine.
Q: What about Marco?
HUNTER-REAY: With Marco as well. So it was like flashbacks with that whole situation. But thankfully it was for the Fast Nine. So, yeah, good balance in the car. I think I could have got a little bit more out of it. Maybe we'll save it for tomorrow and have a good shootout.
Big thanks to Honda. I just wanted to thank them for laying it all on the line. They're pushing hard and I feel like we have a good match-up right now. Like I said out there, you know, pretty similar weight, pretty similar build and the same reach at the moment. So it would be really good to have it that way for Race Day.
MODERATOR: Juan, we didn't see you earlier today. You're obviously the defending race winner and two-time winner here. We had a lot of championship quality drivers come in and said that it was one of the more difficult qualifying sessions that they had ever seen. Did you feel that way?
MONTOYA: Yeah, like when I ran during the day, it was really tough. I was sliding all around. Especially Turn One was a nightmare for everybody. The weird thing for us at the end, we took downforce off. I was flat out earlier, I wasn't flat and we went slower. Always in qualifying the same BS with us, and I'm not worried about it to be honest. We've got a good race car again and will come past people. I think Chevy, I think we've got a really good race engine, so I'm pretty excited.
[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]MODERATOR: You were the eleventh hour guy, Mikhail. You didn't know whether or not you rolled off the line in time, but you did. You white-knuckled it and did a tremendous job. Congratulations on that final run.
ALESHIN: Yeah, thanks. I think everything was in seconds in the end. I just managed to go out on track and that was my only chance to get up there. You know, with team help I obviously used it for 100 percent. I want to congratulate the team, all the team with the results that we had. I think all the team is very strong and especially James' results shows it.
I think it's a good official start of the weekend. And good official start of 500 for all team. Yeah, we start from there.
Q: James, over here. (Laughter)
HINCHCLIFFE: Have a domestic happening back here.
Q: It just seems that you've come in here with so much confidence and even — you know, quiet inner confidence. What do you do tonight knowing you had the fastest car today so you're able to maintain that tomorrow in what will probably be close to the same time?
HINCHCLIFFE: Do you want to take this one? (Laughter)
Yes —
MONTOYA: What do we call you now?
HINCHCLIFFE: Prince.
MONTOYA: Prince?
HINCHCLIFFE: Yeah. I'm not that cocky, come on. There's already a King James and he's kind of a big deal, so I don't want to fight that battle. I'll go with Prince, yeah.
HUNTER-REAY: Prince James.
HINCHCLIFFE: I don't make what he makes.
MONTOYA: Prince Charming. (Laughter)
HINCHCLIFFE: Yeah. You had a question, right. (Laughter)
No, I mean I came into the whole season feeling very good. I think a lot of people made a bigger deal about coming back here than I did. For me the big deal was just getting back in the car, which was last September, and that was kind of my big hurdle. So coming back here I just felt like, you know, any other month of May and the team is always prepared for this race.
We'll see. There's so many quick guys. There's so many quick cars and ten miles is different than 500 miles, and we haven't even done the proper ten miles yet. So there's still most of the important stuff to go. But it's good to know that we're kind of at the right end and within a fighting chance.
Q: But you're the last driver to go out, so there's going to be a lot of —
HUNTER-REAY: You've got best conditions.
HINCHCLIFFE: Best conditions, who knows? A butterfly could flutter its wings and screw things up. It's crazy. (Laughter)
So we'll see. Yeah, it's good to know what you have to beat, right? It's good to know the number. So we'll take that. But that's not going to make us any faster and it's not going to make any of them any slower.
ALESHIN: So now we all know it's just about the butterflies. (Laughter)
HINCHCLIFFE: It's true. That's a fact.
MODERATOR: Bruce, do you have a question that could bring some order to this thing? I'd appreciate it.
Q: Townsend, you're pretty good at assessing things. Now only do we have an interesting group of drivers here, five Hondas, four Chevys, Andrettis, Penskes, one-offs, Russians —
HINCHCLIFFE: Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.
Q: We've got a little bit of everything in this qualifying session and Fast Nine is unique at best. Would you just sum up what you saw today?
BELL: I think we saw a really balanced field because obviously there's — I haven't done the numbers but I don't think any team is represented with all its drivers, right? There's three Andrettis, there's two Schmidts, there's a couple of Penskes, not Juan obviously. And so I think it looks really balanced. And everybody has spoken about the conditions, so I really think that in that Fast Nine window — I mean James jokes about the butterflies, but really, I grabbed my temperature gun. Right before I got in, it was 90-degree track temp with cloud cover and the sun popped out literally as I was putting my helmet on. I shot it one more time and it had gone up 15 degrees. It all matters. I think that's what it's going to come down to.
For me, I really didn't string together a very good four-lap run. I had a big first lap but a really bad fourth lap. That's because I was going for it. It was like, "Man, I'm going to go for it." And it didn't work out. I think it's going to take going for it and precision to be the guy on pole tomorrow.
MONTOYA: Want to join us, Mike? Can I go?
MODERATOR: We've excused you. Questions for Juan? (Laughter)
Somebody start the music, for God's sakes.
Q: Mikhail, I think you went out twice between 5:30 and 7:00. So I'm just curious if you did much to your car that was different and if your car felt better or if you were really hanging it out that last couple minutes when the gun went off, and if Hinch was able to help you at all.
ALESHIN: We didn't do much to be fair. I think mostly it was weather just came to us a bit. Track cooled down and I think it was less wind as well. That's what I felt. I don't know. But yeah, it was definitely better. Unfortunately we couldn't — James couldn't help us at this moment because we were already in the line, so you cannot change anything in the car.
But yeah, I think everything was just all together in one piece at this time.
[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]MODERATOR: Real quickly we'll introduce Will who qualified earlier today, did not come in here. That was an indication to me that he felt that wasn't the time he was going to stand on and you got back out and things are a little better.
POWER: Yeah, it was just conditions. Honestly I didn't change anything on the car and didn't trim out any more. It was just a matter of picking the right time to go in that line and making sure that you made it, too, that you didn't go too far back in the line. But yeah, the team picked it perfectly and made it in. So hopefully have a shot tomorrow. I think there's very fast cars out there and it will be a really good show for the fans.
MODERATOR: Questions. We'll open it up again for questions for this esteemed group in front of us.
I'm looking. Thank you.