An Interview With Ryan Hunter-Reay

Ryan Hunter-Reay

ARNI SRIBHEN: Welcome, everyone, to today's IndyCar conference call. We're pleased to be joined today by Ryan-Hunter Reay of Andretti Autosport. Ryan, welcome to the call.

RYAN HUNTER REAY: Thanks for having me on.

ARNI SRIBHEN: As most of you know, Ryan was the 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner, and is one of only three drivers to win at Barber Motorsports Park, site of this weekend's Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama. Ryan looks to become the first driver to win three consecutive races at Barber, and he would be the first driver to do that feat since Will Power won three straight races at Sao Paulo from 2010 through 2012.

Ryan, you've had some recent success at Barber. What's it going to take to win for a third year in a row there.

RYAN HUNTER REAY: Well, that's what we're trying to find out. I'm not really sure. Obviously we're dealing with a completely different car now, a different package, so things are going to need to be reworked a bit. We didn't have the best test that you could imagine at the Barber open test, but we certainly found some things that worked and I think we found a direction. The good thing is we're a threeâ€'car team. Building on that for the future and building on that when we go into a short weekend like Barber, we seem to be able to take advantage of that. We seem to be able to run different setups on different cars, get some things that work and go from there.

ARNI SRIBHEN: This is really the first true road course, with the conditions at NOLA kind of making that not really a true road course event, so with the first true road course coming up with the new aero kits and seeing lap records fall on the street courses, do you think the lap record could be in danger this weekend at Barber?

RYAN HUNTER REAY: I think so. Right now I just checked the weather and it's 100 percent on Saturday for qualifying, 100 percent rain. Whether it rains at that specific time, I'm not sure. But Sunday looks like it's going to be clear, and I definitely think the track record would fall if it's a dry session. But we'll see how it goes here. I definitely like getting around Barber in the wet, as well. So I'm good for either way.

ARNI SRIBHEN: Last year your win there set the stage for a memorable month of May for you. What did you take from that race into the month of May, and then obviously heading back to Indianapolis as the defending race winner, your thoughts on just what's coming up in the next few weeks?

RYAN HUNTER REAY: Yeah, I think it definitely helped build some momentum, we went to Barber last year, won that, and it was really a special one because it's the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama and we won for Honda. Bringing that 28 Honda into victory lane was pretty special. That set the tone. I think we went to the Indy GP, finished second in that one and then we went and won the big one, won the Indy 500. It was a pretty good stretch, I think, for us as a team, and hopefully we can get going on the same tone here this year.

Q. I'm curious about whether or not you feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel here, especially heading into Barber where you've had success, and with Indy looming, do you feel like you guys are going to be able to turn the corner?

RYAN HUNTER REAY: Well, with the Indy side of it, we have no idea how we stack up to Chevy. We have no idea how the Chevy kit is going to perform, and we really don't know how the Honda kit is going to compare to that, and it's a completely different â€'â€' this is a completely different topic than the road course car. With the oval car, the downforce is achieved differently, the drag members are different, so it's a completely different subject. We could have the dominant oval package, we just don't know yet. We have no idea because we've never been at a racetrack with the Chevy and the Honda at the same time on an oval.

As for the road course car, though, you know, it's a work in progress. I'm not sure how much the Chevy will continue to develop. All the while we're trying to get that sweet spot with the Honda, the Chevy has also been being pushed forward, being developed by Penske, Ganassi and every other team, every other â€'â€' Ed Carpenter Racing.

It's evolving, as well, and they certainly came out of the gate stronger than us, but we're making some inroads into what we know and what we think we want from the car, and in order to get the most out of it. It's not been the easiest equation to figure out, and I think the results have kind of spoken to that, but I think we're making some progress. This weekend in Barber will be another step in that direction, and it's a completely different track. Even in NoLA, Barber with the undulations and the elevation changes, it presents challenges that even though the two are permanent road courses, NoLA is much different than Barber in that way.

Q. Just looking at the team overall from kind of a chemistry standpoint, you guys had the four cars at the first two races back to three for these couple and then will go to four and five for the month of May. How are you gelling with the three of you and once we get into May Justin comes in and Simona comes back.

RYAN HUNTER REAY: Yeah, I mean, I think the three of us, you know, that's kind of our core team that we have a good relationship with. Certainly Marco and I have been working together since â€'â€' this is six seasons now or five â€'â€' six seasons now, we're working on our sixth now, so we have a great working relationship, and then Carlos, as well, has been with us for a couple years now.

It's easy, and then when you have â€'â€' and it works well. But then when you have people like Justin and Simona who are good teammates, they're very easy to work with. It's a seamless transition adding them into the meetings and building them into the process. Really looking forward to having both of them. Looking forward to working with Justin Wilson. We've been competitors for a long time and I really respect him in many ways, and it will be great to work with him.

Q. You mentioned the forecast is iffy for the weekend, plus it's a twoâ€'day event. With that in mind going in, how does that affect how you as a team prepare with the limited amount of time you're going to have to get ready for the race on Sunday?

RYAN HUNTER REAY: Yeah, that's a tough one. It is a short weekend, and we've got to get a lot done in a very short amount of time. With that, we'll put to use our potential advantage that we have, which is a threeâ€'car team, and attack it from every different angle that we have when it comes to setup. I think we'll see different approaches from the 28 car, from the 27 car and from the 26 car, and hopefully we'll be able to find what works in a shorter amount of time that way. You know, usually when we deal with short weekends like that, we tend to have that approach. When we're doing the longer weekends, we tend to kind of stick to what's worked in the past and find setup tweaks that are balanced and go from there.

Q. I wanted to touch on a little bit, Ganassi and Penske, they're strong at the tail end of last season. They were strong in testing. They've been strong early on this part of the season thus far. Knowing that they have the Chevy aero kit, the Chevy package, whatnot, when you look at this, is this maybe a lack of resources with Andretti Autosport that's keeping it from being that elite topâ€'tier team that it once was or was for years, or is it maybe the aero kits or the power plan or just a combination of factors?

RYAN HUNTER REAY: I think, no, it doesn't have to do with the resources of Andretti Autosport. It really is the fact that Honda and â€'â€' Honda tweaked their aero kit very late in the process to â€'â€' in reaction to some of IndyCar's rule changes. Chevrolet did it sooner, Honda did it later, I think, and by the time we had the completed package, we actually really never developed it on track, where Chevy had been testing on track long before we had our completed and homologated package together, and I think that's kind of what you're seeing now.

Q. You sort of answered it there at the end, so that was good. How much change in the personnel within the organization â€'â€' you've kind of had more changes at the top maybe â€'â€' well, you certainly have. Do you think that's played any factor at all with this team?

RYAN HUNTER REAY: Personnel changes at the top of?

Q. Well, like Rob Edwards, and there's just been some changes at Andretti Autosport.

RYAN HUNTER REAY: No, no, no. I mean, you know, it's â€'â€' when you get to the racetrack, it really feels it's all the same, same team for me. Certainly Marco switched teams and there's been some shakeâ€'ups there, but no, when it comes to performance on track and how we operate over a race weekend or between races, in preparation for races, everything is very similar to how it's always been for me at Andretti Autosport from my perspective.

Q. Getting back to the last question and you talked about the lack of time to develop something, develop this kit, do you feel like you're chasing it from the time you get to the racetrack, or do you feel like the plan that you have is fine, it just hasn't worked as well speedâ€'wise as you'd hoped?

RYAN HUNTER REAY: No. I mean, what we're doing is we're trying to get the car to be â€'â€' to achieve a balance that allows for lap time, really, that allows for you to push it and drive it really hard on the edge. And we haven't been able to find that sweet spot just yet.

I think that's one thing, and then we obviously don't have the numbers for Chevy's drag or downforce and drag numbers, and I'm not sure how we stack up on that. But really it's the characteristics, the handling characteristics of the car that we're trying to nail down, and that equals lap time. When you have a car that's balanced â€'â€' I'm not sure if you watched Helio's car in Long Beach during qualifying, you can see the car is very well balanced, the front is working, it's cornering well and it's putting the power down well. We don't have all the boxes checked off yet.

Q. Past success is a good indicator of the future in many endeavors, but what seems to help you about your winning experience in adjusting to the next track and to the next track?

RYAN HUNTER REAY: You know, experience helps with everything in life. The same thing with racing. When you know what worked in the past, how you did it, how you went about it, and certainly how to get the most out of the race car when you're driving on that edge, it all goes towards it. It's one thing to be fast over a lap in a qualifying session. It's a completely different skill set to be fast over a race and to use the car when it needs to be pushed, to use the tire the way it needs to be used and drive the car in a specific manner. I think there's just a lot that goes to it. Also, setting up the car and what you need from it. That's very important, and I think a lot of drivers, a lot of rookies don't usually get for the first few years is what do I need out of the car to go as fast as possible for my driving style because every driver has a different driving style. There's a lot to it. Without going a half hour into it, that's just a part of it.

Q. I like to ask this question to champions. A long time ago I interviewed John Force about his championships, and he obviously has plenty of them, but he said as hard as the first one is, the second one is even harder. Do you kind of concur with that?

RYAN HUNTER REAY: It really depends. You know, it depends on the circumstances and what car you're dealing with and how much of an advantage you have over certain other competitors at certain types of racetracks.

I don't think that's necessarily true. The first one could be more difficult and the second one could be â€'â€' could come a little easier. It depends what type of situation you're in. Certainly at the moment I think that would be accurate for me.

Q. I was wondering if you had any chance to talk further with series officials about the penalty maybe agreed to disagree or just sort of figure out where they were coming from with it?

RYAN HUNTER REAY: Yeah, I spoke to them in Long Beach on Thursday, and I went over a lot of video with them of similar situations that actually even happened at NoLA that didn't get even a review, one being the first lap with Will Power and Tony Kanaan. Tony tried an outside move and Will tracked out and Tony went off in the weeds. I just don't understand it, really, and I kind of went through that with them and we talked about a bunch of things, and I let them know how I feel about it. I'm not sure if that quite answers your question, but yeah, I went over it with the officials, yeah, and I think they opened up a bit of a can of worms there because it puts them in a tough spot here in the future and we'll see things that are very similar to that that they have to call now.

Q. But there was nothing they showed you on that video or explained that maybe could have shown you why they did it? You still don't think it was justified at all?

RYAN HUNTER REAY: It's a hard racing incident. No, I don't think it's justified because it is, it's a tough racing incident. Sometimes things go wrong when two cars are racing for the same piece of racetrack. It's racing. Do officials have to step in at that point? No, I don't think so. And I had a good talk with Pagenaud, and we put it all behind us, and it's moved on a long ways from Thursday of last week. That feels like two months ago.