Q&A with Castroneves, Sato and Alonso
 |
| Helio Castroneves listens intently during the Drivers Meeting |
Drivers
Takuma Sato
Fernando Alonso
MODERATOR: Welcome, everyone, to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This is kind of the Economaki pavilion nowadays. But after a long period of work, we've got one of the gentlemen who was fastest in the final session and has been fast, frankly, from the opening bell. A friend of mine said, you know, some people aren't talking about Takuma Sato, who nearly won this race and he was fast again.
Takuma, tell us about your last session.
TAKUMA SATO: To be honest, I mean, this has been a great experience. I really enjoyed working with Andretti Autosport. It's working really seamlessly, very smooth. Monday after the qualify, we did a lot of race sim with the various different setups and downforce changes, and we covered most of the stuff. And come to today with Carb Day, is kind of really shakedown of the car because car was spitting off all the things and put everything back together with new engine. Install and then feel it out. Car felt really good. So that was a great sign because it's just no surprise. You don't want to have any surprise on Carb Day because all the work you've done in the last week, this is the result. We have a car and be ready for Sunday.
Again, it was very great to see all the teammates working together and being one of the fastest car like this to go toward Sunday. It is a great comfortableness, as well as a confident.
MODERATOR: We've got several things back to back here. We're going to have to move things along. We'll bring Fernando, if he's available, to make his way up now.
SATO: Fernando, oh, here he comes.
MODERATOR: Fernando, it has been a whirlwind, obviously getting a lot of attention on you, pressure, a lot of requests for media. Thus far, at least from our end, it's appeared to go very smoothly for you. Final practice, I suspect you're ready to get down to racing.
FERNANDO ALONSO: I need to read this?
MODERATOR: No. If you like to, you could.
ALONSO: It's the 102nd Running Press Conference. (Laughter)
MODERATOR: No, no. We can't have the reveal ahead of time. Tell us about your final practice.
 |
| Alonso talks to race officials Brian Barnhart and Max Papis about how he is going to give the Indycar guys a driving lesson on Sunday |
ALONSO: It was great. I mean, it was very smooth. You know, the car felt the best so far in the last two weeks. So extremely happy with the car. I was there making some moves, some different lines, just to try what I saw in the last three or four days in different medias from different years, so I was practicing that. I also did in the simulator in the last two or three days, I was putting it in place there.
Yeah, the car felt great. So extremely happy with today's car and with this performance.
MODERATOR: A lot of traffic out there, a lot of cars. How did it feel different to you?
ALONSO: It was a lot of action today in a one-hour session. You have a lot of things happening. Everything is compressed on those 60 minutes. So we had some yellow flags; we had some laps to test different things on the car. And just even, you know, very normal things that for everyone else will be straightforward. For me, I don't know where, you know, if we change something on the car, where to find it, you know, on the steering wheel and things like that. So simple things that I am still running behind a little bit, but today I think we put all the ticks in all the boxes and extremely happy.
MODERATOR: OK. One question.
Q: Fernando, another Honda failure in practice. Is this a concern going into the ‘500?’
ALONSO: As long as it's in practice, it's OK. You know, I mean, if you put it in another way, you know, if the practice today was 10 minutes shorter, that could happen on the parade lap. So I think it's a good thing that these things happen in practice like this. We can make sure that we learn and we save engines for the race. So no concerns, not thinking on that problem, and I'm 100 percent will be OK.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much for coming in, Fernando. We appreciate it.
[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]HELIO CASTRONEVES: Good luck, brother. Have a good one.
MODERATOR: Helio, obviously on Qual Day you were not the happiest camper in the Speedway. That happens.
CASTRONEVES: Yeah.
MODERATOR: Had an opportunity to work on the car. Tell us what you know from what you experienced out there today.
CASTRONEVES: One year it happened that Chevy wasn't with their game, I think it was when Dario won, and they came back. Even 2014 when Hunter-Reay won, they came back and did a great job. So our goal is pretty much the same. Qualifying did not work out the way we wanted. We keep working, digging, obviously finding a way. We're going to fight extremely hard out there and showing a little bit of speed certainly. It creates, I remember Tony Dungy just before the Super Bowl a couple of years ago or long time ago, when I was there he finished the practice, everybody really pumped, and I think today it was just a great way to finish practice like this, show that we have a good car, a good balanced car, and we're going for the big one on Sunday.
MODERATOR: We'll take one question.
Q: So because it's unusual for you to start so far back, what do you hope to avoid during the first 50 laps or so?
CASTRONEVES: Well, normally you've got to check those boxes that we in the past we didn't have to. We've got to pay attention with the people that surround you, make sure that, you know, you control everything on your own, put yourself in a good position so that if somebody makes mistakes, you don't be part of it. And be patient, obviously, is always a good thing at this place. And, you know, take your time. Obviously when you have a good car like that, you don't want to rush into things because it's a long race. That's probably what we're going to do.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Helio.
CASTRONEVES: Thank you, guys.