Q&A with Kanaan, Rossi & Dixon

Tony Kanaan

Q. Happy birthday.
TONY KANAAN: Thank you.

Q. Just kind of recap what you thought of your 2016 season and then talk about looking ahead to 2017.
TONY KANAAN: It was definitely a positive season for us. We're running extremely strong, I would say probably the strongest I have done since I joined Ganassi, up until we had the mechanical in Watkins Glen. We were sitting fourth in the championship at the time, and I think that race cost us a top-four finish in the championship. We had a very strong car, and we probably were going to finish second there.

But all in all, I think it was a pretty positive season. I addressed a lot of my issues that I had the season before with the team, what we should have gotten better, and I think we did, although we still haven't got the win that we wanted, but I think it was a stronger season for me since I had joined Ganassi.

Q. Talk about the 2017 season.
TONY KANAAN: Well, the goals are always the same, right; we start the year with the goal of winning the Indy 500 and the championship, and then you adjust as you move along. You know, no joking around, we're celebrating my 20th season in IndyCar this year, which is a remarkable achievement. As a driver, you never count those things, but it's kind of cool to see that there's not a lot of guys that have done that, and then the guys that did it are big names. It made me very humble when my team brought that up to me, and we'll be doing a lot of fun stuff this year with the fans, interacting on social media, and just really celebrating my 20th IndyCar season.

I'm excited about that. I think, like I said, if I look back, I mean, I see a lot of familiar faces that were with me 20 years ago here in this room, so yeah, my English is maybe a little bit better than back then, but no, it's remarkable. So I'm excited about that.

Q. Going back to Honda, how does that feel?
TONY KANAAN: It feels good. I think you think about it, the majority of my wins were in a Honda. My biggest win was in a Chevy. You know, you talk about the Indy 500. But back to the Honda family, I spent a lot of years there. I think it was 13 or 14 if you count that after they joined with Chevy for a couple years, a little more, whatever. So it's been like 14 years that — and it's still the same people, so I'm excited about it.

I think the competition probably will be also a little bit better, not having Penske and Ganassi with the same engine manufacturers. I'm excited. Definitely we had our beginning-of-the-year meeting with Honda a few months back, and you walk into HPD, it's the same people as when I left a few years ago. I felt right at home.

Q. What areas are you targeting to improve this year? What do you need to do better to get a win or two this year?
TONY KANAAN: I mean, it's tough to say. We did improve qualifying last year, which that's something that I had to do. Race craft I think I've always had, and to be honest, it's not one thing. I believe that it's been such a competitive series that as a team, if you look at it, we won two races last year, which is a team that used to win four, five or six. So I think we just need to concentrate on doing our job as a team the best way possible to win races, so we need to win races. If I had to point out something what we need to do, what we need to do to improve, we need to win more races, but that takes everybody's job, pit stop, strategy, car setup, me qualifying and racing and all that. Nowadays it's such a competitive series that you cannot have a hiccup in any one of those because then you lose a race.

Q. How are you handling this drought right now? It's been a while since you won a race, and that's not usual for you.
TONY KANAAN: No, not at all. I mean, obviously I'm not happy. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and I definitely criticize myself a lot, but I think as long as I have the opportunity to try and I know I'm doing my best, you know, it is what it is. You get to this stage of your career, you start looking at — you're comparing yourself to some of your heroes and some of the people that they go through phases, as well, and you get to see obviously where you are, what position you're in, what kind of equipment you have, because there are so many variables that are not related to your own — just your own capability of winning races.

To me, I'm pretty fair assessing what's right, what's wrong, what went right and what went wrong, and if I look back my last year's season, for instance, I think there were actually at least three very realistic occasions that I had a race that I was going to win but something else out of my control happened, and that's just luck, I guess.

So as long as I keep having that and understanding that, then it doesn't bother me. The day that I will be really bothered by something like that will be the day that I realize I'm not driving fast enough to win races anymore. Then it will be time to go do something else.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]Q. Last year in the 10 car, everybody was putting this name in it and that name in it and they weren't putting your name in it, and that had to offend you to some degree.
TONY KANAAN: Not at all. You know, it's always speculation. I've been around way too long. At the end of the day, my name was in it, so it doesn't matter how many names they put there. I just kept doing my job. I didn't let that distract me or — I would say Tony Kanaan back 10 years ago, if it was about that, I would be so mad and I would be like fuming and not speaking to people and holding stuff against people that were talking about that stuff.

Nowadays, I just did my job. It takes more than just drive fast nowadays to be able to drive a race car. There is a lot of sponsorship involvement, a lot of relationships, and I think on that side I had it covered. For me, I wasn't really concerned, I just — you know, sometimes people talk way more than the reality was, but that's the world, right.

Q. The confidence going into the Indy 500 with Honda given their track record?
TONY KANAAN: I think we have a lot better chance than we had last year; put it this way. I think their package for Indianapolis proved the past three years that it was the package to have. The past two, they dominated, I would say, so for us, for me especially, it's very promising. It doesn't mean anything because I want — I lost races with the best car there so many times, but it's definitely a good starting point.

Q. Is there part of that that feels kind of like the dynamic that you had at Andretti many years ago when you had Honda?
TONY KANAAN: Yeah, I mean, it's just the same manufacturer, but you know, they're still going to be at Honda. They're still going to be a tough team to beat. It's not that we're the only Hondas and we're going to dominate, well, now we're good. So even though we're going to have probably the best package for Indy, we still have four cars from them that they're going to be tough.

Yeah, kind of. Yes, to answer your question, probably yes, it's a really similar dynamic.

Q. I know we're all looking forward to the Verizon IndyCar Series, but you're doing a couple things racing-wise I know you're really excited about. Talk about the Race of Champions and the Rolex and what those mean to you, and also all the IndyCar representation within those two events.
TONY KANAAN: Well, I think the Race of Champions, let's talk about that first. We have four IndyCar drivers there — six, seven, sorry. Seven, I guess, so that tells you how tough the series is and how good of drivers we have. You know, it's a great event. I've participated in that in 2004, and I think for exposure, it's a different kind of racing, but we keep putting the IndyCar name out there.

It's been a big buzz around Miami. A lot of people are going to come watch, so I'm excited about that.

Daytona, it was totally unexpected. It's funny because I had actually said to my wife, hey, finally this year we're going to have the whole month of January to just do whatever we want, and she's like, that's awesome, so we planned a vacation. My son Leo came from Brazil. Exactly two days after that, the Race of Champions came up, which I said, honey, don't worry about it, it's just a Saturday and Sunday event, and we can still — and then the Daytona thing came up. January I was already testing for five days. I had to go to Sebring for IndyCar and then spent five more days in Daytona, then coming back at the end of the month for a week, so she's like, oh, that was a good way of putting that we had an easy month.

I'm excited. I mean, that car, the Ford GT, it has such a history in racing. Of course watching my teammates win the Le Mans last year, I was like a little bit of a — I was envious about, jealous about what they did. So the opportunity came about with the WEC team, and I'm excited.

Q. I thought Daytona was supposed to be the vacation capital of Florida.
TONY KANAAN: I know, but when you tell your wife you're going on a cruise with the kids and then you tell her, oh, we can sit in a motor home for 48 hours in Daytona, it —

Q. They've got a lake in there.
TONY KANAAN: True.

Q. You mentioned you tested at Sebring. I assume that's IndyCar.
TONY KANAAN: Uh-huh.

Q. Do you think there's going to be, for your team to switch over to the Honda with the Honda aero kit, is there going to be a lot that you have to adapt to? Is there going to be a big learning curve?
TONY KANAAN: For sure. It's a completely different aero kit, completely different numbers and aerodynamics, front wing, rear wing. So yes, it is a big learning curve, which we're being flat out, outside the track, trying to understand that because our setups were all made for the Chevy aero kit, and we're just having to relearn everything. So we had a pretty busy day in Sebring that day. I think I did 130 or 140 laps in Sebring, which is quite a bit, especially after five months away from the car.

And age, I was really tired after the test.

You know, we're going to have to relearn a lot of the basics, to be honest.

Tony Kanaan at Indy

Q. How do you see the series progressing? Do you think it's moving forward in the right direction at this point?
TONY KANAAN: I think so. I think there is always room for improvement, but I think we had a very positive year with the 100th Indy 500. It was a big buzz. Yeah, obviously, in the off-season with Hinch going on Dancing With the Stars, I think IndyCar was out there more often. We've just got to keep digging.

I believe in the series. I believe that actually every series is struggling. If you think about NASCAR doing everything they can to bring race fans back to the track and the TV numbers up, so we've just got to keep working. I believe that we have a great series with great competition, so we will definitely need to keep working to keep going on the rise.

Q. With Penske at Chevy and Ganassi now at Honda, two big dogs on opposite sides of the street, you talked about the competitiveness a little bit, but how do you think that it goes to showcase both manufacturers, Chevy versus Honda, more than ever with two big teams on opposite sides?
TONY KANAAN: Oh, I think it's going to be the biggest battle of the year. Obviously we always battle them and they battle us, so it's always like, what's Penske doing, and here's the same thing, what's Ganassi doing from those guys. Having two different manufacturers is going to even increase that.

Chevy has won the manufacturer's championship I think the past three or four years. You guys probably have a better — five years, so Honda is not happy about that, and that's probably one of the reasons that we're back with them. That's going to be their goal.

It's better for you guys. You have more stories to tell, and more competition, there's going to be more rivalries, and for the fans, too, so I think it will be big.

Q. You mentioned your feelings seeing your teammates win Le Mans last year. Le Mans is on an off weekend this year. Might we see you in France?
TONY KANAAN: I've been working on that. I got the invitation to do Daytona, and I kind of invited me said and said, hey, I'm free, we have a weekend off, so we'll see. But that's the goal, definitely, I would love to.

At Indy getting ready to practice

Q. Don't plan any cruises.
TONY KANAAN: Actually I should because it's a curse.

Q. Most memorable thing you've done in the off-season, most memorable moment of the off-season?
TONY KANAAN: Having my third kid. You know, that was — you always think, oh, it's the third one, I've seen it all, and it's amazing how quick you forget that feeling. So that was definitely the highlight of my off-season, and still is, because I'm still not sleeping.

Q. Getting lots of sleep?
TONY KANAAN: When I'm here. You guys are doing me a big favor this week. She's back home in Miami, so I'm sleeping just fine the past three days.

Rossi

An Interview with Alexander Rossi

Q: Alex, we've been having drivers just kind of recap last season and then transition into this season, so if you could go into that for us.

ALEXANDER ROSSI: Yes. So '16 was a lot of things. Most of it was a learning experience, from not only learning a new team, new car, new tracks, but a completely new organization in the Verizon IndyCar Series, and it was a very positive experience for most of that.

With that being said, the year aside from the month of May was pretty difficult, and we weren't very happy with how it went in any way as a four-car effort.

Going into 2017 we have a lot higher expectations, and we've made a big push this off-season to rectify a lot of the things that didn't go well. And so, you know, obviously I'm looking forward to going back to Indianapolis in May, but by the same token, I'm just as excited about all the other races because I feel like we have a pretty big point to prove, and road and street courses, which were supposed to be my strong suit coming into IndyCar, they were not, and ovals were.

You know, I personally feel that I have a lot to prove on road and street tracks and look forward to getting started.

Q. Talk about the team announcement that was made this morning.

ALEXANDER ROSSI: Yes, welcoming NAPA Auto Parts back to the No. 98 is an amazing thing for us, for the series, for the team, and it's great to have such an iconic American auto brand be involved in the championship, and it just shows the growing strength of the Verizon IndyCar Series, and it was a very special relationship, obviously, that was formed pretty quickly between myself and Andretti Autosport and NAPA, and the fact that we're able to continue that is very special, and we have a lot of work to do to ensure that we get good results.

Q. Just talk about the confidence and returning to the Indy 500 after winning it last year.

ALEXANDER ROSSI: I don't know if confidence is the right word, just a better understanding of it. I don't think confidence was ever something that was lacking there. But just now understanding how the month goes and appreciating kind of everything that goes into it I think is the thing that I'm mostly looking forward to because a lot of the event was over my head, just from a lack of knowledge standpoint, and I was relying a lot on the people around me, which obviously I will still continue to do, but hopefully there won't be as many questions I guess is the easiest way to put it so we can just focus on solely developing the car and being at the front for those whole two weeks.

Q. I know one of the big hopes at Indy was to — when you signed NAPA was to get them to stay on for more races. It kind of took maybe a little bit longer to convince them of that. How important is that going to be, and once again, you've got to feel like you've got the best-looking car on the grid.

ALEXANDER ROSSI: I absolutely do, yes. It's a beautiful race car, and I don't know if you saw the press release, but it's a little bit different than the 500 livery, as well. It's great, and it's nothing but a positive thing.

You know, things like this when you're dealing with corporations of that magnitude, obviously things take time, and the off-season coincides with the holidays a lot. We've always felt confident about it, but in racing and business, whatever, you're never fully sure, so it's great to get the announcement out and have them on board for seven races, and hopefully we can continue to develop that for the future.

Q. As an Indy 500 winner, are you getting your share of recognition from the fans, or do you have to go on the Dancing With the Stars for that?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: I think Dancing With the Stars helps for sure. But yeah, I mean, I think the motorsport fan base, yes, my audience has undoubtedly grown, but the target for us, for all the drivers in the series, the series itself, is to grow the audience outside of motorsport fans, and I think Dancing With the Stars is a great thing for the series, and James is an awesome representation of that, and hopefully that's a benefit for all of us.

Q. After having this time off since the end of the season, have you had a chance to kind of sit back and realize what you accomplished and let it all kind of sink in so you don't have to look forward to the next race and the next race and the next race?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: No, because I've had to look forward to the next event and the next thing and the next obligation and everything, which is all super positive, but this off-season has not really been an off-season in any way. In some ways, that's good, because I haven't been sitting on the couch at home itching to get back into a race car because I haven't frankly thought about it. It's been all about kind of the next thing, but it's been off track related.

You know, parts of it have sunk in more than others, but I don't think the full magnitude of it has yet, and I don't think it will until I stop moving for a couple weeks.

Q. There was one point when a few years ago you said I didn't really want to do ovals, I wasn't interested in ovals. What do you think it is about ovals or about your driving style that actually is suited to them very well?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: I don't know if it's necessarily me. I think just as a team we were strong on them. I think all four cars were way stronger than ovals than we were on road and street tracks. I don't want to say it's me. I just think that the Honda package combined with the effort that Andretti put into the 500 specifically in the off-season showed through, and all five of us were pretty much in the top 10 for the whole month. I think that's more a team result than it is a personal driver result.

Q. The key to — you were disappointed because you wanted to win the championship last year. The key to a championship, how important is a fast start to the season going to be?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: Oh, very important. Racing is momentum and confidence, and all of the adjectives that relate to those things. If you are on the back foot from day one, you're always playing catch-up. We saw it a little bit with Will last year. He obviously is more than capable of winning championships but was always playing catch-up from St. Pete. It's very important to come out of the box strong. Do you have to win, no, but I mean, you need to be fighting for the win at least and show that you're competitive.

Q. And how do you feel about Brian moving over to work with Marco? Now you're going to have a different voice in your ear?

ALEXANDER ROSSI: The replacement voice, if I'm going to have someone replace Brian, this is just as good. I'm not worried about it at all. Brian is still very involved in the No. 98 car and someone that I can call any day, and I still do, and talk to him and rely on him. It's not too much of a change.

Dixon

An Interview with Scott Dixon

Q: Kind of recap 2016 and then transition into what you're looking forward to this season.

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, 2016 was a challenging year on lots of different fronts. Definitely missed a few races I think that we should have done a lot better at. I think St. Pete was a rough one with overheating when we were fighting for the top three. Road America, engine failure, or mechanical failure of some sort. Toronto, strategy. I don't know, I think when I look back on 2016, we could have won at least another three or four races. For us it was probably one of our worst performances across the board. Finishing sixth in the championship I think was the first time out of the top three in about 10 or 12 years. So that was definitely frustrating, but good motivation for 2017.

Big changes for us. I think there's only two teams that changed manufacturer, ourselves and Foyt. A steep learning curve in a somewhat stagnant development year, so it's going to be interesting, but definitely excited for the change, and I know the team is super excited about the upcoming year with Honda.

Q. How critical is it for you to get a fast start, given who they have over at Team Penske in that lineup?

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, Team Penske is always going to be a tough battle. You know, I find like any championship that we're fighting for, one of those drivers is in the thick of it, as well. Starting strong is a goal that we obviously try to do, but has not really been our MO for quite a few years. I think if we could start the season strong, it would definitely make the rest of it a lot more enjoyable.

But yeah, you know, it is what it is. I think for us, maybe the tracks that we have coming up first are going to be sort of eye openers for a few reasons with the change of manufacturer, just I think with street courses and maybe some short ovals. They could be our tougher ones, yeah.

Q. How do you go about changing your preparation or just managing your time when it comes to switching manufacturers to make sure that you're ready to compete at the level that you want to compete at?

SCOTT DIXON: I think it changes on many different fronts. You know, Chevrolet was more of a turnkey operation, and they offered quite a bit of support. Honda is a little more raw, but can be tailored quite a lot. I think that's definitely a big change from what we've had for the last three years. But I think that's also good for motivation.

But yeah, I think the first — since the transition happened and then obviously the first month leading up to it, October, November, lots of meetings and trying to understand maybe the downsides of what we need to improve on, but I think for us, too, with such a bad season for us in '16, it was definitely a good year to sit down, sort of look back and understand in a lot of areas where we were not as efficient, making a lot more mistakes than we should as a team.

So I think the two of those factor into maybe a little more — a lot more focus, and hopefully getting back to a lot of the basics and doing them better, which I think will help us with consistency and performance throughout the year.

Q. There's a lot of talk about the halo and things, the head protection devices. It doesn't sound like it's on the first wave coming in 2018. What's your thoughts on that, and is that something you would like to see the series push a little harder for?

SCOTT DIXON: You know, I know they're working hard on it. It's definitely a work in progress and obviously has been for quite some time, and I think we've seen with Formula 1, they've had a few snags that maybe they didn't really anticipate, obviously, with sight, line of vision has become a big issue of now, and I think you'll see some changes in their halos because of that and creating blind spots a lot bigger than they thought initially were going to be a problem.

I think IndyCar, from the stuff I've seen, is in a different direction to what they have as far as a halo, probably more of a screen implementation with some pretty trick materials.

Yeah, I think '18 is kind of the goal right now, and they were talking about possible sort of running situations at the end of '17 to see how it works. But I know that they're gearing up to try and — I don't know the timeline on it, but at some point running it on a simulator to make sure that they can cycle a few drivers there to actually —

Q. Is it a hot button item amongst the drivers? Is it something you talk about yourselves?

SCOTT DIXON: Safety, yeah, for sure. I think there's areas that safety can be achieved quite quickly, and then there's areas that take a lot more thought. It's easy to apply things but not totally understand the consequences of what could happen in different scenarios. So I think with these big changes and something that's going to push a pretty large safety item forward has to be managed quite well and understood fully before it can just be thrown out there.

Q. The combination of Chip Ganassi Racing, Honda and you, have always been traditionally good at Indy. Is there any extra or added confidence heading into the month of May knowing that track record?

SCOTT DIXON: Well, I'd like to think that we — outside of this year, we always have a pretty good — outside of '16, we always have a pretty good shot at Indy. This year was very frustrating in the fact that we just really didn't have the speed on the outside. But yeah, I think with what we saw, especially out of all the Hondas last year, they were very, very strong at Pocono and the Indy 500.

I'm sure that came into partial thoughts of making the decision for the switch maybe. I don't know. But there's two things that we set goals for, and that's to win the championship and win the Indianapolis 500. I hope that's true.

Q. Penske is Ganassi's biggest rival; is it better or not better for you guys to have a different package than them?

SCOTT DIXON: Personally I think it's better to have a different package. You know, for the good of the sport, too. I think it's good maybe to get two marquee teams with different pieces. So yeah, I think with — it's hard to get into kind of the technical side of it, but yeah, I think for us as a team, I think it's a better fit, too.

Q. Scott, along that line, you won two races last year and Team Penske won ten of them. What is your team going to have to do to really challenge them, and who do you see will be the — I don't want to say the best but maybe the most competitive Honda team? Do you think Ganassi can rise to that?

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, I think we can rise to that for sure. Obviously so many other teams have had their equipment for three years now, or two or three years. You know, it is, as I commented on, it's going to be a steep learning curve for two of the teams, which — and with how the rules are right now with the limited track testing, it makes it even more difficult. I think we get four off-season days or something, which is not much when you get six months of the year off to be honest. That's definitely a tough part.

I think had it been last year with the amount of testing that we had last year, it would have been a smoother transition. Not to say it would have been any different, but it would have maybe been smoother.

You know, I think with us as a team, there was a lot of missed opportunities last year, and that was by missing basic things. I think as long as we get to a lot of the — back to the basics in some areas and focus on some deficits that we had, I think we can definitely make that number a lot nicer to look at.

Q. You hear a lot about how the Honda aero kit was a lot draggier than the Chevy. I know you've only tested it once; is that something you feel right away?

SCOTT DIXON: It's hard because I tested like the first week of January, and the last time I was in the car was at Sonoma which was four months earlier or something.

You know, overlays and things like that, you can pick up on things quite quickly, but if you look at statistics and the data that you have every weekend at these tracks and segment times, you know exactly where the deficits are. It's not like we went into something not knowing the areas we need to improve, but I think through the winter we've found some good gains. Whether it's enough at some places, maybe not, but we know where the weaknesses are.

Q. Does it make you confident with the engineering group that you've got that Honda maybe allows you to play around a little bit more with what you've got? You've got Chris Simmons and Todd Malloy and Eric Cowdin. Is that a group that you feel confident in that can come up with something that maybe another Honda team hasn't come up with?

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, you know, I think our engineering group and the advance engineering group, it's definitely a very solid package. I think for them it's probably quite exciting in that they have something new and different to work on. And it's always exciting because when you first start on something new, you find big gains. When you're looking for a pound or two or three here and there and then you start finding 20s and 30s, that's a lot more fun.

So yeah, I think the early part, obviously once we get into running in the season and see where we really are, maybe struggling is going to be a different kind of story. But yeah, this team thrives on those kinds of things, so I think, yeah, the people that we have or that Chip has at his team are very capable for one, but also enjoy the atmosphere.

Q. Mike Hull said that when you went to Sebring, it was almost like you had to relearn everything because of the Honda. How much of that is the engineering department going to really have to — he says you can throw out the books because they don't really apply anymore.

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah. I think obviously lots of things still apply. Your baseline setups, obviously the aero kit is a totally different animal and something that's new to all of us. You always think you know a bit about the competition, but then when reality strikes, there's areas that you maybe didn't understand as well. But no, I think there's — you always — there's things that we know through the years from using other manufacturers that will maybe help the current program that we're on now. You can't throw anything out as such.

I know with Mike, he's probably more describing that you've got to start from zero and relearn a lot of the ways and maybe the things that you're kind of stuck in. So yeah, you know, I think it's — yeah, it's going to be challenging, man. There's no question about it. But challenges are fun. Hopefully.