Q&A with Gutierrez and Rahal
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| Esteban Gutierrez |
THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with this afternoon's media availability. Pleased to be joined by Esteban Gutierrez, driver of the No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda.
Esteban, welcome back. We saw you earlier this month for the doubleheader in Detroit. Give us your thoughts on returning to Dale Coyne Racing this weekend, then just the comfort of knowing that you'll be in the car for the rest of the season.
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: Yes, it's a great news. I'm very happy with it. Also very grateful. I mean, Detroit was a kind of a test to understand if I like the car, if I get well-adapted to it, if I have a good feeling.
Detroit, yeah, during the weekend, I really had a fantastic experience. I enjoyed a lot competing in IndyCar. And, therefore, we tried our best to continue for the rest of the season, and here we are. So I'm very, very happy.
I'm very excited to get to know the ovals, something completely new to me. And I think the rest of this season will be, you know, very nice to try to adapt to the car, to the series, and obviously to the tracks.
THE MODERATOR: Before we talk about that, this track in particular is one that's familiar to you. You've raced on it before. Do you feel like at least, even if you're still adjusting to the series, you have that back knowledge to help you out?
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: Yes. And it's a track that I enjoy a lot. It's one of my favorite tracks. I have great memories from 2007 when I was racing Formula BMW USA. I was actually fighting my way from the back of the field in one of the races. I got up to second. We finished with a very small margin at the start/finish line. It was a very enjoyable moment, a great race that I have very close in my memory.
Coming back quite many years after, 10 years after, I'm very, you know, excited to get into an IndyCar. Very powerful, very grippy, really nice racing car. You know, it's really a nice experience to do every lap in this track.
THE MODERATOR: So a couple weeks from now you'll be racing at Iowa Speedway, which is obviously an oval. What are your thoughts on adjusting to that experience and learning a different type of race craft?
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: Yes, I'm aware that it's completely different. Fortunately I will have a test on Tuesday to prepare, to get to know the reality of an oval, because you can review a lot of data, you can prepare on the theory, but always, you know, when you get to the reality of driving, it's a complete different story.
I'm really looking forward to Tuesday. I'm very sure that I will enjoy it, that I will enjoy that kind of racing. So, yeah, I'm excited to get to know — to expand my racing knowledge and to know how to race in ovals.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Esteban.
Q. What is the biggest challenge when you made the move from Formula One to IndyCar? Is there anything what you can take an advantage from the Formula One business to the IndyCar business?
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: Well, here the cars are quite standard. But in the same way, you have a lot of flexibility on changing the setup around. And as a driver, you have much more influence on the setup of the car, together with the engineers, in order to as a team achieve the right direction of the setup of the car during the weekend.
That's something that in Formula One is quite, let's say, fixed. Once the car is developed, you kind of fine tune around it. But in IndyCar, you really have a very big window of opportunities to work with the setup.
Also working around the conditions of the track, you have many categories racing, many different tire rubbers in the track. That's quite a challenge for me, not knowing the car completely. It's something I'm working very hard to get up to speed with that.
Q. How different is it to come in mid-season? What are the challenges of that rather than starting from the start?
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: Well, is obviously a challenge. You have many competitive teams and many competitive drivers at IndyCar, many with a lot of experience, many, many years. And obviously coming in the middle of the season just like this, it's obviously a challenge.
But I am a racer. I like to compete. This is my passion. I'm ready for this challenge.
Q. You have a teammate who only has a half year more experience than you. What can you take from Ed?
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: Quite a lot. And also from Sebastien. I've been in contact with him. Been in contact with few drivers to try to get some tips, to get a feeling of what are their thoughts, their experiences, to help me, you know, get quicker into the knowledge of the car, in general, and the series, and the competition here.
Q. How nice was it to have a test day here last week, whereas at Detroit it was the first time in the car, a bumpy street course there?
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: It was fantastic. Obviously to throw myself into Detroit was quite a challenge, one of the most difficult tracks in the calendar, with no testing, straight in the weekend. I think it was a very interesting experience.
[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]Now that I come to Elkhart Lake with a test behind my belt before the weekend, it's great. I'm really enjoying a lot. I'm very happy of where I am today, with the challenge I have ahead, with the future ahead.
I would like to explore more that feeling of enjoyment here in IndyCar. I'm just going to go through it. I'm going to live every moment. I'm going to focus on the present and see what we can do in the future.
Q. Adrian Fernandez, somebody who raced in IndyCar for a number of years, the fans in Mexico revered him. How much influence has he had or how much has he helped you up to this point?
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: Well, he's a good friend for many years in the past. I watched his racing as a fan. Then I watched his racing and got in contact with him when I became a racing driver.
We've been sharing experiences since the beginning of my career. He has a lot of knowledge of IndyCar, Champ Car, and racing itself in many different categories. So, yeah, that connection to IndyCar from him always kept me very curious about, you know, racing in America.
So by the time there was this opportunity, I obviously contacted him. I asked for his opinion. He was very positive about it. So it was great, you know, to share something with a Mexican, a friend that I have that has a lot of experience so I can get up to speed as quick as possible.
Q. Would you like to see an IndyCar race in Mexico? What do you think the prospects are for that?
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: Obviously, it would be the ideal situation. I enjoy racing in my home country. And why not? I mean, I think the sporting side is the most important. Today is where I can really do a lot, is where I can focus. Together with, you know, this involvement, my involvement in IndyCar, I'm sure that the possibilities in the future for a Mexican race will increase.
Q. What can you tell us about the contract issues that kind of crept up after you did Detroit? What was that process like, making sure everything was tidied up to where you can run IndyCar for the rest of the year?
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: I saw that from the driver's perspective, from the sporting side, there was no contract issues. Simply a conversation, you know, that I wanted to explore IndyCar. And here we are. There's really nothing to talk about from there.
I really enjoyed a lot Formula E, the races I did there. It's a great championship. It has a great future ahead. Very innovative concept.
But, yes, when this opportunity came up, I wanted to explore it. We did the test in Detroit, and it was quite a good and enjoyable moment. So we came here and we are going forward.
THE MODERATOR: I want to go back to a tweet that you put out yesterday after your announcement that not only were you excited for the opportunity, but excited to represent your home country. When you talk about the possibility of racing there, you sound very excited. What has the response been from Mexican fans, Mexican media on your participation in the series, without another Mexican full-time driver in the series?
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: It has been huge. A lot of Mexicans are very happy that I am in IndyCar. I feel honored to be in this position representing Mexico in IndyCar. It has a lot of — as you all know, Mexico has a big history behind in racing in America, in IndyCar itself. And I'm, you know, looking forward to continue that history.
Q. You mentioned you had a chance to talk to Sebastien. What are some suggestions he's given you overall for the season, and then also specifically here?
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: Well, a lot of conversations with him were related to the technical side of the car, in order for me to understand how the car is working, how the car is evolving through a weekend. It helped me a lot in Detroit. It's helping me a lot here. Obviously we had the test which allowed us as a team to prepare better.
Yeah, race by race, it will be clearer and clearer. But Sebastien is always there involved kind of following all the meetings, following the practice sessions, the qualifyings. Yeah, is great to be in touch. Sebastien is a great driver. I really been following him from the past. So, yeah, we're here and trying to do my best to adapt quickly to the racing here.
Q. Back to Ed, your relationship with him. When you get thrown into a situation like this, how do you sort of acclimate yourself to a new teammate, learn what he likes, what your similarities and differences are? How do you build that relationship?
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: It's all about sharing information after each session. Is about contributing. Obviously he has more experience than me in IndyCar, and he has proven to be quite good here. So Ed, you know, we've been always together in the meetings. Obviously me trying to understand what is his way of working through the weekend with the setup of the car.
In my case, I'm very open, because obviously I have no experience in IndyCar. So been always with a very open approach, trying to get as much information as I can, absorb everything, and learn as much as possible.
I have a great team of engineers, which give me a lot of confidence. I think the work that we are doing together, it's very good and very enjoyable.
THE MODERATOR: Esteban, thank you very much. Good luck this weekend.
ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ: Thank you. Thank you, guys.
Graham Rahal
Press Conference
THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and continue with our afternoon media availabilities. Pleased to be joined now by Graham Rahal, driver of the No. 15 D-A Lubricant Honda for Rahal Lanigan Letterman Racing.
Welcome back to Road America.
GRAHAM RAHAL: Thank you.
THE MODERATOR: A track you raced at twice in the Verizon IndyCar Series and finished third twice in the Verizon IndyCar Series.
GRAHAM RAHAL: Hopefully we can get through, you know. Actually this morning when I came in, saw my engineers, I reminded them that I had 100% podium rate in my career here. So the pressure was on them to, you know, make it happen. Really kind of jokingly, but I did the same in Detroit. I told them I didn't want to wait too long before I got a win again. So maybe a little pressure for them is a good thing.
I've always loved coming here. Come here all my life. My grandfather raced here back in the day. It was always my dad's favorite track. It certainly is mine. You know, it suits these cars. It suits the style of what we do so well that it's always great to be here.
Obviously the fan support looks great. So it's exciting to be back. You know, I mean, first session wasn't great for us. I think we were 11th. I think we struggled to see a little bit of a balance there. But here, because of the length of the track and time and stuff, the session goes by so quick. We really didn't get that many changes in, which is a little disappointing. But we'll go back at it here in a little bit and see if we can improve.
THE MODERATOR: You mentioned the first practice session. Going through that, looking forward to this afternoon's session, qualifying tomorrow, anything different from last year? Anything that is noticeably sticking out to you?
GRAHAM RAHAL: No, I mean, everything seems to be the same. For us, we started with a similar setup to what we ran last year with a little modification based on the Grand Prix at Indy. It didn't really seem to translate for whatever reason. We were a little off there.
Obviously the tire I think is a little bit different than what we ran here last year. For our team, that's thrown the biggest kink in our system all year. There's been times that we've hit, there's been times we certainly missed from a tire perspective. That's been a little bit of a challenge.
No, I mean, it all seems the same. As it said, it's great to be back here. This track, it's excellent. So it's great to be out there.
THE MODERATOR: You're obviously very excited about being back here at the track. It seems like you also in general enjoy the area. Did you go out and play some golf yesterday?
GRAHAM RAHAL: The people at Kohler treat me well. I love working with them, have a great relationship. Yeah, yesterday they invited me to go play Whistling Straits. When you get that invitation, you definitely don't turn it down. That was only my second round of golf since before May, so it was nice to get out and swing 'em a little bit.
I played pretty well. Even though I haven't played enough to pick up any bad habits, it was nice to get out on a beautiful, beautiful course. Last night we did our appearance at Woodlkake Market. It's always a lot of fun to be here.
I was telling some fans last night. As a driver, what we feed off of is of course if the racetrack is good, that helps, but we feed off the fans, the environment, the atmosphere that's presented to us. When you come here, you know, people are so excited about it, fans from all over. It's not necessarily just this region. People really embrace it. It means a lot.
We show up at the market last night, have a great crowd. That doesn't happen everywhere. So it means a lot to us. So, yeah, I love coming here. I spent many, many, many days running around, terrorizing this place, a lot like Mid-Ohio, very similar for me. Last year I actually got out on the scooter, in the infield, all over the place, wasn't necessarily the infield. Driving down all the roads that I remember. Obviously there's some new ones down going into Canada Corner, none of that pass was never there. The side of the mountain was up to the side of the track. It has changed a little bit. But just an awesome, awesome racetrack. A lot of great memories.
THE MODERATOR: Did you do the zip line?
GRAHAM RAHAL: No, I haven't done the zip line.
THE MODERATOR: Maybe that's next on the list.
GRAHAM RAHAL: I don't know about that. It's cool, but it's pretty high up.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Graham.
Q. Graham, how does the race distance change strategy this year?
GRAHAM RAHAL: I'm afraid we didn't lengthen it long enough because we can still make it in three stops. Now it just becomes a severe fuel-saving race, which isn't what we wanted to do. We did the same thing in Long Beach this year.
If we're going to lengthen these races, we have to lengthen them. Five laps isn't enough. Basically the stint length I did last year, I want to say my first or second stint, whatever my longest stint was, that was enough to get there.
We just have to hit our number and try to get there. I mean, with fuel saving, I think when I looked at the strategy, it's about 28 seconds faster to do a three-stop over a four, because pit road is so long here. We have the pit speed limiter at the start of the bridge, it takes forever. It's a big-time loss.
We'll see. I mean, a yellow or two in there will completely change this thing. I don't bank on yellows any more. You guys could see our strategy in Detroit. I don't bank on yellows any more because to me the driving talent is so high now, guys don't make mistakes like they used to. So we don't see as many yellows.
We'll see how this thing plays out.
Q. Graham, doesn't apply now, double points race at Indy, you're going to finish up the season with double points. What is your opinion of doubles?
GRAHAM RAHAL: I'm not a big fan of the double. It certainly has made it interesting. It's benefited me in the past. Last year really helped us. The year before it killed us in the championship.
You know, I'm not a huge fan of it, but it is what it is. IndyCar racing is so competitive, to me we don't really need to trick up the system like you see in other motorsports. When you come to the last race, there's going to be plenty of guys in contention anyway.
But, you know, it is what it is. It's been that way for a couple years. Obviously I was disappointed at Indy when we got that flat tire. That took us out of, first of all, a shot to win the Indy 500, but second of all, it took us out of a really good points paying position either way. That hurt us.
Yeah, the last three races, you know, we've been on fire here. So hopefully we can keep it up. I feel like we're kind of hitting this mid-season form that we always try to. Our biggest job as a team is to try to carry that on.
A couple years ago when he were in the championship hunt, we lost that momentum the last two races. Hopefully we can keep it going here.
Q. A lot of guys have said that you're really about to go on a tear just because the schedule lines up well for you, especially on the road and street course side. Looking at your standings in Iowa, you have some really good results there. Is that a place that's good for you or is that more circumstantial?
GRAHAM RAHAL: It's good for us. It's good for us. We're going to go test there on Tuesday. Iowa should be strong. Last year we did something wrong on the setup and we were building vibrations, like, I couldn't see. I couldn't hold the steering wheel any longer, so we were having to pit. That killed our race big-time.
But, yeah, Iowa we should be good. I don't know. I've always enjoyed going there. Had some success there. So hopefully we can get through that one. You know, Toronto we should be decent. Here we should be decent.
Like I said, I feel like we're here in a pretty good run of races that suit my style, places we've been successful in the past. So hopefully we can keep it up.
But you guys know this, any given weekend there's so many guys that can be competitive here. It's hard to ever discount anybody. So, you know, obviously here this weekend, you know, the Andretti guys tested here last week, they seem to be pretty strong off the trailer and stuff.
But our goal is to take it to the big boys. We try our hardest. We work extremely hard as a team, single-car team, to be efficient, to be smart, you know, to maximize points, to try to stay out of trouble. If you watch my in-car from Texas, you'll understand what I mean by that.
But, you know, just got to maximize it each and every weekend. Unfortunately we lost St. Pete, Barber was poor for us, I had the flat tire in Long Beach, had the flat tire in Indy, crashed in Phoenix. We've had our freebies for the year. Now we need to focus hard. We certainly can't have any more bad weekends.
Q. Let's go back to Whistling Straits. What did you shoot? What are your strengths and weaknesses on the course?
GRAHAM RAHAL: I shot a 79, which is pretty good for me, with three double bogeys on the front. I shot 1-over on the back, a birdie and two bogeys. I played good. Certainly can't ask for any more than that.
The only thing I know about Whistling Straits, if you miss a fairway by three inches, your life is turned upside down. It was lot of scrambling. It's not necessarily my strength. So I can hit it a long way, just might not be that accurate. I spent a lot of the day, you know, scrambling around.
But it was beautiful. I mean, that place is magnificent. To think that was flat farmland when Mr. Kohler started is pretty unreal. They said 38,000 truckloads of sand went into that facility. When you're out there, I don't know how many of you guys have even seen it on TV, it looks natural. Like, I didn't know that till yesterday, and that was my third time. First time playing the Straits course, but it's my third time there. It looks natural. I mean, I thought that's what it was.
It was just an awesome place.
Q. Last year here you had quite a struggle in terms of drag from the Honda aero kit coming up. Kanaan whistled past you like you were standing still. How much has improved with Honda upping the horsepower this year?
GRAHAM RAHAL: You know how this game goes. The aero kit is the same. We're pulling a parachute compared to those guys. Honda has done a hell of a job on the engine. I love their mentality. Obviously there's been some issues here in recent times. They flat out said, We're here to race to win. I love that about them. We're going to go out there, push as hard as we can. The engine's strong.
Just try to overcome it. I haven't looked at fuel mileage or anything else, but we should be in a pretty good place. I haven't looked at trap speeds or any of that stuff. I anticipate that the others are probably a little bit stronger than us in top speed, but our engine is right there.
Like I said, I'm proud of them for the mentality that they've kind of adopted. Typically I'd say Honda is a fairly conservative company in many ways. To see them in complete attack mode here on the racing side is awesome.
You know, hopefully we can get another win for them this weekend.
THE MODERATOR: Graham, thank you very much.
GRAHAM RAHAL: Thank you, guys.