Q. In a way it’s like a switch flipped at Milwaukee last year - obviously it’s not that simple - but how did this all come together?
Ryan Briscoe: I always felt the potential was there and it was just a matter of getting the right people behind me and gaining the right experience. I don’t know how it happened. It’s happening, and it’s a great experience.
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Q. Is there any way to quantify where you are as an Indy-car driver today to where you were 2005, when you first got here and, as you said, the car wasn’t competitive?
Ryan Briscoe: I kind of feel like 2008 was where my goal was to be in 2006. Because 2005 was my first year and a learning experience, and the goal was the second year to go out and start competing at the front. I’ve sort of had two years in between - I wouldn’t say they were lost because I went out and raced all over the world and grew as a driver and had a ton of great experiences racing V-8 Supercars, had a couple of Champ Car races, raced A1GP . . . American Le Mans Series - and sort of came back to the IndyCar Series with a strong team, which was always the goal.
Q. Learning something during the course of the weekend or learning something from Rick (Mears) or Helio (Castroneves) or Roger, is that something you can put your finger on and explain?
Ryan Briscoe: I don’t want to give away any secrets. Rick gave me some really good advice at Milwaukee about how to work a racing line at Milwaukee with a certain balance of a race car, and that helped me during the race. I was putting that to use in the race, where to run my line with a car that was maybe understeering too much. Other stuff is like just timing stuff, maybe not putting yourself in a bad position early in a race when it doesn’t count. There’s so many things that you learn. Some things are black and white. Some are just intuition.
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