TONY GEORGE (Co-owner, Vision Racing): “Great race. It’s a little frustrating. It was still a little bit of a fuel race, but that last round let everybody go race and that’s what it’s all about.” (Obviously there was strategy involved in using push to pass as well): “We used it all. We used it all on the last couple of laps and that’s what it’s there for. No need to leave it on the table. I’m happy for the team. They’ve worked hard for five years now. But, we’ve got a lot of work to do to do this consistently.”
DARIO FRANCHITTI (No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing, finished sixth): “It wasn’t a good day for the target cars. Scott (Dixon) was very strong to start with. He ended up behind us. Both of us, I wasn’t quick all day. We worked on the car. The guys did a good job on the adjustments, but we were just never fast. Got pushed up in the grid a couple of times, which cost us a couple of spots. Not a good day for the Target team.”
DANICA PATRICK (No. 7 Boost Mobile/Motorola): “I really thought the Boost car was capable of a stronger finish, but I will take a top 10. We were fighting understeer most of the night. I kept asking for more grip, but in the end, it wasn’t the best call on my end. We got caught in some lap traffic, so we decided to take fuel only on the last stop to see if we could take advantage of the time and try to get around Graham (Rahal) but we just didn’t have the speed we needed.”
WILL POWER (No 12 Penske Truck Rental): “It was a good night for the Penske Truck Rental team. We certainly passed a lot of people on track tonight. We took a gamble with the rain when we stayed out under the yellow flag, and it was worthwhile because we’re not fighting for the championship. It was good to lead some laps and we feel pretty good about a ninth-place finish. It would’ve been better to be top-five, but we started pretty far back and worked hard to get to where we finished.”
MARCO ANDRETTI (No. 26 Meijer): “It was a disappointing finish for the Meijer boys tonight. We took a chance on the amount of downforce we put into the car and it turned out that we didn’t have enough. I had my hands full with the car all night and just couldn’t get the grip needed to stay up front. We’re back on a road course in Ohio next weekend, and hopefully, we’ll find better results for the No. 26 car.”
WILL POWER (No 12 Penske Truck Rental): “It was a good night for the Penske Truck Rental team. We certainly passed a lot of people on track tonight. We took a gamble with the rain when we stayed out under the yellow flag, and it was worthwhile because we’re not fighting for the championship. It was good to lead some laps and we feel pretty good about a ninth-place finish. It would’ve been better to be top-five, but we started pretty far back and worked hard to get to where we finished.”
BRIAN BARNHART (President of Competition and Operations, Indy Racing League): “I’m very pleased with the changes and the product we saw on the racetrack tonight. I hope the fans enjoyed it, because it certainly feels like the IRL is back, as Tony Kanaan mentioned there. It was kind of what we expected and hoped for, and at the same time it wasn’t a surprised because it was known entities we were putting back on the race car, and the guys did a great job on the racetrack.” (Can you, at this point, digest what might have been the biggest help in terms of improving the competition?): “I think it is a combination of things, and I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to know that because not everybody used the same things. Because the tire ramps, the side pod extensions, and the wheel (backing plates) were all optional, you don’t know who had what on so you couldn’t pinpoint all of them. And the push to pass - the overtake button - was a big help.” (At this point, do you think we’ll make any more changes or are we good for the year?): “I think we’re always open to it, and I think the most important thing is, again, whether it’s good or bad you don’t want to make a knee-jerk reaction. Certainly what we saw tonight was very good, it’s going to be doing our due diligence, and talk to teams and the drivers and continue to get feedback from them. We’re always open-minded about what we need to be doing. Certainly it worked very well here at Kentucky Speedway. We go back to a road course next week at Mid-Ohio, then Infineon and then we come back to a mile-and-a-half at Chicago.” (And keep in mind, the teams and drivers came into this race tonight with a very limited amount of track time): “Well they did, and it shows you can do an event in one day with 75 (minutes of practice). Right away you saw that Ed had a great car tonight, the 20 car, he had a breakout race. It was as good a race as I’ve ever seen Ed drive, the team did a great job. Overall there was a lot of excitement to it, even the pit drama, the pressure on the teams in performing on pit road because in the last segment we had the top nine cars separated by about a second and a half. One little hiccup on pit road would have cost you a lot. But Ed was able to maintain his lead and the last 10 laps were quite a shootout.”
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