MARIO MORAES (No. 5 Azul Tequila/Votorantim/KVRT, finished fifth): “I am happy for the KV Racing Technology team. They did a great job all weekend. We started second, but I fell in line in third place at the start of the race. Then on the first pit stop we had a problem refueling and had to come back in for more fuel. That put us two laps down. But, the whole team fought back and we got some luck with a yellow flag to get back on the lead lap in fuel sequence and finished fifth. It is our third consecutive top-five finish, so I am happy about that. I am also looking forward to going to Homestead. I think we are going to have a very good car there, so we can finish the season off really strong.
DANICA PATRICK (No. 7 Boost Mobile/Motorola, finished sixth): “The No. 7 car was strong all day; unfortunately it just wasn’t strong enough to defend my win from last year. We could have had a run on Mario (Moraes) but I got caught in traffic and just wasn’t able to gain the position. Overall it was a good day and a solid finish for us.”
MARCO ANDRETTI (No. 26 Team Venom Energy, finished seventh): “Today wasn’t a bad showing for the Venom boys, especially considering our starting position. A better qualifying run obviously would have made our day a lot easier, but we were able to work through some traffic and make the best it. Had that last yellow fallen a couple laps later I think it would have been a much brighter outcome for the #26 car, but you can’t depend on yellows.”
DAN WHELDON (No. 4 National Guard Panther Racing, finished eighth): “It was really good to be back and running up front again, and obviously from the entire Panther Racing team standpoint I feel everybody did an excellent job. The engineering staff made a big change last night for the race and it was very positive and I could see that it made the car very nice to drive today and certainly when catching lapped traffic I was able to make a lot of time up. Unfortunately it was one of those things for us today; we got caught on the yellow flag. But like I said everybody here has come here and put a lot of effort into this weekend and unfortunately they weren’t rewarded. We again showed that we can run with the best.”
HELIO CASTRONEVES (No. 3 Team Penske, finished 10th): “We were shooting for a top-10 finish for Team Penske here in Japan and we got it today. It was very difficult to pass out there but we did the best job we could. The team made some great calls and we had good pit stops. It’s a shame that Ryan lost the points lead, but we know we will be strong at Homestead and our goal is to bring home a championship for Team Penske.”
RYAN BRISCOE (No. 6 Team Penske, finished 18th): Yeah, it was pretty frustrating. With the accident leaving the pits, it was a huge opportunity for me to get the race lead. I just gassed it too much leaving my box, and the car spun. I hit the wall. We had to change the front upright. The team did a great job doing it in the time they did, but unfortunately that was our day done pretty much. Just sort of brought the car home without pushing too hard at the end. The good thing is that it’s only eight points to Scott. I feel real good going into Homestead. We’ve been strong on all the one and a halves this year. This track is unique. Ganassi had the upper hand on us this weekend. Homestead, Team Penske I’m confident is going to be the team to beat. Eight points is the difference between first and second. It looks like is it’s going to be a pretty tough battle to see who can win the race.”
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