Ron McQueeney
Marco Andretti (No. 26 Team Indiana Jones presented by Blockbuster): “I think we had a tough day today, but you have those kinds of days at the Speedway. We had the same balance problem all day today that we had during our run yesterday, no matter what we seemed to throw at it. We have to hit the books tonight and work as a team and see what we can do to make the Indiana Jones/Blockbuster car handle a bit better.”
Tony Kanaan (No. 11 Team 7-Eleven): “It was a good day for the 7-Eleven team since we got a lot of good running time today. We are finally at the point where we want to be. We have enough information today, so we need to gather all of it together and make the car better tomorrow.”
Danica Patrick (No. 7 Motorola): “Today was productive for the Motorola team. We had some ups and downs, but this is what we needed. We were able to do some long runs and figure out the duration of the Firestone tires, rather than putting the stickers on. We are definitely getting there.”
Sarah Fisher (No. 67 Team ResQ/Gravity Entertainment): “We started in our race setup today, and we learned we need to go in a different direction from where we were headed. It’s good that we figured that out today, and it looks like it’s going to be a good day tomorrow. We’ll head in a different direction and make a better go at it tomorrow.”
Hideki Mutoh (No. 27 Formula Dream): “The Formula Dream car was great at the beginning of the practice session, but as the weather changed, it became loose and I started to have hard time controlling the car. The weather affects the car so much, and I realized how hard it is to have a consistent car on the track. Luckily, we were able to try most of the setups we wanted to try today, so we will look at the data tonight and hopefully we will have another productive day tomorrow.”
Buddy Rice (No. 15 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing): “We are happy to run a lot of laps today. We just ran race setup and put the car in the top 10 for most of the day. Plus we got to work on pit stop practice with the crew. Pit stops are very important here at Indy. I think that helped win the race for me in 2004. We’ll keep working on the race trim for another day on Friday. Then we’ll throw the qualifying setup on it for Saturday and put the car in the show. We definitely want the best race setup we can get.”
Bruno Junqueira (No. 18 The Z-Line Car): “Today was good. It was the first time we ran the whole day without raining or whatever, and it was good to put up some laps. I ran race setup, and the car seems to do pretty good, even better than qualifying setup. I think we can start to take some downforce off tomorrow to qualify Saturday. The car is much better today, better than last week. We are getting better.”
Dan Wheldon (No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing): “We had a great day today. Our focus remained race preparation and runs on full loads of fuel. We used both stickers and scuffed tires and tried everything to get the balance of the car right. It was also beneficial to run in traffic and log some solid track time this afternoon. I was very happy with the car today overall and think we are in a solid position in terms of race preparation.”
Scott Dixon (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing): “I think the car was good for the most part, and we executed our plan like we hoped we’d do today. Part of the day was dedicated to developing mechanical grip and getting the balance of the car right. Today was based upon yesterday and the list of things we were able to go through.”
Helio Castroneves (No. 3 Team Penske): “Mother Nature definitely helped us out today with the weather. We had a great opportunity during the session to run a lot of laps and try several different things. I’m happy with the progress we made on the Team Penske car, and I think we’re definitely moving in the right direction. This afternoon was certainly needed after all the rain we’ve been getting, and a day like today really helps to build our confidence on the track.”
