Two former NTT IndyCar Series champions put their Chevrolet-powered cars in the Firestone Fast Six for the REV Group Grand Prix presented by AMR at Road America.
Team Penske drivers Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet (2014 Champion) and Josef Newgarden, No. 2 REV Group Chevrolet (2017 Champion) qualified third and fourth respectively at the4.014-mile, 14-turn road course at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Both drivers have visited victory lane at Road America with Will Power taking the win in 2016 and Josef Newgarden the reigning champ of the race from 2018.
A total of nine Chevrolet teams qualified for the 10th race of the season, and the fourth road course race of 2019. Rookie Colton Herta is the NTT P1 award winner with Alexander Rossi second, Graham Rahal fifth and Takuma Sato completing the top-six drivers competing for the pole.
The race will be broadcast on NBC at 12:00 pm ET as well as NBCSports.com, INDYCAR Radio Network affiliates, IndyCar.com, indycarradio.com, the INDYCAR Mobile app, Sirius 113 and XM 209.
WILL POWER, NO. 12 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 3rd: “I think we’ve just been hanging around the top four all weekend and haven’t been P1 yet, but hopefully that’s tomorrow. Just a little bit short, with P2 being the best case scenario for our Verizon Chevy. Happy to start two rows. Hopefully it keeps us out of the mess and we just have a solid day.”
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 2 REV GROUP TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 4th: “I thought we were a third or a fourth-place car is what it seemed like right from the get go. I don’t think we were as strong as these guys next to us. We didn’t have a great Q3 lap, I think we probably could have maybe pipped Will but that’s maximum. We seemed stronger in the morning and seemed to suffer a little bit more in the heat this afternoon. But it’s tough to get it right so we’ve got to work on the race now with where we’re at. I think we’re within striking distance of putting a good race together and that’s what we’re going to focus on. But it’s been good having REV Group on our Chevrolet with us this weekend. Obviously they’ve got a great activation going with the first responders. Active first responders can come out to the track here for the weekend for free. So it’s a very cool program and it’s great to have them on our car and we’ll try to do them proud tomorrow.”
SPENCER PIGOT, NO. 21 DIRECT SUPPLY ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 8th: “It’s definitely a solid effort for everyone at Ed Carpenter Racing! We had a really good car this afternoon. There’s still a few things we can fine-tune on and find a bit more speed. It’s so close. A few hundredths here or there could put you in the Fast 6, but that’s Indy car qualifying! Overall, we can for sure race from 8th. In warmup yesterday, we did a pretty long run and felt really strong – stronger on a long run than on one-lap pace. Hopefully that continues tomorrow as well. We know we can pass cars around this track! We’ll see if we can do that tomorrow and have a great day for our local partner Direct Supply!”
ED JONES, NO. ED CARPENTER RACING SCUDERIA CORSA CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 11th: “It was a pretty good session for us considering where we were this morning! It’s been a pretty tough weekend, but the team has made some good changes and kept moving forward each session. We’re still not quite where we want to be, obviously we want to be higher. It’s hard around here! Trying to make the car really strong in the low speed corners but also not sacrificing anything in the high speed corners is really difficult. When you get it right, it makes a big difference! Qualifying was still positive considering everything, hopefully we can make a few more changes and move forward in the race tomorrow!’
PATRICIO O’WARD, NO. 31 CARLIN CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 13th: “We made some major progress with the No. 31 Carlin Chevrolet from yesterday’s practices. I was feeling good with where we were after practice this morning, but for whatever reason we just missed the window in qualifying and unfortunately 13th was the best we could’ve done today. I feel like I got every single bit out of the car that I could. All we can do now is work on the race car and be ready to go tomorrow.”
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 MENARDS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 16th: “We’re lacking some overall pace. It was tight clearly with us missing transferring by three-thousandths of a second, but we just don’t quite have the grip. The good thing is this is a track where you can pass, so we’ll see where we can go from here in the Menards Chevy tomorrow.”
MATHEUS LEIST, NO. 4 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 20th: “We still need to improve a little bit for tomorrow, we qualified 20th and we still need to find some more speed with the black tires mainly, the car feels alright with the red tires. We’ll see how things will be tomorrow, it looks like it’s going to rain but we never know. I will concentrate and do my best to give the team a good finish.”
MAX CHILTON, NO. 59 GALLAHER CARLIN CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 22nd: “It was the best the No. 59 Gallagher Carlin Chevrolet had been all year and we improved it a big amount from yesterday. We closed the gap to the field, but we’re just lacking something. I don’t know what it is, because that was the best lap I’ve done around Road America and I’ve been in the Firestone Fast Six in the past. It’s a bit frustrating, but I think Pato and I got the most out of the cars that we could. Annoyingly the way that qualifying works I was quicker than a number of cars that are four or five spots ahead of me, but that’s just the way the two groups were lined up. At least tomorrow there will be some easy pickings to get around when we go green.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 14 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, QUALIFIED 23rd: “We went the wrong way. We tried to make the car better but we made the car worse, no excuses, it’s just a choice that we made and it didn’t work. Disappointing because I thought we had a much better car than this but we will be okay.”
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