Team Penske drivers Will Power and Josef Newgarden have tasted victory at the 4.014-mile, 14-turn road course at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin (Power – 2016 & Newgarden 2018). In the REV Group Grand Prix presented by AMR today at Road America, the former champions added podium finishes to aid their 2019 championship campaign efforts. Newgarden retains the championship point lead by seven points over second place, while Power moves up to 5thin standings.
Power qualified third and Newgarden fourth, with Power leading the race in the early going. The Team Chevy drivers would have to settle for second and third place finish respectively in the 10th race of the 2019 NTT IndyCar Series season.
Teammate Simon Pagenaud, who started 16th in the Menards Team Penske Chevrolet, finished ninth. Pagenaud leaves Road America third in points.
Other Team Chevy driver finishes: Spencer Pigot, No. 21 Direct Supply Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet – 14th Max Chilton, No. 59 Gallagher Carlin Chevrolet – 16thPatricio O’Ward, No. 31 Carlin Chevrolet – 17thMatheus Leist, No. 4 ABC Supply AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet – 20thTony Kanaan, No. 14 ABC Supply AJ Foyt Racing – 21stEd Jones, No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Scuderia Corsa Chevrolet – 22nd Alexander Rossi led 54 of 55 laps and went on to the victory, with Graham Rahal finishing fourth and Scott Dixon completing the top five. The next NTT IndyCar Series race for Chevrolet drivers is the Honda Indy Toronto on July 14 in Toronto, Canada. NBCSN andNBCSports.com will telecast the race live at 3 p.m. ET.
DRIVER QUOTES:
WILL POWER, NO. 2 VERIZON TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED SECOND: “Yeah, that was all we had. We did the best strategy we could do and got the most out of the tire strategy and honestly that was as fast as I could go, and I never saw Alex (Rossi). It was like he was just gone. So, we probably have a bit of work to do on the road courses, but I am happy with second. It’s a good result for me, we have had a bit of a rough year.”“Very good result for us. That’s all we had. Alex (Rossi) was on another planet there. The two guys we needed to have a bad day were Alex and Josef (Newgarden) and they keep having good days, so certainly makes it tough to catch up in the championship. We’ll just keep chipping away with the Verizon Chevy to see what we can do.” (About if this will give him some momentum for the remainder of the season): “Absolutely, some of the results we’ve had this year were heartbreaks, you could say, like at COTA (Circuit of the Americas). I’m happy with second.”
JOSEF NEWGARDEN, NO. 2 REV GROUP TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED THIRD: “I knew we were fighting for second or third right from the start it looked like. Those guys did a great job and they were quicker all weekend. We were trying to do what we could to try and close that gap and stay as close as possible. So yeah, we were just too far away. Congrats to Alex and Andretti Autosport, they were very strong today. And like Will said, we just have to keep doing work. Chevy gave us a great package today and we just have to find out what can make us go stronger.”
SIMON PAGENAUD, NO. 22 MENARDS TEAM PENSKE CHEVROLET, FINISHED NINTH: “We obviously got a great start and the Menards Chevy felt fantastic driving up through the field. Then we had contact with Herta and there was no yellow throughout the whole race, which really set us back. And my final set of red tires at the end degraded really quickly. We’ve got three tracks coming up that I absolutely love though, so I’m ready to get back out there already!”
SPENCER PIGOT, NO. 21 DIRECT SUPPLY ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 14th: “Going in, we thought red tires were going to be the way to go. We elected to start on use reds, thinking we would do just one stint on blacks. As it turned out, the reds had a lot of degradation and it was really hard to keep them underneath us. Doing two stints on reds hurt us. The car was really good on blacks and we were pretty fast. Unfortunately, we just made the wrong decision on tries and that’s all it takes to have a bad race. We’ll take the positives from this weekend and move on to Toronto.”
MAX CHILTON, NO. 59 GALLAHER CARLIN CHEVROLET, FINISHED 16th: “I’d say for where we started this weekend having those fuel pressure issues and having to miss a chunk of that first practice, today’s race was a step forward for us. I had an enjoyable battle with Pato pretty much the whole race – I don’t think we were ever more than two to three seconds apart. We did a great job of managing pace versus fuel mileage and we were able to work our way up six spots from our starting position. I honestly felt like I gave it all that I could and was able to get the most out of the No. 59 Gallagher Carlin Chevrolet for the duration of the race.”
PATRICIO O’WARD, NO. 31 CARLIN CHEVROLET, FINISHED 17th: “It just wasn’t our day today in the No. 31 Carlin Chevrolet. It was really just a struggle all race long giving it all I had, but I just couldn’t go any faster and I really struggled to get around people. The guys did a good job in pit lane getting me in and out quickly and I think we learned a lot about Road America, unfortunately like I said it just wasn’t our day.”
MATHEUS LEIST, NO. 4 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 20th: “Tough day here at Road America. Just struggling with the car setup. Balance-wise the car was not bad, it’s just that we didn’t have the speed or the pace. We tried a different strategy than most of the guys, four stops, which somehow helped us because I felt our tire degradation was a little bit worse than everyone else. We’re going to focus on the next one, try to qualify better and try to build a better race car.”
TONY KANAAN, NO. 14 ABC SUPPLY AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET, FINISHED 21st: “It was a huge struggle today. We lost a ton of time on our second stint in used reds and that blew our strategy.”
ED JONES, NO. ED CARPENTER RACING SCUDERIA CORSA CHEVROLET, FINISHED 22nd: “Today was a really tough race for us. We made more adjustments after practice and qualifying and unfortunately, it didn’t improve things for us on track. We struggled a lot with pace for much of the race. It can only get better for Toronto!”
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