Qualifying report

IndyCar Watkins Glen

Watkins Glen: Top 10 quotes after qualifying

Scott Dixon, won the pole for Sunday’s Grand Prix of the Glen with a track record lap of one minute, 22.5259 seconds/147.008 MPH.

Edited: Sep 3, 2016, 10:23 PM

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Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet

Polesitter Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet

Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet

Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet

Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet

Helio Castroneves, Team Penske Chevrolet

Tony Kanaan, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet

Max Chilton, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet

Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet

Juan Pablo Montoya, Team Penske Chevrolet

Jack Hawksworth, A.J. Foyt Enterprises Honda

Mikhail Aleshin, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda

N°DriverTeam (Engine)Time 1 9 Scott Dixon Ganassi (C) 1:22.5259 "I was surprised the red tires weren't faster. I don't know what the average speed is around here, but it's really fast. We tested here before but had some rain and were limited to just a few hours. We kind of evolved the car through other tracks we've run at and did the best we could with baseline setups from tracks like Road America and Mid-Ohio. It's good to see a few of my teammates up there in the top six and hope we can take the fight here to everyone tomorrow at The Glen." 2 12 Will Power Penske (C) 1:22.5742 “It's very important to start up front, definitely, considering the championship situation. I felt pretty comfortable around here. Really enjoy the track. Obviously I was really grateful to get in the Fast Six there and have a shot at it. On the last lap, I had anissue that definitely cost us some time, but starting on the front row is definitely better than where we were.” 3 11 Sébastien Bourdais KVSH (C) 1:22.7844 “It was a pretty exciting session for the Hydroxycut – KVSH Racing Team. It started off about as bad as it could. It was the bad red surprise, which is becoming annoyingly familiar for us unfortunately. It is always the same process. You set your car up with what you’re given, which is the black (primary) Firestone tires and they’re great. We can always make them work. Then for qualifying you get the “candy surprise” (the red alternate tires). We can’t extract any performance out of them. We just get movement, understeer, it disconnects the car…it’s a mess. So, I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow in the race, to be honest, but for sure the Hydroxycut/Chevy machine is quick on black tires. It’s too bad we didn’t put the car on pole, but my bad. I made a mistake and then ran out of gas because we did an extra lap which was not accounted for. So it is what it is. Nevertheless, when you are close to Scott (Dixon) and Will (Power) at these kind of tracks you know you’ve done a good job. It’s our best qualifying position of the season, so we’ll take it.” 4 3 Helio Castroneves Penske (C) 1:22.8748 “Well, good car, good team. Obviously everyone in our team share a lot of information we're able to collect and able to put it together. It was great with this situation about the red tires and the black tires. It's always interesting, and, well, at the least we're able to do good lap times on the reds, and sounds like the blacks were the way to go. Sometimes when you were -- just got to take a chance, and our group decided to go with the reds, and that's the best we could do.” 5 10 Tony Kanaan Ganassi (C) 1:22.9158 “Great effort by the team today – three cars in the Firestone Fast Six isn’t bad at all. With how competitive the series is this year, getting up front in qualifying definitely isn’t an easy task. We split the strategy a little bit in the last round. We went out on scuffed reds and the other two Ganassi cars went on blacks. It didn’t pay off quite as well as we would’ve liked, but we’re happy with the No. 10 NTT DATA being up front in the top five.” 6 8 Max Chilton Ganassi (C) 1:23.0064 “I’m over the moon for Gallagher Chip Ganassi Racing with a Firestone Fast 6 start. I qualified a bit better in Iowa, but this is my first appearance in the Firestone Fast 6. I’d say I had to put a lot more effort into this qualifying effort than I did Iowa though with how physical of a circuit this is. It’s literally pushing as hard as you can from green flag to checkered flag. I’m just really proud of the team and happy with our result.” 7 22 Simon Pagenaud Penske (C) 1:23.4660 “The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Chevy has consistently picked up speed and we’re really happy with it. We missed the Fast Six by just a little, but that’s how competitive the Verizon IndyCar Series is. If everything is not practically perfect, then someone else will be a little faster. I like our prospects for the race tomorrow, though. We’re in good shape.” 8 2 Juan Pablo Montoya Penske (C) 1:23.5493 “We missed by a little bit, but the PPG Automotive Refinish Chevy has been good all weekend so far. All of the cars are so close and the margin for error is really small. The conditions for the race should be great tomorrow and we’re looking forward to it.” 9 41 Jack Hawksworth Foyt (H) 1:23.6392 “It was an interesting qualifying session, there was a lot of drama obviously in the first one,” said Hawksworth, who posted a time of 1 minute, 23.6392 seconds (145.052mph). “We did the one lap on reds and then we were on our second lap when the red came out [ironically for Sato’s accident]. “We crossed the line and we thought we were through [to the next round] and then we were out. Earlier in the session, when I was on a flyer on my first set of reds, Graham [Rahal] stopped in the middle of Turn 10, so he drew a penalty as he should. We obviously then transferred. It was pretty decent but again maybe we were just on the wrong place on the track. Power just kept backing up a little bit, and perhaps we could have gone a couple tenths quicker and got P-7. Overall a pretty decent day. The car was good and we’ve been pretty competitive all weekend so we’ll see what we can do tomorrow." 10 7 Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt (H) 1:23.7744 "I think that I did all that I could, I thought that I just needed to let the other drivers go so that I could have a clear lap. I knew that Montoya was behind me so I moved to the right. You can see it on the replay. They're far away and I'm moving to the right. INDYCAR gave me the penalty when I had two identical laps and I was in the top six. They didn't take only one lap, they took away two fastest laps, even though I moved to the right. I think it's not very fair. I have no words. I'm just sorry for my fans because I did all I could and the team did a fantastic job to bring the SMP Racing No. 7 car up there but here we go. We're going to forget about today and fight for tomorrow."

(C) = Chevrolet ; (H) = Honda

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