Angry Hunter-Reay explains Andretti misfortunes

Although Honda’s improvement helped enable James Hinchcliffe Schmidt Peterson Motorsport’s entry and Carlos Munoz’s Andretti Autosport car into the top five in qualifying at Belle Isle today, the other three Andretti cars will line up 15^th (Hunter-Reay), 17^th (Alexander Rossi) and 19^th (Marco Andretti) for the first race in the Chevrolet Dual in Detroit.

Said Hunter-Reay: There's an accordion affect in qualifying sometimes. You get yourself into a gap, you make your home in that gap and then everybody's just got to go.

“Bourdais, for some reason, went five seconds off the pace on that first lap. I've got to understand why it was necessary. I'll go talk to him and figure it out - he has plenty of experience so it's strange that would happen.

“But it cost me, and it cost Marco. It's going to be hard in traffic tomorrow. The track is a bit rougher than it was last year, but we'll talk about it as a group and figure something out for the DHL team."

Added Andretti: “"Qualifying was really frustrating, 19th wasn’t the result we came here for today. We’ll have to get creative and do our best to work the UFD / Snapple car to the front tomorrow.”

Meanwhile Indy 500 winner Rossi said it was a speed issue rather than being obstructed that held him back.

“[Qualifying] really surprised me,” he admitted. “Based on where my teammates were in practice, I thought we'd be looking pretty good in qualifying. I felt really comfortable in that session in the NAPA car compared to where I was in practice.

“It's disappointing. To be in a group toward the bottom agai is not great. We need to keep working."  

Munoz happy despite error

Carlos Munoz, by contrast, was thrilled with his top five slot, especially after escaping an encounter with the concrete walls that line the 2.36-mile Belle Isle course.

“I brushed the wall in Q2,” said the Colombian who scored his first IndyCar win in the wet at Detroit last year. “That hurt the car a lot. We tried some stuff for the Fast Six, and it didn't work, but it's my first Fast Six with normal conditions, so I’m just really happy. I think it's a good position to start the race.

"[But] I think I got everything out of the car. I think that was the limit. We saw that Team Penske was really strong here. We'll have to work a little bit more for tomorrow."