Hildebrand takes positives from Indy, sorry for Castroneves

Although the Ed Carpenter Racing part-timer said he would never be satisfied unless he’s winning, he said the team had provided him with a “fast little hotrod in the second half of the race.”

He told Motorsport.com: “We just threw a ton of front wing at it and worked the tire pressures, worked the aero balance but didn’t once change the downforce. I felt the level was about right so we were just getting that downforce level dialed in.

“It was just a matter of being a little bit better than the others. With a hot day like that, everybody loads up downforce, everyone gains grip and it kinda makes it hard to be different, to be stronger than them.

“So once we got our car working, we were able to make our way through the pack a couple of times and got into the lead. And at the end we were running legitimately with the top three or four cars – [Carlos] Munoz, [Tony] Kanaan, Josef [Newgarden] and Hinch [James Hinchcliffe] – and I felt we were stronger at the end of runs than they were.”

Despite that, Hildebrand, who finished sixth, doubts he could have done any better than Munoz in catching Andretti-Herta Autosport winner Alexander Rossi, whose team elected to forego a splash ’n’ dash and instead make their final fuel intake stretch for 36 laps. Munoz came up 4.5sec short.

“We didn’t have a great final stop but even without that delay, I’m still not thinking we were going to be the ones who managed to chase down Rossi,” he admitted. “I’d say we’d have been a couple of corners behind. But we should have been more in the mix – third or fourth instead of sixth, so that’s a little frustrating.

“But we had a car that we could drive the hell out of, and that was fun." 

The Castroneves incident

Hildebrand explained that the clash with Castroneves on lap 160 was a result of misunderstanding which way the Brazilian would move as he drafted up to pass. The incident broke the left-rear bumper pod of the #3 Team Penske-Chevrolet and Hildebrand also said it had bent his own right-front wing.

He said: “I felt really bad about it, but you’ve got to run so close to guys to get a good run on them. Helio was sizing someone up in front of him to make a pass and made a move that I thought meant he was going left but instead he stayed to the outside but instead he stayed high, I shifted over to go by him on the inside and on the way, clipped his rear pod.

“I got a little bit of damage but not enough to ruin my race, whereas he did so that was a bummer and obviously I’m sorry about that. I’ve had little incidents with Helio the last two years so he’s unhappy, because he deserves a shot at this as much as anyone does, for sure.”