Previous brake issues leave Pagenaud struggling to catch up

Ben Bretzman said that Friday’s inconsistency of the brakes – which in IndyCar this year are a combination of Brembo calipers with Performance Friction Corporation rotors and pads – had meant the team ran out of time on Saturday to tune the car’s handling for the ever-changing track conditions.

“We’re just behind and having to catch up,” Bretzman told Motorsport.com. “We weren’t happy with the brakes on Friday, so we got lost trying to find where we were balance-wise.

“Then we got the brakes sorted out this morning but you only have 45 minutes [morning practice session] to figure out where you’re at and what you need to do to build a racecar and a qualifying car. It’s too tough in this series right now; two tenths back and you’re not in it.

“We got Simon pretty happy with the brake pedal [Saturday] morning, but it was asking a lot to try and do it all in a 45 minute session and then go forward to qualifying. So yeah, we’re just kinda behind.

“But even though we didn’t advance out of Q1, I feel a lot happier than I did on Friday. At that point we couldn’t really tell what the car’s balance was, because it’s so dictated by what the driver does with the brake pedal.”

Asked why Penske had problems with the brakes only on certain cars – Pagenaud’s teammate Will Power was able to take pole and claims to have had no brake problems all weekend – Bretzman responded: “I think it’s just driver sensitivity thing. Everyone uses different pressure, and if you drive into any corner here and don’t put much pressure on, you’ll basically go straight into the fence.

“Driving an IndyCar well is based around front lateral load transfer – how do you load the front tires to make the car turn?”

Bretzman said that the resurfacing of the track had also changed the pattern of how the track gained grip over the weekend, and that therefore the new-for-2017 rule that allows teams to try the alternate compound tires in second practice had been no help on this occasion.

“It didn’t really make any difference,” he said. “We showed up with a qualifying setup but on Friday the track was so loose that you saw Will [Power] have issues, and the new track surface took a long time to take on rubber. I mean, this track is usually really bad on Fridays but this time was even worse. So we were fighting a really loose car and a very inconsistent brake pedal when the reds [alternate tires] were available to us.”

Despite the braking issues that were corrected on the #1 car but have afflicted several other cars, Bretzman said he wasn’t expecting Penske to have a problem on race day, despite the race being 110 laps and the cars carrying much heavier fuel loads than in practice and qualifying.

“As a team, I don’t think we have a problem with the brakes now,” said Bretzman. “Yes, obviously we haven’t had the chance to do long runs with a bunch of cars out there – nobody has, so we don’t really know. But I’m not over concerned about it, no.

“I mean, yeah, you’ve got more load, so you are putting more temperatures through the brakes, but the drivers are not typically braking so hard in the race as they would be in qualifying and they’re saving fuel so backing off earlier.

“I think we as a team will be OK.”