Qualifying report
Toronto IndyCar: Top 10 quotes after qualifying
First Pole of the season for defending Verizon IndyCar Series Champion
Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images
| Cla | # | Driver | Time | Gap | Mph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 |  Simon Pagenaud |
58.9124 | 109.138 | |
| "It was a really good lap, one of the best I've ever put together. Certainly, there is not much more in it, but the whole qualifying I worked on details and driving. My teammates, they are tremendous. It's such a good atmosphere when we work together. Each practice we talked about how we manage the corners and we keep improving each other. I feel like I really extracted the best out of my car, the best out of my setup today. It's obviously the most satisfying thing and that is what I'm always seeking for." | |||||
| 2 | 15 |  Graham Rahal |
59.2245 | 0.3121 | 108.563 |
| "That was awesome. I couldn't be more proud of the Rousseau team. These boys have worked so hard and we put it together in (the Firestone Fast Six). To finish second in (the Firestone Fast Six) after seeing how dominant Penske was all weekend, that's better than a pole for me. We can definitely race them hard from here. I think we have a pretty good race car. We just need to settle her down a little bit. Those Penske's had new reds (Firestone alternate tires) to finish qualifying and I'm really surprised Helio (Castroneves) and Will (Power) didn't get us. I think it's going to be a great race tomorrow. Trust me, we're going to give them everything we've got. We need good points here. We want to get a win. When you have a car like this, and a team like this, it makes it a lot more confidence inspiring. When you go out there, you know that you have what it takes to get the job done. They have made my life a lot easier and I am proud of them. A result like this is great for all of our partners." | |||||
| 3 | 3 |  Helio Castroneves |
59.4345 | 0.5221 | 108.180 |
| "It was pretty good. The Hitachi Chevy was running really, really good. Obviously my teammates, we're all working together, pushing each other, and in my group, the car was running really smooth, picking up a little bit of understeer with the blacks (Firestone primary tires), so I was trying to make some adjustments. That's the fun part about it, you start making some adjustments and try to rush into it. But it worked pretty well and we saved the best for last. But definitely Simon (Pagenaud) put up a phenomenal lap out there. I mean, I wish I would have started with brand new (tires) instead of stopping and coming back in, so it would have given us a little bit more of a possibility to keep pushing every lap." | |||||
| 4 | 12 |  Will Power |
59.5430 | 0.6306 | 107.982 |
| "Obviously, the cars are really good. My qualifying on the blacks (Firestone primary tires) was really fast. Definitely the car felt good, a bit on the reds (Firestone alternate tires). Didn't get a good read on that when it went red there. I only had one lap and it had a lot of push, and I thought, 'Well, maybe the fronts weren't in,' and then didn't have time to make a change for the Firestone Fast Six. Just a big imbalance, and got as much as I could out of it, as it was, so starting fourth is pretty good around here. Try to keep out of the mess." | |||||
| 5 | 9 |  Scott Dixon |
59.7970 | 0.8846 | 107.524 |
| "It's been a rough start to the weekend for us. We really struggled finding the right balance for the car. From last year to this year, we've been dealing with a completely different configuration. I thought some of the gains we made this year on other street courses didn't translate here for some reason. We reverted back to our setup yesterday in the NTT Data car when we were in the top three, but it's just a handful around here. We had a great lap going, but I smashed the fence in Turn 6 in qualifying on the second lap, which cost us at least one spot I think. All in all my hands are full, but hopefully we can make some small improvements to get the car a bit better for the race tomorrow." | |||||
| 6 | 5 |  James Hinchcliffe |
1'00.1415 | 1.2291 | 106.908 |
| "It's always tricky qualifying here. This track is one of the those with all the surface changes and where the walls are, it's tough to get that lap on the reds (Firestone alternate tires). We caught a break in Segment 1 because we were on our fastest lap outside of the top six when Esteban [Gutierrez] had his accident. That obviously knocked him back and put us through to the next round. Then we were on our out lap in Segment 2 when the red (flag) came out which set up the one-lap dash, and I just committed everything I had into that last lap and I snuck into the Firestone Fast Six. I'm really proud of the SPM Arrow guys - top six two years in a row, and last year we turned it into a podium, so let's hope for more of the same tomorrow." | |||||
| 7 | 2 | Josef Newgarden |
59.8992 | 0.9868 | 107.340 |
| "We just missed the Firestone Fast Six by like a tenth of a second or something. I didn't get it done. The margins in this series are razor thin and sometimes you come up on the short end. The DeVilbiss Chevrolet guys have worked hard and the car is really solid. It's not like all is lost or anything. We'll start seventh and go to work from there." | |||||
| 8 | 98 | Alexander Rossi |
1'00.0114 | 1.0990 | 107.140 |
| "Today was a big step forward from yesterday. I have to credit the team for making the right changes overnight - we were much more competitive today. I think we had a shot at the (Firestone) Fast Six, but the red flag at the end of the session only allowed us to have one lap. It's harder for us to get fast lap times on new tires early in the stint than it seems for other teams. The (qualifying) result is unfortunate, but it's a lot better than we were looking last night." | |||||
| 9 | 8 |  Max Chilton |
1'00.1202 | 1.2078 | 106.946 |
| "Qualifying wasn't terrible, but we've had better results on road and street circuits this year, and we were obviously hoping for more. We would have loved to get through into the final round but just didn't get there. We have some work to do tonight but I'm confident we'll have a good Gallagher car tomorrow for the race here in Toronto." | |||||
| 10 | 26 |  Takuma Sato |
1'00.1970 | 1.2846 | 106.809 |
| "I'm disappointed with the qualifying result. We had a good car and had a good lap time in the first round. We moved on to the second (segment) and until the red flag, the car felt quite positive. We ran into traffic on the last lap of the session - there was only one lap to qualify after the red flag - so we didn't make it. It's a shame, but we will concentrate on tomorrow's race. It will be a survival race and hopefully we will have a good car and good race tomorrow." | |||||
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