Castroneves completes Dual in Detroit sweep for Team Penske

HELIO CASTRONEVES (No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet): “We came out with the Hitachi car. Spot on. I mean yesterday it was a frustration, obviously. Great that (Team Penske) won but a frustration for our side because we knew what car we had and we demonstrated it today. I want to thank Hitachi obviously, Shell, Pennzoil. It was great. Also AAA, SKF, Verizon. Especially Chevy, man. This is the land of Chevy and we made it. Two! That was great. I’m so happy for Team Penske.”

WILL POWER (No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet): “Because of Roger (Penske), I definitely wasn’t going to race him hard. Unless (Helio Castroneves) made a mistake, I wasn’t going to go for a move unless I was close. A great day for Chevy, Roger (Penske) at his home track and Chevy’s backyard. Just fantastic.”

CHARLIE KIMBALL (No. 83 Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet): “I knew that I had no overtakes left and (James Hinchcliffe) had one overtake left going down the back straight and that was his last best opportunity, so I defended into the inside. When he got alongside me we went into the corner side-by-side. It’s so hard because as much as the Firestones marbled today when you were offline. You really start sliding around. It caught Scott out and I was able to take advantage of that. So I knew if I could put (James Hinchcliffe) offline at the apex then I could get the drive out of the corner and hold onto the line. It was nice I was able to (hold up) Hinch (James Hinchcliffe) enough that Scott would be able to come through and for Chip Ganassi Racing to end up third and fourth.”

MIKE CONWAY (No. 20 Fuzzy’s Vodka/Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet): “Starting on the black tires was a good move today. I was able to get past several guys early. But, to be honest, Hinch (James Hinchcliffe) had power off the corners even with the red tires. And it took me some time to finally get under him in turn 3. I didn’t want to use up all of my overtakes too early in the race. That amount of time trying to get by him cost us at the end of the race. The red tires were pretty good for me. They went off a little but I was pushing hard. The right-front tire was locking up and it was getting worse. So I decided to pit early for the fresh black tires or I was going to crash. It is tough to pass here and I made some good ones today. At the end, I was pushing every lap like a qualifying lap. And it was fun and we learned some more for the team. I was happy how the car was hooked up. We just didn’t get the yellows to fall our way today. It was fun to push the car as hard as I did today. Just wish for a better result. Now it’s on to Houston for me next.”

MIKHAIL ALESHIN (No. 7 SMP Racing Honda): “I think my team did a great job today. We had a great three-pit stop strategy and the car was quite good. I had contact with (Juan Pablo) Montoya at the start of the race, but thankfully it wasn’t substantial enough that we had to stop. My suspension was bent slightly after the contact, but I still had speed. I felt like I could really attack out there on the track. Starting 16th and finishing seventh is a great result on a street circuit like this. It’s been a few races since we’ve had a positive result, so we’ll go home feeling happy tonight.”

SIMON PAGENAUD (No. 77 Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsports Honda): “Today was much better than yesterday. We had a fast car. I’m a little bit disappointed, though, because I felt like we had a car that could have won today. And unfortunately the two-pit stop strategy didn’t play in our favor. We lost a lot of time behind (Will) Power during the middle stint. We were faster, but I couldn’t get by him. I didn’t want to take any chances and crash again racing him. I think a lot of drivers would be happy finishing sixth, but we’re racing to win when we have a fast car. Overall it wasn’t a bad day for us, though. The team had a great recovery from our disappointing finish yesterday. I was happy to carry the bright orange Oculus Transport car to the end of the race today. Now I’m really looking forward to Texas next weekend.”

TONY KANAAN (No. 10 Energizer Chevrolet): “We had a decent Energizer car but we really weren’t in the mix today. We had a great result yesterday in the first of the doubleheader but today they race just didn’t work out the way we wanted it to. On to Texas.”

SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA (No. 17 KV AFS Racing Chevrolet): “I am very disappointed with this early retirement. We had an amazing start and the changes the KV AFS Racing crew did overnight gave the car a very strong race pace. I made a mistake trying to get around (Mike) Conway. I just got a little bit too close to him, my air was chopped and I got too close to the wall…..it’s my fault. I’m disappointed with myself as I don’t make these types of mistakes, we have kept the car clean all season so this is unacceptable. Time to work towards Texas. We have a very strong car from now on, which makes me very positive. I am looking forward to starting to bring home the results and getting back into the fight for the championship.”

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