Montoya wins fastest 500-mile race in Indy car history at Pocono

POCONO INDYCAR 500 FUELED BY SUNOCO POST-RACE QUICK QUOTES:

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA (No. 2 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet): “First of all, I want to thank Verizon, IndyCar, PPG and everyone who supports this car and Team Penske. I want thank Roger for believing in me after how many years out of open-wheel, coming back and believing I could do it. Here we are. It’s awesome that we could do it. I want to thank the fans for coming out. Verizon, IndyCar, PPG, Hawk Performance and everyone who believes in Team Penske and myself. It’s huge. I was overly excited coming to the line, I can tell you that.”

WILL POWER (No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet): “I was heading that way. I was heading over and over and over. He is my teammate. Another penalty. Another drive-through and another good opportunity lost.”

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS (No. 11 Hydroxycut KVSH Racing Chevrolet): “It was a pretty good day. We made progress from Saturday in qualifying. The car was competitive in racing traffic. We were marching forward and fighting with the top-10 guys. Once we got into the top 10, it was looking pretty good. Then, unfortunately, in a typical example of racing, winning together and losing together, we had a bad pit stop. I have thrown a couple of races away this year, today it was the crew. We just have to keep digging and see what happens. For sure it is disappointing for everyone because it looked like we were going to have a good result, but, that is racing. We are headed in the right direction. So we just have to keep at it, keep building and see what happens next weekend in Iowa.”

HELIO CASTRONEVES (No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet): “Congrats to (Juan) Montoya. Are you kidding me? This guy is unbelievable. Coming back after 13 years and winning a race? He did a great job. As soon as they signed him, I knew he would be an asset, and a headache, for us. It’s good (to have a) 1-2 finish – and we’re second in the championship. It’s unbelievable.” (On block from Will Power) “That’s one thing about our team, Team Penske, there are no team orders. We race hard and we push for it. Unfortunately I’m not the one to make the calls. But I think we were really pushing hard and obviously fighting for the championship. In the end, it’s not my call.”

ED CARPENTER (No. 20 Fuzzy’s Vodka/Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet): “It was a long race and I kind of knew it would be that way when we didn’t qualify well. We really had some issues with the car all weekend. We ran with Scott (Dixon) most of the day and the car was better later in the race. Unfortunately, it was a tire sensor that came apart immediately when they put the car down off the jacks on the next-to-last stop (Lap 155). The car was vibrating some badly that the steering wheel almost flew out of my hands. So I had to pit again on the next lap and we got down a lap. I’m not pleased how our team’s weekend went here. We have been so good this year and today just wasn’t our day. Now we’ll move onto Iowa and I like that track a lot. Plus I loved night racing. It should be a great show.”

CARLOS HUERTAS (No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda): “Unfortunately, this race ended like the last one. We had trouble with the car when we came down pit lane and had trouble getting it fixed. We just took the car back to the garage to look at it and were not able to figure it out in time to go back out. The guys will have to keep working on it and I will have to get ready for the next race. I hope we can do better next time.”

GRAHAM RAHAL (No. 15 National Guard Honda): “I had a good start, but then the helmet pad blew out of the car right away and unfortunately I fell back. I couldn’t see, I was trying to hold my head up and it took me a couple of laps to adjust. We fought back. I’m proud of the National Guard guys; we had good pit stops all day. They even did a great job getting the spare pad taped in the cockpit in a hurry. Unfortunately our luck struck again I’m not really sure what happened. The car just snapped. I think something broke and ended our day early. It was getting better. I feel confident that we’re getting somewhere though.”

MIKHAIL ALESHIN (No. 7 SMP Racing Honda): “Everything was really good for me during the race. The car was fast, and we didn’t struggle anywhere mechanically. We did have some radio issues we had to deal with, however. The car was strong, which allowed me to push out there and challenge other drivers. I’m very happy for the team, because we showed that we could be competitive the entire weekend. This is a strong points result for us, too. We’re knocking on the door of the top 10 now, which is very exciting.”

SIMON PAGENAUD (No. 77 Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsports Honda): “That was a long race, and it was very difficult to pass. We started with a high downforce level, and it just wasn’t working out there. We had a good chassis, but we couldn’t pass anyone. It took us awhile to get the balance of the car right, but halfway through we made a bold change that worked. We repositioned ourselves, and the last yellow helped us gain back the ground we had lost. With the low level of downforce we had in the last stint, we were able to pass cars and be more aggressive. I’m very happy with how the team handled the challenges we were faced with today. The beginning of my race may have looked a little boring to the fans, but I was just trying to understand what I would need at the end. Finishing sixth today is great considering we didn’t start up front with the strongest race package. I’m happy with sixth today, and want to say congratulations to my teammate Mikhail (Aleshin). He drove a heck of a race today.”

RYAN BRISCOE (No. 8 NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet): “Things are really looking up for NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing and I’m just glad we finally were able to get a finish that mirrored our efforts. We just keep looking better and better as the season progresses, and I think we have a lot to look forward to in the second half of this season. This track is awesome and it’s been really fun to race on all weekend.”

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