Hunter-Reay steals victory at Iowa Speedway

GRAHAM RAHAL (No. 15 National Guard Honda): “It was a tough night. We got lucky to stay on the lead lap and be there at the end. It’s my fifth top-10 in my seven races here, but we need to be better in order to win. Coming in to the event, I thought this was a race we could have won. I thought this was the place that we should be able to run up front but from the start of the race the car was extremely loose. I’m just happy to bring it home frankly. The National Guard guys did a great job with the calls. I thought that (pit on the last caution for tires) was the right call. The guys with the newest tires finished first and second. We made the right calls. We just have to find more speed.”

SIMON PAGENAUD (No. 77 Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Racing Honda): “I think we had a top-six car today. We spent a lot of time battling up front, but we had a bit of tough luck with the timing of the caution for Marco Andretti’s incident. We pitted right before the caution came out, which put us at the back of the field. Before the final restart, we chose not to take fresh tires, which was a bold call that didn’t work out for us. You have to make those calls in racing, though. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. We just couldn’t catch a break tonight. It was an exciting shootout at the end for the guys with new tires, and congrats to Honda and Ryan Hunter-Reay on grabbing that one at the end. It’s a shame we couldn’t capitalize on Team Penske having a tough race, but we’re still right there with them heading into Toronto.”

RYAN BRISCOE (No. 8 NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet): “It’s always good to get a top-10 finish, but it’s just disappointing that we fell from our starting spot of fourth down to ninth at the finish. The No. 8 NTT DATA Chevrolet felt really good throughout the race, but just there at the end we couldn’t hold on after such a long stint. Like I said, a top-10 finish is great but I want to win.”

CHARLIE KIMBALL (No. 83 Levemir FlexTouch Chevrolet): “It was a long day for the No. 83 Levemir FlexTouch Chevrolet, but I’ll definitely take a top-10 finish. I have to give a lot of credit to the crew – they were just awesome in pit lane. The stops were right and the strategy was right and we were really fast in clean air. Once the field got strung out, I was running fast lap times but I need to figure out how to run in traffic before I really master short-track racing. I feel really good with that finish and now we just need to put our heads down and get ready for Toronto.”

SEBASTIAN SAAVEDRA (No. 17 Automatic Fire Sprinklers KV AFS Chevrolet): “Very hard to describe how disappointed I am. This was our day. We had a car that I connected very well with. We were very loose from the beginning, but I loved it and I was driving where I needed to drive it. Unfortunately at the end of the third stint, everyone was struggling with grip and my rear tires were extremely worn and I just couldn’t save this “moment” and it ended our day. Tonight’s result doesn’t show how good a car we had. I want to apologize to everyone who believed in me today, we had this race and I take full responsibility. We have shown what we can do and that we belong at the front, so we will keep digging and head to Toronto next weekend.”

WILL POWER (No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet): “I’m proud of the Verizon Chevy boys. It was a tough call at the end there. Had we went with the new tires we might have been looking pretty good. But a tough day to work hard with the Verizon Chevy doing so well, and then to finish fourteenth just wasn’t where we expected to be tonight. We’ll move forward and look ahead to Toronto.

JAMES HINCHCLIFFE (No. 27 United Fiber & Data Honda): “I think, from where we started, it’s obviously a good improvement (14th to sixth). We were really chasing the balance in the middle part of the race. We were making a lot of changes. Sometimes we overshot it, sometimes we undershot it. At the end there, that last run, I think we had a really strong car. I think we had a solid top-five finish in the cards, which from where we started, would have been great. But, that caution came, and those guys that did tires obviously made the right call. We’ll take it. It was a strong race in the end even when we weren’t running well, we fought back, worked on the car, and that’s what this United Fiber & Data crew is so good at. Not the best day, but not a bad day at all.”

MARCO ANDRETTI (No. 25 Snapple Honda): “It was just a survival-type race. We were just trying to hang in to salvage something – we fought hard to stay on the lead lap. I think once the sun was totally down, the Snapple car started to get a little bit better. I’m just really bummed because I feel like we would have probably been on a similar strategy to Ryan (Hunter-Reay) at the end. I know, myself, I always would have taken tires. If I didn’t have a shot at winning, I would have tried something that would have given me a shot, so definitely disappointed.”

CARLOS MUNOZ (No. 34 Cinsay AndrettiTV.com HVM Honda): “It was a really long night for us. The car just wasn’t there. I don’t really know what happened. Also, I don’t think I was 100% myself. We finished in the 12th position. It’s a really bad night, bad race for us. Now I’m just focusing ahead on Toronto.”

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA (No. 2 PPG Team Penske Chevrolet):”Our PPG Chevy was really good today. We had some issues during the weekend, but we never gave up. Yesterday in qualifying got really loose and we came back today really strong, passing people. I got inside of him (Ed Carpenter) and he was running high and then all of a sudden decided to run low. He had been running every lap on the top. I got a run, I got inside of him and he just turned down on me. Very frustrating deal but we have to move on. We’re still in good shape.”

JUSTIN WILSON (No. 19 Dale Coyne Racing Honda): “That was a tough night for us. We were really struggling early on and managed to get it better after a couple of pit stops. At the end, I was wanting tires, but I understood the team’s strategy. I was really just trying to hang on there at the end. The tires were on about 60 laps at that point. I knew we were going to be struggling, but I was hoping I would be able to hang on for a little bit. In the end we ended up in the same spot as when the caution came out. We survived, not as quick as I would have liked but we survived it and now we move on to Toronto now.”

SCOTT DIXON (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Chevrolet) : “Sneaky little buggers they are. I couldn’t believe it. Good strategy and credit obviously to Andretti and (Ryan) Hunter-Reay taking the win there. Our Chevy Target cars were fantastic tonight. I just couldn’t believe TK (Tony Kanaan) ran a hell of a race. He must have led 250 laps or something. We had to work on our car a lot. We just gave them a race there for a little while, led some laps, but I burnt the front tires off my car. Credit to the team, but we just came short there by a couple of spots. Hopefully we will come back at Toronto and get some victories.”

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