Team Penske come away from the Firestone Grand Prix presented by RP Funding following a fantastic race for the team.
Scott McLaughlin in the No.3 DEX Chevrolet dominated the event, taking the NTT P1 Award and going on to claim he debut victory.
Speaking following the race he said:
This is unbelievable. Thank you to Roger Penske and everyone who put their faith in me… DEX Energy for jumping on board and trusting me, and Roger Penske and Tim Cindric giving me the opportunity to come here. I miss my mom and dad dearly and my family. It was crazy. I really struggled those last couple laps to keep my head to save fuel and all that stuff. We did it. Chevy gave us the fuel mileage. The drivability this weekend has been a big change. To win DEX Imaging’s home race is unreal. I love you Australia and New Zealand. I miss you guys and thinking of all you guys in the Queensland with all the floods at the moment. I just can’t believe this!”
Will Power in the No.12 Verizon 5G Chevrolet started the race from second alongside McLaughlin and came home in third place and speaking following the race he said:
Yeah it (the early yellow) really hurt us badly. We were banking on being able to go long in that first stint and then pretty sure we would’ve got to the lead just because the reds drop so much. Then tried to short pit that middle stint but unfortunately we got the yellow. And I just was really trying to make the reds last. I was really happy with third. I think the Verizon Chevy crew did a phenomenal job with strategy to get us out of that situation and just a good solid day.”
Josef Newgarden in the No.2 Hitachi Chevrolet started the race in 9th and came home in 16th.
was a tough weekend on the No. 2 car. It just didn’t pan out our way. We tried a different strategy than most, and it didn’t seem like the racing gods were shining on us this weekend. There are a lot of positives. We have a lot of new people on the 2 car and I felt like everyone worked super-well together. We’ve learned some things to start this year off, so our goal is to continue to build on this first weekend of the year and get better throughout. I can’t wait for the next one at Texas.”
Ben's News Round-Up 