Photo Credit: Chris Owens/IndyCar
Team Penske seemed to have the quickest cars and a chance at victory in hand, but a pair of tire issues would hinder the performance.
Helio Castroneves, driver of the No. 3 Rev Group Penske Chevrolet, started the race on the pole, leading from the start of the race and led until Lap 41 when he had a right front tire go flat, forcing him to pit road for a change.
Castroneves gave the lead up to his teammate Juan Pablo Montoya, driver of the No. 2 Verizon Penske Chevrolet, who started the race in second. Montoya led the race until Lap 97, when he also had a right tire go down and had to pit.
Two teammates having the same issue would seem to possibly cause concern for their other two teammates Simon Pagenod and Will Power. Luckily for them, neither had tire issues and both ended up on the podium. Both inside shoulders of the tires were the issue for Castroneves and Montoya, but resulted due to different reasons. Castroneves’ tire problem came from a puncture and Montoya’s came from a vibration.
Despite the issue, Montoya came back to finish the race ninth.
“This was more of an attrition race,” Montoya said. ” We had the fastest cars but you get hit with yellows and cut tires so it’s not a true sense of what our cars were capable of. Simon and Will showed through, but with Helio and myself we got caught up with a cut tire. So it would have been a totally different race. Phoenix is a short oval and the speeds kept up, but everybody was on alert and everybody was pretty close. I thought there would be a lot more gaps, but everyone was pretty much in the same zone. The car kept getting a vibration and then it would settle and then would go from a three-car gap to a 15- to 20-car gap. Overall, the Verizon Chevy was pushing pretty hard and was still able to stay in the top 10. Not the finish we wanted, but we’ll look ahead to Long Beach and go from there.”
Meanwhile, Castroneves also came back to finish the race eleventh.
“First of all, it was great to start on pole and to get the track record for our new sponsor, REV,” Castroneves said. “I wish we could’ve done the same in the race. Unfortunately, we cut a tire. There was never an indication there was any problem with the tire so by the time we realized it was going flat, it was too late. Everything was going so smooth, it was too good to be true. Once you go slow on a one-mile oval like that, it’s like an eternity to get back to pit lane. We lost a lot with that. Really, to finish on the lead lap and in the top 11 shows just how good the REV Chevy car was this weekend.”
