|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
HONDA RACING TEAM MEDIA CONFERENCEMay 25, 2018Art St. CyrT.E. McHALE: Our guest is Art St. Cyr. Let's start with a question of your general impressions of the month of May for Honda and HPD so far. ART ST. CYR: Well, obviously qualifying didn't quite go the way that we were expecting. Obviously the advantage that we've enjoyed over the last couple years is not there right now. Got to give credit to the other side on that one. We're still confident at our race pace. On Monday we showed pretty well we were able to drive up on people, we were able to pass. We think that we're going to be okay on this. We still have confidence in the race. The teams that we have, obviously teams like Andretti Autosport who has won three of the last four Indy 500s can never be counted out. I think we're going to be okay for the race. T.E. McHALE: We're obviously disappointed that the spokesman for the Honda spring sales campaign isn't going to be on the grid on Sunday, but we still have four previous champions in the field. Nothing to be ashamed of there, for sure. ART ST. CYR: Yeah, that's a little unfortunate that James Hinchcliffe actually got bumped. Personally for Honda as a Honda spokesman, that's not the best story. That's what the Indy 500 is about. It's really going back to tradition. There's been some big names over the course of the years that haven't made it into the actual show. Credit to IndyCar for sticking to their guns, staying these are the rules, these are the rules we're going to follow. It doesn't matter who gets affected by it. Obviously it's not the best situation for us as the Honda camp, but I do think some of the aura that surrounds the Indy 500 is back with that very dramatic situation. I applaud the thought process of actually doing that, even though the results are not the best for us. T.E. McHALE: Tell us a little bit about the importance of the 500 to HPD. We say every year that it is job one at Honda Performance Development to win the Indianapolis 500. What does that look like in terms of the planning for this event? ART ST. CYR: Well, going back to the formation of HPD, this is the 25th anniversary of HPD. If you think back to the start of HPD back in 1993, the reason that HPD existed or exists now is because Honda wanted to compete in this race. This race, if you think back in the '90s, there's a little bit of tension between the Japanese companies and the U.S. car makers, coming in to race in a very, very Americana event like the Indy 500 was very important to Honda. Obviously, this is the oldest, biggest motorsport race in the world. It's important to us to not only show up and race here, but to race really well here. That really drives our thought process to why we race here. All the work that we do over the course of the year, no matter what we're working on, we always have the Indy 500 in the back of our mind as we're making our decisions on how we're moving forward. As I said, it's integral to not just Honda now, but Honda from when we started, why we want to be here. T.E. McHALE: We announced last week, IndyCar announced last week, the engine regulations for the next iteration of engine, which comes into production in 2021, correct? ART ST. CYR: Yes. T.E. McHALE: Give us some impressions of what that is going to look like. ART ST. CYR: Hopefully better than that. We have been working with IndyCar, along with Chevrolet, as well, to try to define the set of rules that we are going to make a new engine. Obviously this engine, we've been running this formula of engine since 2012. This is the seventh engine we've been rubbing on this engine. Quite frankly, both sides, we are kind of running out of development opportunities for this engine. It's about time to kind of reset everything. It gives us a chance to look at new technologies, gives us a chance to, again, reset what we're doing. It's very important to HPD to have a chance to work on something new. As I mentioned before, this race here is a good setting for it because this is why we do it. We're just excited to get going. The formula, the twin turbo V6, very similar to what we had before, but it's going to have a little bit more displacement, so the engine is going to have a little bit more power. As we said before, we want to put this more in the hands of the drivers with more horsepower, actually force the drivers to lift. I think the new formula is going to take IndyCar to the next step. It's going to continue the exciting racing that you see right now. T.E. McHALE: We'll open it to questions for Art. Q. Would you be in favor of reserving spots for full‑time competitors in light of the fact that you did that, it takes away what you talked about earlier of the aura of bumping? ART ST. CYR: I'm torn when I think about that. Part of what makes the Indy 500 the Indy 500 are a lot of the traditions. You see the bagpipes, we're still drawing for T cars, I don't quite understand that. I'm torn. I have to give that a little more thought. Obviously this year it would have been helpful for us to have that, right? Honestly I haven't given it that much thought as to what we should do in the future. I like the traditions that we have, but I also realize that sponsorship is what makes this series work. This event in particular is why people are in IndyCar, is to do that one. I can definitely see in this day and age the attraction of preserving spotting for full‑season entrants. Again, it would take away for some of the tradition, so I'd have to give that one a little bit more thought. I don't really have an opinion on that one for you. Q. You said earlier you were not so happy with the qualifying performance. Race is different, back to race trim. How much less horsepower do we have in race trim comparing to qualifying trim? ART ST. CYR: Actually, I don't actually know the answer for that one. Obviously the boost is down from 140 to 130 KPA. Speeds look like they're down probably about five or six miles an hour for that. It's hard to tell because you're running more downforce in race trim, as well. I don't know off the top of my head. The group that is behind you would be able to tell you that a little bit more. I don't know the actual horsepower number, but obviously it is less. More importantly qualifying is about how fast can you do. You trim out. How light can you go, go around four laps flat. The race is more about how well can you race, can you get around people, can you preserve your tires, those types of things. There's a lot of different characteristics that come into the race versus qualifying. Q. Concerning the new engine rules, it was mentioned the new engine rules from 2021, maximum 1200 rpm. Can you do higher? ART ST. CYR: There's some technical issues, things like valve springs. The equipment we have is set up right now. There was no reason to really increase the rpm of the engine. The goal of the new engine formula was to create more horsepower, try and keep the series moving forward. The formula we have right now of the bigger displacement, the twin turbo engine, solves all of our goals. There's no real need to do anything different on that with the concept of that engine. Q. With this car, we didn't really know how it was going to be at any of the races we've been to. Is there the chance there could be a surprise in the race, it may be a little bit better to pass than everyone is predicting? ART ST. CYR: I'm not exactly sure how to answer that. I got to give a lot of credit to Tino and his group of how they designed this car. I imagine that, no matter what people think, these are racers, very skilled drivers. With 500 miles, they'll figure out a way to do what they need to do on this. That was the thought at Phoenix, that people said, You can't pass at Phoenix. I think Alexander Rossi and Sebastien Bourdais showed you can pass. If the car is set up right, I don't think that's going to be an issue. Everything we've done so far with this car on the road courses, the street courses, the short ovals has proved to be very good. I see no reason to doubt between the skill of the teams, the skill of the drivers, the fact that this is the Indy 500, these drivers will put on a very good show. Q. What's the over‑under on Alexander Rossi being in the top five, what lap? ART ST. CYR: I'm not going to make any predictions of that. I would not count ott Alexander Rossi. He has shown this year he is on it. He is very much into this series right now. I think he's a very strong contender for the championship. I don't see him having a weakness at any venue that we have, including the Indy 500. He's one of our four winners with Scott Dixon, Takuma Sato and Ryan Hunter‑Reay. Four of the six previous winners of this event are in the Honda camp, and he's one of them. He has the experience. He has the drive. He has the team. I don't see any reason why he shouldn't be fighting for the victory in this one. Q. Is there any kind of chance what we saw last week was the Chevy engine better matching this aero package, maybe just slightly better? When you look at all the parameters, did you consider that at all? Everybody has the same car now, not a Honda kit and Chevy kit aero package. Is it possible the Chevy better suits barely this aerodynamic package these cars now run based on what you saw? ART ST. CYR: Obviously, like I said before, I think the other side has had a disadvantage in the last couple years. They've come back strong with this one. There's a lot of things that went into this. It's a new aero kit, right? Whether or not the engine suits the aero kit more or they found something in the aero kit our team versus not found, I don't know what to say. Overall we were down. Clearly the results show that. We need to get to the bottom of that from our side technically, how did that happen, how do we come back from that one. We're already thinking about next year, how we're going to avoid that situation next year. That still involves understanding the chassis as well as the engine, how do make sure those two are matched up to go as fast as possible. Q. Last year for Honda corporate and HPD, seems like having Takuma Sato was almost the dream. Got the Borg‑Warner a tour of Japan. What would be the best‑case scenario for you guys this season, this Indy 500? ART ST. CYR: The best‑case scenario for this Indy 500 is for Honda to win. Whether it's Takuma Sato or anybody in our field, we don't put a priority on one versus another. We love all our children equally on that one. Last year having Takuma Sato win was very good from a Honda standpoint because it's the first time a Japanese driver has won the Indy 500. There was a lot of excitement, especially in our corporate office, a lot of attention was brought to HPD and the IndyCar Series. That is never a bad thing. Our global president is going to be at this race this year. You never know exactly what led to that decision, but I am sure Takuma Sato winning the race last year, his picture being on the tickets, had some influence on that. Overall we put our blood, sweat and tears into winning this race. We don't want one driver or another, we just want Honda to win. Honestly, if Honda can be P1 through 16, that would be the best‑case scenario for us, then let the Honda drivers fight out for who is going to win the race. Q. Tell me about Carb Day. What are the expectations from Honda for Carb Day specifically. ART ST. CYR: Carb Day is really just to make sure that the cars are ready to run. We want to make sure first and foremost that everyone runs clean. We don't want to have any problems at Carb Day. We had a few little glitches last Monday that we hope to solve, make sure everything is okay. We'll run things like spare wings, make sure that the teams understand what they have, that our engineers understand what they have, hopefully get out of here with a very clear understanding of what we have in our cars and work on our strategy on how we're going to win the race. We hope for a very uneventful day today. Q. You mentioned earlier HPD was founded in 1993. If I remember correctly, the first Honda win in IndyCar was Tasman racing. Do you still have contact with Steve and Tasman personally? ART ST. CYR: Personally I wasn't around at that point. There are teams, Bobby Rahal was our team at the time, so obviously there's some tradition there. The fact that we did not qualify for the race in 1994 still burns in our stomach. We work really hard to make sure that never happens again. We just had our 25th anniversary. We do maintain contact with a lot of our past drivers and affiliates because that's very important to us. We look at this as the Honda family. Once you drive for Honda, you're always a Honda driver. You're always welcome, except when you drive for the other side, right? Unless you're Acura, right? It's a different story. We always welcome those people back, and we love our past drivers, we love our past teams, we love the history of what we've done. We have won 12 of 17 Indy 500s that we've participated in. All of those drivers that have won have a place in our history. There's a room that's dedicated to all of the past winners of the Indy 500. We want to continue to fill that room. T.E. McHALE: With all that love, it seems like a pretty good place to stop. Thank you all for getting up early in the morning and joining us for this media availability. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|