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INDYCAR MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 22, 2019

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Will Power.

Your impressions of the track so far?

WILL POWER: Turn 19 is obviously just interesting. You got to use the rule to be fast. The rest, it's a difficult track. Very technical. Hard to get the car right. I felt like we got in a pretty good window that session. Felt like we found where we need to be.

THE MODERATOR: I know you had laps here at the Open Test. How important is all this track time this weekend?

WILL POWER: Yeah, it's funny. You can do all these miles in testing, come back, it's different for the race. You get the basics down, get some good data and such to go away and think about it.

Definitely running a different package to what I ran at the test. So, yeah, we'll just keep massaging on it. It's going to be tight, it always is. I think the weather looks pretty good actually. We will have a nice weekend.

THE MODERATOR: We're also joined by Felix Rosenqvist.

Your impressions of the track thus far?

FELIX ROSENQVIST: Yeah, it's a bit different from when we were here testing, definitely. Also turn 19 opened up. It's pretty different kind of third sector going on there.

I think main thing is the tires. The tires seem to go off quite a lot. Managing that is going to be the key. Everyone just got, like, one or two laps on the reds, then it's a big question mark how they're going to behave in the race without laps on them in the warmup session.

I think it's going to be an interesting one. It's a big question mark, like it always is in this area. Kind of exciting. We felt pretty good so far.

THE MODERATOR: (Question about learning new tracks.)

FELIX ROSENQVIST: I think this track is very different to St. Pete. It's much easier to get a gap here. Hopefully it's going to be less red flags here as well because you have so much runoff.

I think it's going to be good, fair qualifying where everyone can get a lap in. Surprised sometimes how much traffic you can get on such a big track.

Yeah, let's hope it's a good session and we come out on top.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. (Question about tire degradation.)
WILL POWER: Yeah, the tires degrade so much, I think it will create some racing. I think there will be some mistakes. It's always hard to say. You see what happens in these series, they get so competitive, so tight, basically everyone almost runs the same speed. That's what makes it difficult to pass.

Yeah, IndyCar is at that point. Being a new track, no one knows what to expect for the race, so we'll see.

Q. (Question about simulator.)
FELIX ROSENQVIST: Actually not for this track. We are a bit limited on which tracks we can run in the simulator. As we did two days of testing here, we felt that was enough.

To be fair, on this level of motorsports, you only need, like, a session, then you probably know a track pretty well to be within 98 percent where you need to be. The simulator is mainly for a completely new track or if you need to work on something else.

Yeah, we felt like we were more than prepared off the test. It's a different track anyways now, so...

Q. (Question about the runoff area on the track.)
WILL POWER: It does, yeah. Personally, I think it would be better because it's harder then. I mean, you still got to get the corner right, but I just think track limit would be better.

FELIX ROSENQVIST: I mean, I don't know. I'm not a fan of track limits. That's why I like racing in America, because you don't really have track limits. You go off in this grass, gravel or wall. Here we come into that problem where you have the track limit.

I'm kind of a fan for opening it up. You know it's going to be the same for everyone. They're not going to look at this guy was one millimeter over the line or not, which is a bit ridiculous.

It looks pretty weird, but it is what it is. They said it's like that for the weekend. That's the way we're going to run. Same for everyone.

Q. (No microphone.)
WILL POWER: What happens when we build a tire that degrades a lot, prevents fuel saving, degrades so much that it's not worth going long. That's probably what's going to happen here.

Q. (No microphone.)
FELIX ROSENQVIST: I haven't tried it yet. Red flag this morning when we were allowed to run it. I think just a couple of guys in the beginning were able to run it.

Q. (Question regarding the $100,000 bonus.)
WILL POWER: Yeah, I don't think it matters. Everyone is going for pole. Doesn't matter how much. Even if it was a million bucks, everyone is putting in as much as they can because they want to get the pole, win the race. You're never out there thinking it's worth $100,000, you're just out there wanting to beat everyone.

It's very nice if you happen to do it, big dinner, really nice sushi joints here.

Q. (No microphone.)
FELIX ROSENQVIST: Yeah, quite a lot. It's pretty slippery going into there. I don't know, I thought it would rubber up. It seems every time you come into there, you're locking up, the line gets a bit like you're braking almost in an S shape.

It's true, different corners from the test, definitely.

Q. (No microphone.)
WILL POWER: Yeah, definitely go away. Not terrible, but they do. Will be struggling. If someone is on better tires, there's going to get you, no question. Yeah, definitely degrade. It's a good thing, it really is.

Q. (No microphone.)
WILL POWER: Yeah, I doubt it. Not worth a full pit stop, yeah.

Q. (No microphone.)
WILL POWER: 15 bucks a week for me is enough. I can live on that (laughter).

Q. (No microphone.)
WILL POWER: It's not bad. Yeah, it's undulations more than that. It's not terrible, though. It's okay. It's a very nice track. That's the beauty of IndyCar, we race on some of the most brutal tracks, smooth tracks. It's such a mixed series. It's pretty cool. Nothing like it in the world. You get so good at so many disciplines.

FELIX ROSENQVIST: Yeah, I mean, I agree. We cannot complain about the bumps here coming from St. Pete. It feels like a massage going around here compared to that.

No, it's very smooth. It's probably one of the smoothest tracks we run, except like Indy, oval, something like that. Yeah, no complaints. It's just on the straights really. You don't really feel it in a corner. Like it doesn't give you a massive compression or something like that. It's really just in turn one, you go up the hill. When you're in the car, you don't really think about it.

Q. (No microphone.)
FELIX ROSENQVIST: That was the first time in an IndyCar. I tried an oval. I did two ovals in Indy Lights, which was not good. I really hated ovals back then. I just tried to like reset, go back to zero.

I'm working with the best guys in the business, with Dario, with my team, Chip Ganassi Racing. I think I couldn't have better teachers.

I feel like now I have a different mindset to it. I'm pretty hungry to go racing. I felt like I had confidence, so it was a good test, for sure.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much.

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