INDYCAR SERIES: HONDA INDY 225

August 22, 2004

Michael Andretti

Adrian Fernandez

Dario Franchitti

Dan Wheldon

Q. Obviously your first trip to the track, a win you would have preferred.

DAN WHELDON: Adrian, especially following last week, it was one of the most challenging races of the year. The flag was just changing completely the whole days, I was very balanced at the beginning of the run, I needed to adjust to the outside line. They were moving around so much, it got close because of that. Nonetheless, I made sure -- inaudible -- and try and catch the people in front of me.

ADRIAN FERNANDEZ: To be able to win the race I needed to be aggressive, so I had the most front wind on the last two, I was very good at the beginning, it was very hard the first two laps but then I just couldn't get it. My car started getting on the push side and that was the end it was push loose and then I was watching Dan and I was -- and that's because -- if I would have managed to get around Dario -- and I knew it would be critical at the end of those laps but we hold them on the line.

ADRIAN FERNANDEZ: I heard that he was -- the car was loose on the middle of traffic, that's something that's a problem.

DAN WHELDON: Apparently they didn't expect to check. In our case, I was still not too concerned because it was early in the race. They pass me at the beginning of the race. They were strong. We passed them and they were more consistent and they managed to have -- but toward the end they were not that good and managed to get my car better. I just think honestly at different stages of the race different people's cars working well for them. We just kind of trucked and changed. It would seem at one point, particularly Adrian pulled about a straight on me, and I was just coming out on four and at the end I was right on the heels. It just depended exactly at what point of the race your car was -- they were obviously very strong.

ADRIAN FERNANDEZ: You use a lot of downforce. It's really elevated, sometimes there is room, wind coming into the track and that really affects the car, but the cars are not really solid on the trace rack. As you could see, most everybody put everything they got in terms of bounce for the race and still everybody was -- on the cars.

DAN WHELDON: I feel the same way. I think it's certainly a deceiving track to go out and qualifying, it's flat-out; it's a very difficult flat-out. I think you can tell that you're trimmed out and I think it's similar to Indy from that standpoint. You can really feel the lack of dynamic grip, but certainly in the race, I think with the thin air and the temperature, and the way that the track changes, from the marble, it just makes it greasy, and consequently, if your car has a little bit of understeer at the end of the run, it's a big understeer. If you're loose at the beginning, it's really big at the beginning. I think just what this track does, is it accentuates any of the problems that you have. It's good from that standpoint. That's what makes Pikes Peak a good track to be at. I think all credit to Dario, he's very, very good at setting a car up for these kind of races.

DAN WHELDON: It really doesn't bother me, the championship. Obviously, I want to win it as much as anybody, but maybe I'm getting older or something, but I just feel that I if it's meant to be, it's meant to be and just take one race at a time, then we'll see what happens. That would certainly mean a lot to win a championship.

DAN WHELDON: Probably at the banquet.

DAN WHELDON: Three and four down the straight -- you don't know Pikes Peak too well. I hope none of you were transmitting my radio conversation because it would be interesting. It's a difficult place. I think I've aged about 25 years.

DARIO FRANCHITTI: Thank you. What can I say, we had a very strong car at the start. I probably went a little bit too strong at the start, went a little quicker and by the end of the stint I suffered for that, the car got pretty loose. I learned my lesson on that. From then on I had to sort of count things down a bit on the opening of the stints. I just clipped my vent guy, Mike Miller mand he hurt his knee, tore some ligaments in his knee. We were delayed, so that led -- whoever was leading, I let him get ahead a bit. Luckily, it eventually bunched up again under yellow, we came into the pits. On the restart, managed on the two laps to get back into the lead. At that point I was really cautious about not going too far ahead, not putting too much -- on the first part of the stint, after the end, and then we had that yellow with, what was it, 50-something laps to go. We came in, my guys did a great job. And on last restart, Adrian was pretty close, but after that, I could see him inching away. We got traffic and I was able to really stretch it. From then on, it was just keeping the gap, keeping the rhythm going. I'm lucky, the guys, the engineers at Andretti Green gave me a great car today. Honda, obviously, some serious horsepower. These low-grip situations definitely suit my driving style and we took advantage of it. I'm pretty happy today. That's an understatement, I would say.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: Another big day for the team, for sure, Dario doing what he did again in the RJax car (ph) and Dan getting another podium, drove a good race, and Tony finishing fifth, extending his points lead over Eddie, it was a good day for that. We were able to take care of Buddy's misfortunes and these are some great days.

DARIO FRANCHITTI: There was only, how do I put this, there's only people that matter I think the people that knows what's going on, these guys, the bosses, the guys on the team, the guys at Honda and they knew the way I felt. You know, why would I do this if I didn't want to, you know what I mean? I'm enjoying my racing. I love next year's schedule is going to be even better for me, and great teammates, so, things are pretty good right now.

DARIO FRANCHITTI: Oh, gosh, I forgot that. I'm getting senile dementia at 31. I could see Tony was maybe starting to struggle a bit at that point. There was some pretty slow cars up ahead that were really loose. So I managed to get down inside the car was good fluff for me to get Pat heart of the apex. Dave, my spotter at the back, was on the three-wide and he said -- inaudible -- Tony, 3-wide and clear, and that was it. Today I think this style of driving, the back markers, when Adrian and I were racing for the lead at the end, I came on on Matsuura and worried what he was going to do. He got out of the gap and let Adrian and I get after it, so it was great sportsmanship, I thought.

DARIO FRANCHITTI: There's no doubt it was a difficult year. To qualify, I wasn't in pain, just the way of the fact that the spine was sitting. If I wanted to safely continue racing, I should probably get that seen to. But yeah, there's a lot that happened. I said earlier and I said it before, these guys stood by me, Honda and the guys at ATR and the whole team kept supporting me. So, it was payback for them and I guess two fingers up to all of those guys saying, "Oh, he's not coming back, this is wrong, that's wrong."

DARIO FRANCHITTI: You always hope so, but it's difficult. It's so, with the setup, it's so small between getting it right and getting it wrong. You never take anything for granted. We'll look forward to next week and I know the guys have been doing good work on the simulations and we've had good tests there. We'll just see what everybody else comes up with as all. We will be doing our best put it that way. Back-to-back would be nice. Especially the race at Nazareth, where I guess Mike's whole family racing career started. It would be nice to give the boss a hometown win.

MICHAEL ANDRETTI: It isn't easy, I tell you that. I watch them all. It's still difficult sometimes. At times you start focusing on one and then you wonder and look back, well, how did that one get back there. But it's fun. Plus, sometimes it's a little bit of a challenge.

DARIO FRANCHITTI: I didn't have any problem. Last year I definitely had some issues with the strength because I had not trained for ten weeks because of the back problems. This year was really not physical at all.

DARIO FRANCHITTI: I don't know. I have to talk to Carl about that, but we out this morning and scuffed them as we were asked to. They wanted us to scuff them and we went out, as I said and came back in -- inaudible -- I'm not sure.

DARIO FRANCHITTI: Hmmm. I think what we should do -- we should find a desert island, deserted little spot with a palm tree and leave him there. Perfect. (Laughter). Without his cell phone. If he can't talk to Tony, he's going to be in all sort of trouble.

DARIO FRANCHITTI: She was yesterday. She went away. She went on a yoga retreat for a week. It starts today I guess.