{"id":23805,"date":"2019-02-12T23:59:50","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T05:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=23805"},"modified":"2019-02-25T21:44:08","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T03:44:08","slug":"team-penske-drivers-give-circuit-of-the-americas-high-marks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/12\/team-penske-drivers-give-circuit-of-the-americas-high-marks\/","title":{"rendered":"Team Penske drivers give Circuit of the Americas high marks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Will Power sails through Turns 16-17 during the Open Test at Circuit of The Americas — Photo by: Joe Skibinski<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas – If Team Penske<\/strong> drivers were giving out grades the Circuit of the Americas<\/a> would definitely get an A.<\/p>\n

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Helio Castroneves on course during the Open Test at Circuit of The Americas — Photo by: Joe Skibinski<\/p><\/div>\n

On Tuesday Helio Castroneves<\/strong><\/a>, Josef Newgarden<\/strong><\/a>, Simon Pagenaud<\/strong><\/a> and Will Power<\/strong><\/a> held their first-ever open test session on the 3.4 mile track. They joined some 21 other drivers in the NTT IndyCar Series to prepare for the inaugural visit at COTA for the INDYCAR classic on March 24.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great,\u201d Castroneves said. \u201cI have to be honest, a bit of a quick reaction first time out there, especially in the place I have no idea. The first time I’m driving. Kind of like it was very rush.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut towards the end of the day, it was a little bit better. Still getting the timing right. Great to be back in the NTT IndyCar Series. Great to feel the horsepower, the quickness of the car, as well. It’s just like you feel the wind on the visor because normally you have the windshield, a year running with the sports car. Quite a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Will Power navigates the Esses complex during the Open Test at Circuit of The Americas — Photo by: Joe Skibinski<\/p><\/div>\n

After two test sessions, Power and Castroneves were the fastest of the Penske quartet, finishing 2-3.<\/p>\n

Power, who is the reigning Indianapolis 500 winner, ran a lap of 1:47.1044 (114.617 mph) in the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet. Castroneves, who will try for a record-tying fourth Indy 500 title in May, was clocked at 1:47.6949 (113.989 mph) in the No. 3 Pennzoil Chevrolet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe worked on a lot of setups,\u201d Power said.  \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to get a good balance. I really enjoy the track. It\u2019s really technical and a lot of fun. We\u2019re going to think about it overnight and see what we can do. We were trying to get it into a good window where you can make small adjustments on the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Power added, we took some big swings at it today, trying to understand when the tire comes in and how long it lasts and what package we want to run. We wound up with a lot of big changes. I think the track is phenomenal. It\u2019s got every sort of corner you can dream of. I think all the drivers are going to love to keep coming here.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Simon Pagenaud races through the Esses complex during the Open Test at Circuit of The Americas — Photo by: Chris Owens<\/p><\/div>\n

Pagenaud was Team Penske\u2019s third fastest driver in his No. 22 Chevrolet after he was clocked at 1:48.0582, 113.605 mph.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been, so far, a fun day at the track,\u201d Pagenaud said.  \u201cYou have to work hard here with 20 corners. If you can find a tenth (of a second) in 20 corners, that is huge. That is going to be the name of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Penske teammate Newgarden was 13th fastest overall after recording a time of 1:48.4210, 113.225 mph.<\/p>\n

 \u201cIt\u2019s really interesting to try and get a hold of this place in the No. 2 Hitachi Chevy. It\u2019s very different than where we\u2019ve been. It\u2019s a long track, kind of like Road America. It\u2019s very smooth. The facility is really beautiful. It\u2019s kind of like running at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, to be honest with you, because the facility is so immaculate.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Josef Newgarden waits along pit lane during the Open Test at Circuit of The Americas — Photo by: Joe Skibinski<\/p><\/div>\n

Newgarden added, \u201cBut it\u2019s been tough. I think we need to find our footing a bit better. Our teammates were pretty quick at the end. We lost some ground compared to the morning. We weren\u2019t as quick in the afternoon, but that\u2019s testing. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. We got to try things and figure out what\u2019s good and what\u2019s not. This is a racetrack for us. We test sometimes at places we don\u2019t race at, but here, we\u2019re working on race setups and we\u2019re trying to see what works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Team Penske had a very successful season in 2018. The team collectively produced six wins, eight pole positions, 18 top-five and 39 top-10 finishes.  The highlight of 2018 was when Power won the Indianapolis 500.<\/p>\n

The 17-race NTT IndyCar Series season kicks off March 10 at St. Petersburg, Florida.  The race at COTA marks the first of two races in Texas.  The NTT IndyCar Series Will also compete at Texas Motor Speedway on June 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  AUSTIN, Texas – If Team Penske drivers were giving out grades the Circuit of the Americas would definitely get an A. On Tuesday Helio Castroneves, Josef Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud and Will Power held their first-ever open test session on the 3.4 mile track. They joined some 21 other drivers in the NTT IndyCar Series […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23571,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[38,12],"tags":[39,152,286,672,126,96],"class_list":["post-23805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-circuit-of-the-americas","category-indycar","tag-circuit-of-the-americas","tag-helio-castroneves","tag-josef-newgarden","tag-ntt-indycar-series","tag-simon-pagenaud","tag-will-power"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/JGS_2019-SPRING-TRAINING-010368-1.jpg?fit=4100%2C2733","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6bX","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23805"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23811,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23805\/revisions\/23811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}