IndyCar Series: SunTrust Indy Challenge

Topics:  SunTrust Indy Challenge

Oriol Servia
June 28, 2008

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

THE MODERATOR: Our fifth-place finisher, Oriol Servia. Interesting night, what was your take?
ORIOL SERVIA: It was a really busy day. It's a difficult place and the car was great. Since we unloaded on Thursday, I told the guys, I said, "Listen, I think we have a Top-5 car."
So I'm really pleased I was able to prove it and finish fifth. We started at tenth and really worked our way up, and every spot we gained, we really gained it through working hard. I passed many cars on the restarts and we passed cars on pit stops, so I think we all did our job and I'm extremely pleased.
Everybody expected us to do well on street and road courses, but I wanted to show that the team is really capable of doing a good job on ovals, so we kind of showed it in Milwaukee and we showed it again today.

Q. (No mic.)
ORIOL SERVIA: Well, I don't know. I don't know what to say. We knew that the tires were really fast at the beginning and the pace would slow down for everybody. So it was a question to see who had the most consistent cars through the spin.
And Helio, obviously from where he was, he was extremely faster than anybody on his team but then he was quite slow, I think he was getting very loose later in the seam and then would he pass us early and then kind of slow down.
So it was all a question of how your car was through the seam, and unfortunately we didn't have a jacket through this race, so that handicapped how many things you can do on the car through the different fuel loads and tire life. But fortunately the car was very consistent and fast on the full spin.

Q. Was there an issue on restarts?
ORIOL SERVIA: It's just that we are all racers and once we know the pace, it's going, it's really hard to overtake anybody, until you get into traffic so restarts are your best bet. I made most of my moves on restarts on the outside and inside and everywhere, and everybody tries the same. On the restarts the tires are colder and when you take the biggest grips is when you have the hardest time on the lap time, so that's why it's very easy to lose it. That's why you're seeing all that action happening.

Q. How tough was it today to pass?
ORIOL SERVIA: My car was good on highs and lows, but tough on restarts or when the guy was ahead of me. When I was losing the downforce, I couldn't get my closer. And like now at the end when Danica was faster than me and I was catching lap cars, I just couldn't pass the lap cars, and then she had many chances to overtake me. Fortunately I was able to keep her behind, and she was difficult.