IndyCar's championship contenders ready their thoughts, minds for Sonoma finale - MotorSportsTalk

SONOMA, Calif. – Selected quotes follow from the six drivers eligible for championship contention at this weekend’s Verizon IndyCar Series season finale at Sonoma Raceway:

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ON TITLE HOPES

Juan Pablo Montoya: “I’m pretty excited. I’m pretty excited. I think we got everything we need to be doing to put ourselves in this position. Sunday, whatever is going to happen is going to happen with double points.”

Graham Rahal: “Well, I think we got to win. That’s the best-case scenario. We finish third, fourth, fifth, it becomes obviously a bit more difficult. You’re banking on Juan finishing 12th or worse. I don’t think that’s likely.”

Scott Dixon: “As far as the championship goes, I wouldn’t call it exactly wide open, but we need a few things to work in our favor. It’s been a bit of an odd year. We’ve had fast cars, but probably not the results that we wanted, especially early on with the first three or four races.”

Will Power: “Yeah, it hasn’t been a very smooth year, I would say, considering we’ve been quite fast, very good in qualifying. From my perspective, really basically I have to win. I need to get the bonus points. These other guys have to have a really bad day.”

Helio Castroneves: “In the end of the day, it’s another great season. But really looking forward to have one win at least. Probably I’m the only one in this group that didn’t get a win. Really want to finish this season in a good way.”

Josef Newgarden: “Well, I said it earlier in the week. We basically have to win the race. Juan has to break first. Then if Graham would break, that would be great. Then Scott can break down, Will, Helio, then we might win. It would be the craziest story in the history of racing, but it’s possible. Like Helio said, if there’s a chance, you got to go for it.”

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ON QUALIFYING WELL

Montoya: “You know, I mean, with the cautions and the way the race normally plays out, we had a penalty last year in qualifying, started 19th, and finished third, so…”

Power: “I feel this year you’d be better to qualify in the back, knock your front wing off, then you have a really good chance of winning.”

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ON TIRE DEGRADATION

Rahal: “The way tire degradation is, particularly this year, I think the new tires seem to have a lot of outright pace initially and might fall off a bunch. With that being said, I mean, it pretty much opens things up.”

Dixon: “This weekend I think degradation is going to be the biggest thing. Whether it’s going to be there or not. I think two or three, maybe four years ago, the race here, we had high degradation on the red tires. They were very fast, but they fell off a little bit, which the race actually turned out phenomenal.”

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ON RETURNING TO ACTION A WEEK AFTER TRAGEDY AT POCONO

Newgarden: “It’s the tough part about the sport, it almost seems wrong, but it’s the right thing to do. You got to keep going. That’s what Justin would want. That’s how I would view it, too, if something would happen to me. I don’t want anyone to slow down. Keep doing your thing, enjoy it, love it.”

Castroneves: “People don’t realize for us, we’ve been doing this a long time. It’s our most comfortable position.”

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

IndyCar’s championship contenders ready their thoughts, minds for Sonoma finale

Hunter Lawrence defends Haiden Deegan after controversial block pass at Detroit

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