American Racing News Vol 1, Issue 2 Issue 6 | Page 11

By Phillip B. Wilson | Photos from IndyCar.com

“A 10th (at the Honda Indy Toronto
last month) felt like a podium. It’s
frustrating. You drive almost a perfect race and it’s 10th. That’s just
where we’re at right now. We
don’t have cars that can go out and
win every race like Penske can.
“But you know what? There’s going
to be a year in my career when
we’re going to have that. Learning
to fight, this is really toughening
me up.”
He said the shock problem has prevented the car from turning downforce from the Honda aero kit into
grip.
“It’s not translating to the tire, so
we’re not using the tires (to their

maximum),” Andretti said. “You
would think if you just put an aero
kit on a race car, it’s just going to
be better. It actually made our setups worse. It made (fellow Honda
driver Graham) Rahal’s setups better. it’s just one of those things we
need to adapt to and we haven’t
done a great job because we’re
trying to find the most grip instead
of stabilizing the platform.”

cars on different strategies would
need to pit. But then the front tires
were installed on the wrong side in
the final pit stop, which adversely
affected the car’s handling.

Much like his father and grandfather, Andretti puts a lot of stock in
the Indy 500. It’s always the most
important race. In May’s 100th
running of “The Greatest Spectacle
in Racing,” he was running 12th but
confident he could make up
ground in the final 35 laps as other

Two months later, he still wonders
what might have been.

“Fun day until the front tires were
put on the wrong side,” Andretti
tweeted. “Really bummed, the car
was good. Unfortunate mistake
but my guys are the best.”

“I think one of the biggest ones
that hurt was Indianapolis,” he
said. “I think we had a top-three
finish going there, which in the
championship was going to be a
huge difference from where we are