Pato O’Ward was left looking for solutions after qualifying tenth for Sunday’s XPEL Grand Prix at Highway America.
The 27-year-old Mexican, who presently sits fifth within the IndyCar Sequence championship standings, clocked a flying lap of 1m,44.4003s across the 4.014-mile, 14-turn pure terrain street course. It was a major drop from his pace-setting time of 1m44.0029s in second apply on Saturday morning, the place he was the one driver to exit an try a run on a set of softer alternate tires.
When interviewed by FOX Sports activities, O’Ward admitted the technique to run alternates in apply helped them dial within the steadiness of his #5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet early on, however that knowledge seemingly went out the window when the qualifying started.
Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren
Picture by: Geoff Miller / Lumen by way of Getty Photos
“It helped me simply get a greater steadiness on the place the automotive was debating on whether or not we perhaps ought to have gone black [harder primary compound] there,” O’Ward stated.
“It is simply… the tires have been so wonky from one set to a different, just like the automotive has reworked utterly from utilizing two units of softs, however even a number of (drivers) like (Alex) Palou misplaced six tenths from Q1 to Q2. I misplaced three tenths, three and a half tenths. It is very unusual, very, very unusual. We knew this gentle tire was already working fairly bizarre in comparison with the place the prime was.
“Yeah, I usually thought we had just a little bit extra to provide there to battle no less than. However I used to be simply skating on the market. Simply the automotive was sliding round so much. And I do not actually suppose that the observe has modified a lot to be able to have that, these points as exponential as they had been. So it seems to be like we’re not the one one. Even (Will) Energy, I feel, misplaced six tenths from Q1 to Q2 on the identical set of recent tires. So I do not know.”
Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren
Picture by: Penske Leisure
With a 55-lap race forward, there’s nonetheless loads of optimism for O’Ward, who has two podium finishes in his earlier eight begins on the observe primarily based in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
“At this level, all we are able to do is basically simply attempt to maximize what we predict we want for the race,” O’Ward stated. “And, you understand, to this point it has been a really clean weekend. However, yeah, I simply say each time that you simply put a brand new set of softs on, it seems like a coin toss of what you get from the automotive. So we simply must put our heads down for tomorrow and battle our means ahead as greatest we are able to.”
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