Firestone 550 – Texas Motor Speedway
IZOD IndyCar Series
RACE NOTES/QUOTES — June 8, 2013
JAKES RAN IN THE TOP-FIVE OF THE FIRESTONE 550 AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY AND FINISHED 12TH; RAHAL FINISHED 21ST
GRAHAM RAHAL, No. 15 Midas / Big O Tires Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “I never really had a grip on the car. I really, really struggled with the rear of the car on entries and exits and couldn’t get a handle on the understeer mid corner. I’m obviously baffled now with the performance. There are a lot of tracks we’ve gone to that I can compete at and right now I can’t which is frustrating. For the amount of effort that we are putting in, there is no reason this should be the case. We will regroup but the problem is the lack of time between races.”
JAMES JAKES, No. 16 Acorn Stairlifts Dallara/Honda/Firestone: “We had a great car, it’s been pretty good all weekend and we made some great changes. We were definitely one of the top five quickest cars so its just a shame we didn’t finish there. We’ll bounce back next week. You win and lose as a team and we’ll just make sure we put it right next weekend.”
NEXT UP: The Milwaukee Mile will be the site of the fifth consecutive weekend of action for the IZOD IndyCar Series. Qualifying for the Milwaukee IndyFest will take place on Friday, June 14 and the 250-lap race will take the Green Flag at 3:40 p.m. CT Saturday, June 15 and be televised live on NBC Sports Network beginning at 4:30 p.m. ET. Graham Rahal’s best start is second in 2008 and 2009 and his best finish is second in 2011. James Jakes’ best start is 20th in 2012 and best finish is 15th in 2011. The team won three poles with Bobby Rahal (1992), Kenny Brack (2001) and Vitor Meira (2004) and two races with Brack (2001) and Michel Jourdain Jr. (2003). Timing and Scoring information is available for all sessions from www.indycar.com.
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