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 Collection 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.
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When interviewed by FOX Sports activities, O’Ward admitted the technique to run alternates in apply helped them dial within the stability of his #5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet early on, however that information seemingly went out the window when the qualifying started.
Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren
Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren
“It helped me simply get a greater stability on the place the automotive was debating on whether or not we perhaps ought to have gone black [harder primary compound] there,” O’Ward mentioned.
“It is simply… the tires have been so wonky from one set to a different, just like the automotive has reworked fully 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’s extremely unusual, very, very unusual. We knew this smooth tire was already working fairly bizarre in comparison with the place the prime was.
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“Yeah, I typically 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 with the intention 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 contemporary tires. So I do not know.”
Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren
Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren
With a 55-lap race forward, there may be nonetheless loads of optimism for O’Ward, who has two podium finishes in his earlier eight begins on the observe based mostly in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
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“At this level, all we will do is admittedly simply attempt to maximize what we predict we’d like for the race,” O’Ward mentioned. “And, you recognize, up to now 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 looks like a coin toss of what you get from the automotive. So we simply have to put our heads down for tomorrow and battle our method ahead as greatest we will.”
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