Returning to the streets of Detroit after a tricky Friday, David Malukas found himself in much better spirits after Saturday afternoon’s Detroit GP qualifying.
Qualifying in IndyCar can always be tricky, certainly on streets track like Detroit where the cars are close and the walls closer. David Malukas found himself in high spirits after locking out a front row start in the Motor City.
Speaking in the post-qualifying press conference, David Malukas and answered questions about Chevrolet’s performance at their home grand prix.
“Chevy’s done an incredible job this year on the drivability side of things and the tools.”
“I think we found a really good mix on what I like, and really show the true power of Chevy today.”
A big change from sessions before
When asked by Chaos in the Paddock and Fastest Formula News about his statements about the tracks surface from Friday, Malukas gave an honest assessment.
“I could see today, it was really good. No dust going through my eyes”
“Honestly, the thing that really caught us off guard was from practice two to qualifying. I mean, just from this morning, it was crazy how much faster the the times came in. I mean, we were group two to start and seeing the group one times that we were astonished by how much quicker everybody was”
“I really needed to start pushing these corners because the lap times were there”
A bumpy, congested ride
Detroit is known for its bumpy and rather uneven track surface, Malukas talked about the quality of car and what the secret to his success in the session was.
“No secrets, it’s just the AJ Foyt car is very good car going over those bumps.”
“I’m seeing another cars flying off of them, our car takes them like a champ. So I just a very good car underneath me, and I just drove to the absolute limit of the car.”
Malukas answered questions by the media about the issues of traffic in the session. Traffic had caused quite the headache for the drivers in previous sessions, given the close quarters nature of the track.
“Hopefully it won’t be as much of an issue. But yeah, I mean, it’s going to be through that whole infield section, going from four all the way through through turn eight”
“Obviously, with the progress of this year that has been, the yellows have been a lot less. So we’ll see if that continues.”
New team, new driver
To close out his time in the press conference, Malukas was asked by the media about how he feels he’s settling into the new setting at AJ Foyt.
“I was waiting for the month of May to kick off, because you’re with the guys every single day, and can really build on something.”
“But it doesn’t go away from all the work that we’ve been doing in the beginning of the season, we’re able to hone down, have a lot of time to look through it and and really put things forward and start kind of getting a connection with everybody”
“I think all that hard work that we’ve put in is finally showing”
David Malukas comes into Sunday off of a season high P2 at the Indy 500, and a front row start alongside Andretti Global’s Colton Herta.
