Arrow McLaren Bommarito Automotive Group 500: Friday Report

Hundreds of laps turned today on the oval outside of St. Louis, Mo.

The schedule was brutally packed for Friday's on-track activity at World Wide Technology Raceway, including two practice sessions and qualifying.

The Arrow McLaren IndyCar Team struggled to find the raw pace in qualifying, positioning themselves 11th with Pato O'Ward, 15th with Alexander Rossi, and Nolan Siegel in 20th.

Final Practice was a strong session for the team ahead of Saturday's race on the 1.25-mile oval. Pato ended the session quickest, Alexander in sixth and Nolan in eighth.

Following a busy day at the track, read what's on the minds of Pato, Alexander, Nolan and Team Principal Gavin Ward before tomorrow's 260-lap event.

"I think tomorrow will be a different show just like it is every single year. I'm super happy with where we put our race car in the final practice. I think we're in decent shape to be in the fight tomorrow."

"Today was the Outback Steakhouse of qualifying and practice. You're not going to get food poisoning because it's so horrible, but you don't really want to go back. I think we were pretty average all the way until Practice 2. It was one of the bigger misses we've had in qualifying in terms of not really understanding what we need to make the car go quick. I think in Practice 2 we made several steps in the right direction. I think as three cars we made steps in the right direction. The caveat to that is it was dark, so the race will end similar to this, but certainly in the beginning it will be more like how the rest of today was. We'll need to understand very clearly how the ambient conditions for the majority of the race tomorrow are going to affect the car that we're happy with now."

"Overall, I think it was a positive day. The car has very good race pace, and I think we're going to be able to follow close and pass some people tomorrow, which is good. It was a disappointing Qualifying, obviously, but I think we can make up for it and I'm very happy with where we ended in Practice 2. There are a lot of positives to take away, and we'll make it count tomorrow when it actually matters."

Gavin Ward, Team Principal, Arrow McLaren, said:

"Every day gives us an opportunity to learn and today was an interesting one. The pace wasn't quite there in qualifying trim, but in final practice we were back in the mix. Overtaking wasn’t easy but probably not as difficult as many feared. Let’s hope that’s the case tomorrow as we have fast cars and some ground to make up!"

Session Times