THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon and welcome, everyone. Wrapping up today's INDY NXT by Firestone Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix here with Dennis Hauger, our champion. Caio Collet and Juan Manuel Correa will join us here, as well.
Dennis Hauger led all 45 laps today in the 28 Rental Group car for Andretti Global. His fourth win this season, which extends also his championship lead to 38 points over his teammate in Lochie Hughes.
Caio Collet also joins us, driver of the No. 76 HMD Motorsports machine, second runner-up finish of the season, third podium of the year, ninth career in second here on the streets of Detroit. He moves up to third in the INDY NXT by Firestone Championship.
And Juan Manuel Correa, driver of the No. 39 HMD machine, first podium of the season, just his third INDY NXT by Firestone start.
Dennis, we'll start with you. You have to go back and watch that race. There was a lot happening behind you the whole time. Tell us about your day.
DENNIS HAUGER: Yeah, I saw some of it in the mirrors. It looked a bit messy the first half of the race. But it was a clean race. I think that was the key around there, just keep it clean, and once I got a gap, it was just about managing and trying to keep the sort of overtakes, getting through the lap cars, as well, clean.
No, a good day, a good week, and overall P1 in every session. Yeah, big thanks to Andretti for the hard work, and looking forward to the first oval in a few weeks.
Q. Tell us about that restart, one lap, green and go. Any anxiety going into that?
DENNIS HAUGER: No, I kept it cool, to be honest. It was just about trying to keep the tires alive. I think everyone was driving with cold tires on the last lap there, and I think we did a good job. No, it was pretty smooth. Just the first braking was a bit sketchy into Turn 1, and after that it was fine.
We had a good car all weekend, so it felt like a good one.
THE MODERATOR: Caio, another podium here on the streets of Detroit, as well. A lot of battling going on up front. How did you manage to stay out of that? Here you are finishing on another podium.
CAIO COLLET: Yeah, I think today was just about survival. I could see the guys in front getting really sketchy and I was just backing off a little bit, giving some space and seeing if anything happened, and it did. I kept it clean, safe race, and obviously finished second.
It was a good week in general. I think for sure we are struggling a little bit, but for the team it was very nice to have a double podium and also finish second, third and fourth. I think it was a chaotic race anyway, but it's good for the team, and hopefully it gives us some momentum into the rest of the season.
Q. Juan Manuel Correa with his first career podium in INDY NXT by Firestone. You had to be patient, and here you are with your first podium. Tell us about your day a little bit.
JUAN MANUEL CORREA: Yeah, thank you. Like they said, I saw a bunch of replays before this weekend to prepare, and I saw that it was going to be chaos, so I just kept it clean. The start was messy. I got lucky to miss the big crash.
From then on, I was pretty confident about our pace based on free practice. Qually didn't really go my way, so I knew I had a bit more than what I should in qually, and I just controlled the race.
I was behind Caio, put a bit of pressure in the beginning and then I decided to save my Push-to-Pass for the end. I was expecting more restarts towards the end of the race which didn't happen, and then right at the moment when I was going to start attacking Caio, the lap traffic came into play, which is not something I'm used to in Europe.
It took me a bit too long to get by and they were in their own fight, so it was pretty sketchy to be up there.
Then the restart, I thought I was going to try to have a lunge at Caio, but as he said, the tires were so dead that it would have been too risky, so I took my medicine and P3 and I'm happy with that.
We came through, and we have a lot of work to do as a team. That's part of the reason why I'm here. I'm happy to be up to speed now, and hopefully I can push Caio and the team to keep going forwards and hopefully catch this 9 next to us because he's pretty quick for sure.
Q. I was talking to Mike; you had a chance meeting in Barber, and here you are. What brought you to Barber that day, and did you expect to be on a podium at an INDY NXT race literally 25 days later?
JUAN MANUEL CORREA: Yeah, definitely not. So I'm coaching a driver in USF Juniors. So I've done the transition in the last year from the Europe to the U.S., and this year has been kind of finding my ground here and seeing what opportunities there are for my career. I've been doing a bit of coaching on the side because I love being at the racetrack and it's fun for me.
As I said, I was literally going bathroom on my scooter, I crossed Mike, and Mike and I go back a long way, karting days here in the U.S., and he's like, hey, what are you doing here. I was like, not much. He's like, you want to drive INDY NXT? I was like, yeah, let's do it. It was within 24 hours that we had signed a contract, I did my medicals and I was on my way to Indy for the GP.
Pretty random coincidence, but I'm so happy to be here. I'm enjoying every second of it. I love driving whatever car it is, and this is a great series, and it's fun, and I'm very lucky to have this.
Q. Is this NTT INDYCAR Series path in the future that you want to strive for?
JUAN MANUEL CORREA: Definitely, yeah. I've been following INDYCAR for as long as I've been following F1, to be honest. I just took the European route because certain things in my career kind of drove me that way. But now that I'm here, yeah, that's the ultimate goal. It's an amazing series, and this is the place to be if we want to go.
Q. After the chaos at the start when the race was red flagged, was it difficult to stay focused at the restart? Then the second question, I think it was de Alba and Hughes who had to do pit stop for replacement of the front nose when it was touching the ground. Were you afraid something happened also to your car, that you could have a pit stop as a replacement of the nose cone?
DENNIS HAUGER: The first one with the restart, yeah, it was always sketchy after the red flag and then cold tires again, have to heat them up and they don't really get there until a certain amount of laps actually. So that was definitely difficult to just stay calm and try and get a good launch on the first few corners before the back straight. But we did the job every time.
I saw Lochie and Salvador fight behind, and honestly, it's a shame, we could have been 1, 2, 3 as a team today. But that's the sport sometimes.
But I didn't have any contact at the moment with them, but I knew I was clean, and I just tried to stay that way throughout the race. But real shame for both Lochie and Salvador. I think we had some good cars today to be up there all of us. Yeah, that's how it is sometimes.
Q. Caio, you reduced the gap to Dennis to 1.04 --
CAIO COLLET: The gap on the race --
Q. The gap in the finish to Dennis, 1.04 seconds. Do you think maybe with a couple more laps maybe there was a possibility to catch him?
CAIO COLLET: No, not really, I think I was just a second behind because of the safety car. I couldn't even see him when we were green. So I think mainly because of the traffic, as well, and also because of the fighting with Lochie and Salvador, we lost a lot of time, and once I had a clear track, like I couldn't see him. My engineer was just updating me on the pace and that's it, but I think we had pretty good pace, but he was a long way up the road. No, that's it.
Q. Dennis, obviously you've driven nice smooth street circuits over in F2. How did the bumpy streets of Detroit compare to that, and what was the challenge like, and did you enjoy it?
DENNIS HAUGER: Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot, to be honest. It's completely different compared to what I've done before. But it was awesome from the first out there you really have to be on the limit and a bit over the limit to find the time around there. Yeah, I've enjoyed it. I think all of us can relate to we haven't done much of this over in Europe, but I think it was an awesome experience and a unique place. Yeah, I had a lot of fun this weekend.
Q. For JM, this is obviously your second weekend in INDY NXT. How have you found the adaptation, whether that is the difference in the car or the difference in the style of track as Dennis just mentioned?
JUAN MANUEL CORREA: You know, it hasn't been that difficult. Everything is different, but at the same time, to drive a race car fast, there's only one way to do it. I've applied obviously a lot of the experience I have from the previous categories I'm coming from, even to this track. It's nothing like we have over there in terms of bumpiness, but still, a lot of the ways you go fast on the street circuit, the same, for example, in Monaco, it has some elements of Baku in it. I've just sort of been finding the right window with the car and that's the main limitation for me right now. It's not a matter of confidence, it's just this is a car that likes to be in a different window to be fast compared to the F2 or the F3, and unfortunately I haven't had any testing time to really explore that yet.
Right now I'm kind of going based off of what Caio likes to drive and trying to adapt to that. Hopefully with a little bit more time I can start building something that suits me a little bit better, but at the moment I feel pretty good with the car, and I think we'll be competitive for the rest of the year, and we're looking forward to that.
Q. You said you wanted to try and transition back over to the U.S. Why is it you decided you wanted to pursue INDY NXT and the INDYCAR ladder? What is the appeal of it, I guess, for you?
JUAN MANUEL CORREA: INDY NXT or INDYCAR as the ultimate goal?
Q. I guess just the ladder as a whole, so INDY NXT first off but then just the U.S. ladder to INDYCAR as a whole.
JUAN MANUEL CORREA: INDYCAR is an amazing category. I think there are top-level categories all over the world. You have F1, you have WEC, you have IMSA, INDYCAR, maybe Formula E, so it's just one of those. In my opinion, the racing in INDYCAR is possibly the best one. It's a spec series, extremely high level. The teams have good budgets, good engineering. The tracks are awesome. You have a bit of everything. There's an element of ovals which I still haven't explored. It's always appealed to me in a way.
INDY NXT was not my plan, as we said before. 28 days ago I was not going to be here. I was going to be coaching throughout the season and trying to find a drive next year somewhere. The opportunity just came, and I took it, and I'm glad I did.
Q. Dennis, you were well on your way to the victory before the last caution came out. What were the initial emotions that you were feeling when that yellow came out, and how did you refocus yourself ahead on the restart?
DENNIS HAUGER: I think I just said on the radio, I said, just, oh, man, because yeah, we had a comfortable gap, no real stress, and on four laps to go you know it's going to have cool temperatures in the tires and the restart and it's always bit sketchy. Yeah, there was a bit of a -- just messy one on the last one.
No, it was fine. Didn't overreact or anything. That's how it is, and we knew it was going to be like that around here with some restarts. Usually at least. No, that's how it is, and we had to do the job.
Q. Caio, you were second in both practice sessions this weekend, second in the race. How do you ultimately assess your weekend?
CAIO COLLET: Yeah, it's tough, I think, for sure. You want to be first, and we are all here to win. But obviously I think right now we just need to keep working hard and reduce the gap and really fight because so far this season he's been a step ahead, I think him and Andretti. So we just need to keep our heads down, keep working hard, and hopefully next race, next couple of months, we can fight and maybe bring the championship fight, as well.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports