MAGNUSSEN: Indianapolis Debrief

Our winning streak at Corvette Racing may have come to an end but we still ended up with a strong points haul in Indianapolis at the Brickyard Grand Prix.

Up until the recent Balance of Performance changes we were able to fight for pole position but that was not the case at Indy. We had 25 kilos added and that doesn’t help you in any way – we got shuffled down the order a little bit.

We have had good success this year but it’s important to mention that out of the four races in a row that we’ve won – we were not the fastest car.

I think we were the sixth or seventh fastest in Laguna Seca. We’ve managed to do well in qualifying and get up front and be able to control the race, we had good pit stops and forced everybody else to react off of what we were doing.

That sure paid off, but when you’re qualifying from the middle of the pack to the rear, it’s a lot harder and that seems to be the new reality for us.

The Championship is far from over and we’re going to have to push hard and get as many points as we can.

We’re 13 ahead now and I know that second place got a little closer after Indy. Third place is now actually a little further away. It is still pretty close between us and the No. 93 Viper and the way they have been performing lately they are going to be tough.

They somehow stayed clear from any BoP changes, and that means that they are going to be incredibly strong at Road America and onwards from there.

Our race at Indy certainly wasn’t helped by getting tagged and spun by a GT Daytona car. There was no real mechanical damage. The exhaust broke, but it didn’t really affect me during my stint.

When Antonio got in the car, the exhaust completely split open on one side so he had exhaust fumes in the car, which was not helping him at all. It got really, really bad at one point and he was suffering quite a lot from that. But in terms of handling, the car had no real ill effects.

The next race for me is this weekend in downtown Copenhagen at home in Denmark. It’s the Copenhagen Historic Grand Prix where I’ll be racing a 1965 911.

It’s a pro-am race, it’s always really, really good fun. I’ll be racing against Tom Kristensen and people like that. Marco Werner will be there this year as well as Lucas DiGrassi.

I’m racing with the owner of the historic car. It’s good fun. I won it last year and we’ll try and do that again.

Racing in downtown Copenhagen is pretty fantastic. There are usually lots of people and it’s a great atmosphere.

There’s a race on Saturday and another full race on Sunday and then in the breaks all the pro guys are doing rides for people who donate money for the local children’s hospital.

Last week was the final F1 race before their summer break and it was a tough one for Kevin. He had a big crash in qualifying that was very, very unfortunate.

It’s a pretty difficult situation when you go from a dry circuit onto a wet part of the track, with no flags, no nothing. It’s just one of those things. He always pushes hard and sometimes these things happen.

That’s how it is. There were no ill feelings from the team or anything it was just bad luck, bad timing.

His pace has been really strong and I know he is going to be really looking forward to getting back in the car at Spa after the break.