PODIUM FINISHERS INTERVIEWS, KINDLY REPRODUCED BY THE GRC

Mertz earns victory
As Josh Mertz clambered out of the car, celebrated in parc ferme and on the podium, you could tell in his eyes he earned it. "Fantastic race. I was able to get a good start but not too good as I lost the lead, obviously. But later on I was able to recover and set good lap times to get into the lead. With the Safety Car intervention I caught onto the back of Fidel and was able to trail him, we had quite the close call there near the end, no hard feeling though as we had quite the battle throughout the race. Just all in all a fantastic car and a fantastic race."

Fidel Fogelson happy with second:
"Ah, good race. It's just a test but still a good learning expiereience. This was our first outing in this new car, not just me or the team but the entire grid that took part in this. I'd like to thank Red Bull for giving me this opportunity to own a team in this great, new series. Red Bull almost swept the podium but Ron [Mertz] overran his tires and the fall off was tremendous. On the contact with Josh, as I came off the curb I did not see him and as I tried to get onto the racing line we made contact. As he said, no harm done as we were just having a nice hard battle."

Schacher sneaks into third:
"What a day. From the back to the front all in 12 laps! My engineer told me there was about 80 overtakes on track. 80 overtakes between 14 cars in 12 laps? Something tells me that this car and track will be great for the actual race in March. As for our race, it was pretty spectacular. I was able to salvage finishing third after falling back. What a battle there in the middle portion of the race as Ron, Josh, Fidel and I were all bunched up together. I was worried one of us would make a mistake and end up in the barrier or sand trap. All in all, great performance for the team, and I hope to have good runs like this in the season."