By: Ashley McCubbin

Sometimes when you stick a microphone in front of a driver’s face – especially when they’re mad, you have no clue what they may say and a couple of times you’ll hear something that surprises you or gives you a bit of a perspective.

Throughout the NTT IndyCar Series season, there were quite a few of these moments. So it seems only fitting we take a glance back through the year at what was said.

“After Indy, the month of May took — I’m 70 years old, and the month of May took a real toll on me. I wasn’t sleeping well at night. We’re here to win. We’re not here to fricking play around or to be part of it. We’re here to win.” – Bobby Rahal

“So when I was looking at graduating from Indy NXT to IndyCar, Larry Foyt, the owner here – you could really tell they were trying to improve the program for the future. It’s an opportunity to be a part of something that is going to grow for the long term and really be a part of something special to help grow. That is what has made it very appealing to join this team looking back in time. You can really see now with the announcements of Michael Cannon, whose are new technical director, chief engineer who was with (Scott) Dixon the past few years. That’s really exciting to have people of his caliber on-board. Then also, there’s so many other personnel changes within the team that is really exciting. Yeah, just super excited. It’s really special to be a part of something where you’re thinking of the long run and everyone is trying to get better and ultimately, just really excited to get on-track.” – Benjamin Pedersen

“To be honest, our race pace hasn’t been the best that it possibly could. Our qualifying pace has been phenomenal every time. But when it comes to the races, we’re missing it a bit. So I feel that’s something that we need to nail down. I feel we’ve got it nailed down on the street courses for some reason, but you’d almost expect it to be more at these places with the low grip but fortunately we’re good. So it’s something we need to figure out.” – Kyle Kirkwood in Toronto in July

“Honestly, every win in the INDYCAR SERIES is a favorite. This is the most-competitive formula in the world, a real drivers championship. But we had some big wins for sure. The team’s first win at Long Beach in several years, which was my first win there ever. That was great. And then, winning the 600th race for Team Penske at Texas. I mean, that is an astounding number when you think about it. Also, the win at Road America and the $1 million prize from PeopleReady will do a lot of good for Serious Fun, and Wags and Walks of Nashville.” – Josef Newgarden