Q: The other aspect of the new format that has not really been addressed is the importance of the points. How do you feel about the vast amount of points being issued for the top qualifying positions? “I didn't know this. What is this situation?”
Q: Pole is 15 points. Front row is 13 and 12, and it goes progressively back from there.
“Interesting (laughs). Well, I might be making more than one run then. All of a sudden now if you're eighth or ninth, there's a reason to go back out again. I mean, that's kind of one of the other things I was thinking is that if you're eighth or seventh or something, you're inside of the third row, that's not too bad. Is it really worth risking going out there and either going slower or doing something even worse? Not really. I mean, is it? I don't know, unless you think you can get the front row for sure.
“Yeah, there will be more reason to. So I guess it's good they put some infrastructure in to make that happen. But, to be honest, I would think that those would have made more sense previously when we had an entire week to warm up for this, but now it's like a little here, a little there. It's not really dedicated, it's not dedicated on any level to qualifying. It's both qualifying and race. So it would have made more sense in the past when we had an entire week to do this. It was almost like qualifying was a race, you know. Now it's a little diluted.”
Q: As you learn more and more each time you race and you get older and wiser, how much easier is it to get over when someone takes you out in a crash? Is there such a thing as people holding grudges still, because I know some drivers have long memories. But do you get past that?
“Depends on how dumb it was. I mean, if it was a completely bonehead move, then you're going to be mad. If it was a racing accident where it was, ‘Oh, well, I did a little of this; they did a little of that,' then what are you going to do? It was just something that happened, and you took a risk, probably. So, you know, I would have to say that you still get just as mad no matter what, no matter what point in your career you're at.”
Q: You said that you haven't really had a chance to talk to the other four female drivers. Do you think that in some ways they may be a little intimidated of coming up and asking you for advice?
“I guess it wouldn't be normal necessarily for any driver to go to another driver who's not in the team and ask for advice. So that's probably the situation. I'm sure that all these drivers, guys and girls, they all have people within their team to whom they can ask their questions. So that's probably the biggest reason, really. I would have to say it's really just because if you're not on the same team, it's not convenient or normal.”