Q: Juan,did it help you that you have raced AJ Allmendinger in the past, you knew what to expect on some of these restarts, you knew him?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: I think we've both been doing NASCAR for a while, and you learn the give and take and you learn to share the racetrack – and that's something that here people don't do. You're beside them and they turn like you're not even there, and that's kind of shocking, but that's what it is.
Q: Juan, was it kind of frustrating in that last hour with the cautions and all the restarts, and did it almost remind you of a NASCAR race?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: I don't know, you keep your head cool, and you know what you need to do, and that's it. You want to – with the speed we had on the car, it felt like we didn't have to take any risk. We had to go through a decent restart and then go for it.
Q: Just how good a feeling is it when you know you're faster than the guy in front of you and you know as soon as you get your chance that it's just a matter of time as long as you don't mess it up?
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA: Well, that's one of the cool things about doing the 24 Hours with Chip [Ganassi] is every year you come here, you're a favorite, whether you win or not, you're always a favorite and you always have a chance of winning. Everybody that races for Chip that comes here finds that out. You know, it's fun, it's exciting, and it's – I feel bad for the guys in the 02, because they had a ton of speed and they could have easily won, too.
Q: Scott, it's been a little while since we saw you cross for the Le Mans 24 hours. The rumors are we might see Daytona Prototypes racing there in a couple years' time. Talk about having another class win.
SCOTT PRUETT: I think it would be tremendous. I think that's one of the frontiers that Chip hasn't yet conquered or really gotten himself involved in the middle of, but one that he would like to take on for sure; especially with the relationship we have with BMW it would be a natural to head on over there, and I certainly would like to go back.
Just like the Daytona 24-hour, the Le Mans 24 is interesting because they're really different, the races themselves, one is on a three-and-a-half mile track, one is on an eight-mile track, as you know, and the ebb and flow is different. With everything coming together like it is, and I know one of those things that Chip hasn't achieved yet is going over to Europe and racing at Le Mans, and I know he would jump at that chance, and I would, too.
Q: Memo and Scott, just how important or how big of a deal is it to open the year with a win and get the points and go into the rest of the season like that?
MEMO ROJAS: Well, it is obviously the best way you can start the year because first of all we are in the points lead, and second, it's great as far as motivation for everyone in the team. The crew works so hard at the shop first of all to prep for this race, and our season ends at the beginning of October, and immediately they start working on the 24 hours. The cars get stripped away, and it's so much so that everybody really kind of needs this kind of motivation, and we won the championship last year, and the expectations are high, so we set ourselves a high goal and we were going to try to win the 24 hours first, and hopefully we can go for another championship.
SCOTT PRUETT: It's great to have the momentum coming out of this race, but when we come into this race we focus on this race. I shouldn't say we don't look at the championship, because that's...
MEMO ROJAS: But you don't.
SCOTT PRUETT: We do. It's kind of in the back of your head. More than anything else it's to win this race and get out and get it done, and it's nice to get that momentum going this year as we head into Austin here in about four weeks.
Q: Scott, when you see the 02 go out permanently and know he's completely done at the end of the race, is it a little disconcerting to you? What are you thinking in the car when you know you have the most dominant racecar out on the track?
SCOTT PRUETT: Well, from the standpoint of teammate, you always want to have your teammate out there with you. Things can happen, and it's nice to be in a position to have two cars most certainly. Chip enters two cars because you never know what's going to happen. Something could unfortunately happen to one car. With what happened to the 02 car [which retired with drivetrain issues some 20 hours in -Ed.], as we looked at the 01 car, any concerns on that front from their failure to the end of the race, no. That was we believed a byproduct of something that happened earlier, and certainly we weren't concerned with the reliability of the 01. I mean, the 01 is just a rock-solid car. It's fun to drive, and I think AJ Allmendinger put it really well. We took advantage of a situation this year, and last year they took advantage of their situation with their engine manufacturer.