NTT INDYCAR CONTENT DAYS

January 18, 2022

Jack Harvey

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Different color uniform. You've seen some guys go by wearing pink. That had to be different.

JACK HARVEY: Yeah, it was a little bit. Kind of weird seeing somebody else in a color that we wore a lot.

Q. It defined you a little bit.

JACK HARVEY: I would say so. I look back at my time with Auto Nation Sirius XM, Michael, Jim, just with a lot of gratitude and happy and positive feelings because what we achieved together has led me to where I am now, which obviously was with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing with support from Hy-Vee and also different colors to wear a little more often.

Yeah, it's been a really nice day. It kind of feels like one of them days where it just feels real, where we've done the off-season and haven't seen as many people obviously because everybody goes and does their own thing, but coming here today with a different team outfit, different sponsors, different suits, all them things, just seemed to --

Q. First day of school?

JACK HARVEY: Yeah, kinda. It feels like that. Honestly I'm just ready for our first day of school on track.

Q. You've raced with Graham a lot in your career.

JACK HARVEY: Yep.

Q. How is that going to be as teammates?

JACK HARVEY: I think it's going to be fine. I really the last few years have enjoyed racing with him. We've had a lot of really good battles on track, from some at Indy GP to obviously Texas came up a lot, and even then, like I said to him at the time, I apologized for squeezing 10 percent too far, but I think the 90 percent up to that I wasn't sorry for because I want to be the guy that's -- if you're ahead of me I want to be challenging you to come past, and if you are challenging me trying to overtake me, I want to make your life kind of hard. This is certainly not just come on by. He understood that, and also we raced really well together the rest of the year.

When we were making the decision to make the change to RLL, I had dinner with Graham right after I had signed, I guess, and he had said to me what he was wanting in a teammate and how things had been, and just said to him, that's not the way I want to operate. Let's just wait and see how we work together, but I think you're going to be pretty happy and surprised by my commitment, my dedication and the effort that I want to put into the team to be successful, and I want to do it with you.

At the end of the day, me, Christian and Graham, we all agree that we want to see the team one, two, three on the podium, but then as you would imagine we disagree on the order that we stand on the podium, which is completely natural and normal.

I think I've always thought Graham manages his tires really well in the race. They always seem like they have really good degradation. Seems like their strategy is always very good. Not perfect because in the INDYCAR Series kind of makes it hard for people to be perfect every weekend, but where we were struggling last year it seemed like they were very good. And we saw how quick Christian is from the one time he got to race in North America last year.

I think between all of us we're going to push each other really hard. I think the nice thing that we have right now is that we all seem to naturally get along very well. We understand what it's like to be in a team, and we want to work together to elevate the team and then inevitably push each other, which makes us better, which pushes the team, elevates again, and just want to put in some good building blocks to be successful all season.

Q. You did come in here and say how pleased he was by not only that you're in town but then you ask a lot of questions.

JACK HARVEY: Did he say that like it was a compliment?

Q. He said it like it was a compliment. That means you're pushing the organization.

JACK HARVEY: Yeah, I mean, we try to. I'm so excited to join RLL, and talking with Bobby and Mike Lanigan for the first time and then Piers, just kind of what the vision of the team was, it was an easy project to buy into. There's so many positive things surrounding the team right now, but also when I looked at the team, I felt like they were really primed to have a lot of sustained success, and I felt like I was as a driver ready for the same thing.

I think it's a really nice pairing together, but also when I looked with my parents and my manager and we just tried to take a deeper dive into everything, this isn't going to be a new statement or anything like that, but I felt like if we could qualify, keep qualifying really well and then try and figure out and understand how Graham manages his tires so well that maybe we could have great race, too.

It just felt like under the RLL banner right now, all the pieces that you could need to have a successful weekend are in the building. Now we just need to do it when it counts and create that consistency.

Q. Having a chance to talk to Christian yesterday it's hard to believe that he's 20 because he sounds like he's straight out of Formula 1 the way he talks. He's very direct, seems to be very honest. What's your assessment of him, interacting with him? When you look at him and figure, this kid is 20 years old and he's already -- his focus seems to be laser focused.

JACK HARVEY: Yeah, I think laser focused is a great way to describe him. I didn't get to spend very much time with him when he came to race at Indy other than just saying hi on the driver intros and whatnot, and even before we got to do that, it's easy to be impressed with what he did in qualifying on that weekend, especially as we had all raced at Indy already that season, and really he had a great race.

Managing the tires is something that takes a second to learn and understand, and I think the Firestone behaves quite a lot differently than the Pirelli from listening to him talk anyway in a pretty favorable way, especially in a racing situation.

I was really excited when the team said that he was going to be the driver. His pedigree from Europe, the teams that he was associated with is incredibly impressive. When the team were talking about a third driver and having a full-time -- another full-time car, not that my opinion carried any weight or anything like that, but I said, look, if you really want to achieve something, I think Christian would be a great addition to the team because he's really fast, he's really dedicated, he's really driven. He's already moved to America. He's here full-time now. And the last few weeks I've been able to spend some time with him. We did a straight-line test before Christmas, and spent several days with him out there, and I think your perception of him is very similar to mine. Very direct, very honest. He's got a good sense of humor. He's funny. We went to Dave & Buster's over the weekend and had a great time.

Yeah, there's that way you see him, and he's definitely more mature than a standard 20-year old. That being said, it's still nice to do things away from racing, as well, and I've really enjoyed getting to know Graham over the last few months. I've been over to his house a decent amount of times with Courtney and with Harlan and just a great family.

I don't want this to sound cheesy or understated but I'm really looking forward to the years with the teammates that we're going to have, not just their speed and their experience, but spending time with them. They're just very, very nice guys.

Q. If you want to Dave & Buster's with him, who's the better gamer?

JACK HARVEY: Depends on what.

Q. What did you win at?

JACK HARVEY: Air hockey. He beat me on the jackpot one, when you have to like pull it down. He landed on like the thousand, and I was getting like a hundo.

Q. Your key to success to start off the season on a good note, what's most important to you to start well in 2022?

JACK HARVEY: I mean, I think I got asked this earlier and they asked how are you perceiving '22, is it like a new team, new sponsors, new you? I'd like to think of it as an evolution really. I love St. Pete. I've had some success there. We've qualified well.

Last year I finished fourth, so I was close to the podium as you can be without being on it.

I think really getting off to a strong start to the season is going to be executing the small things really well. I think the series is so difficult right now, and the teams are so good and the drivers are so good that all the details are really going to start accumulating in a really strong way.

We need to have a good test at Sebring, just dot the I's and cross the T's as it were, have great practice sessions in St. Pete, and then when we get those Firestone reds on, let it fly hopefully in qualifying.

What I learnt in St. Pete last year was we had some really good pace on blacks. I think perhaps I burnt the reds, the front tires on the reds off just a little too much. I learnt a lot throughout last season on how to manage red tires over a long stint, and St. Pete was one of them times where that was what I learnt from. It bit me a little bit in the bum on the weekend because we lost a little bit of pace to Josef and Simon, and they leapfrogged me in the pit sequence, but I think if we could have just managed those tires just for five laps better that we had a good opportunity to even finish second.

I think that's, again, one of the things I was excited about learning from Graham and seeing how the team set the car up for the race is to try and help with tire degradation because I think that was -- at least looking back at St. Pete last year, that was probably the only thing we struggled with in the race.

Just lots of learning really. Open mindedness, keep learning. I took a lot of confidence in RLL choosing me as one of the drivers to try and elevate the team and move forward with. Just want to go out there, and again, just have fun and drive with opportunity and optimism, and someone is going to win in St. Pete, so why not the 45 Hy-Vee Honda.

Q. Graham talked earlier when he was complimenting you and talking about how much he had enjoyed you joining the team. One of those things he had mentioned was that it was huge to have a teammate be full-time in the Indy area to be able to be in the shop often and have a big hand in the off-season developments and making of the car moving forward this year. I know when you were with Meyer Shank Racing you for most of that time were the team's only driver and so were hyper involved in lots of things, but actually living around the shop and playing maybe a bigger role for a bigger team, what has that experience been like for you over these last couple months?

JACK HARVEY: It's been great. Yeah, I've really enjoyed being in the shop with the guys. Some of that comes from just wanting to build rapport with them. I spent so long at MSR that I know everyone so well and suddenly I've jumped to a new team and I've very much felt like the first few times I went like just the new boy.

But everyone has been so welcoming. I've really had such a great time getting to know everybody, and slowly over time in an organic way, knowing what they do for fun away from the track, because you're dealing with people, as well. Everyone is just human beings at the end of the day. We all go to the track with the same goal, same ambition. That's what drew me to the team.

It's really kind of Graham to say that because that is the exact reason why in the off-season I stay in Indy. I'm building my life in Indianapolis, because I want to be a big part of a team. That's what I said to him when I was going to join, that I wasn't just going to swan in and swan out or anything like that. I want to help grow the team and elevate the team.

There's been a few things, I guess, making the change to RLL has allowed me to have a bit more input and say into some areas that I personally would just like to try and explore more. At that point you're just trying to balance everyone's ideas, rights. He has ideas, Christian has ideas, I have ideas, and then we just try and communicate them in a nice way, and then together as a team decide how we're going to move forward.

Testing is so limited right now that we're going to do our best in terms of video analysis, data analysis, and honestly just a lot of conversations for the direction we want to go and what we think is hopefully a fast direction come St. Pete.

It's been a great experience. I've really enjoyed, as I've already said a few times, getting to know not only Graham, Christian, Bobby, Mike, Piers, all the guys, got a new engineer in Michael, and just feel like everybody is -- just feels like everybody is primed to have success.

We just want to get on track now and start getting going.

Q. You left Meyer Shank Racing at a time where that team was really kick-starting its build towards two full-time cars. I know in winning the 500 and coming so close in winning other races, I know some folks may have thought you guys were this really small team, and I know that might not have certainly been the case as much so last year, but as you've gone to this team that has three full-time cars, is building this 100,000-square-foot plus facility in the Indy area, have you gotten the sense of the larger -- somewhat significantly larger team that I imagine you had an idea that you were joining back when you agreed to terms last summer?

JACK HARVEY: Yeah, I mean, certainly the team has a lot more people. But in terms of the amount of people per car, it's probably similar. It's just more people to try and get to know and build a relationship and rapport with. I think that MSR no doubt have -- and I'm really proud of this from where they started to where they are now, I feel like I can look back with a lot of confidence and was a pretty integral part of that growth, and I think the team has grown. They've built their own brand new facility that's purely designed for motor racing, obviously expanded to two cars full time. I'm just really happy for everybody over there because really I don't think they would have been able to do all that without me, and I wouldn't have got here without them.

It was a great period, great partnership. Moving to RLL obviously is a lot more people. It's a lot more sponsors, a lot more partners and things like that, and in some way a slightly different chain of command, a lot more people have to communicate openly and honestly to try and get on the straight and narrow.

I've been a part of big teams before, and to be honest, I think the think that was tricky for people last year, we weren't really part of a small team. Meyer Shank Racing partnership with Andretti Autosport at the Indy 500 last year was part of an eight-car team. I'm used to working with big groups of people and a lot of people.

It hasn't been a big issue. It hasn't been an issue at all. I've just enjoyed getting to know a new group of people and hoping to celebrate some success with them soon.