NTT INDYCAR SERIES: SNAP-ON MILWAUKEE MILE 250

August 23, 2025

David Malukas

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Wrapping up qualifying ahead of tomorrow's Snap-on Milwaukee 250 here at the always challenging and fun Milwaukee Mile. Alex Palou, the pole sitter for tomorrow's race, will join us here.

Currently joined by David Malukas, once again, in the No. 4 Clariance Technologies Chevrolet for AJ Foyt Enterprises with his second front row start of 2025, fourth time he's started second in his career. Right before you sat down you thought that was a perfect lap you had, eh?

DAVID MALUKAS: They were two beautiful laps. I crossed that line, I wasn't even looking at the time and I knew it was fast. Sometimes you just know it's going to be good, and I crossed, and I was like, that was really beautiful. I really think that's going to be the one.

I just had to wait until the end, and I saw him come out of 4, and I was like, oh, no, I was like put the ghost thing in there; I think he's got it on this one. I saw the ghost, and I was like, yeah.

It's still good. Going to be on the front row again here at Milwaukee. We have a good race car. We'll see what we can do.

Q. I was going to ask about the race car. Obviously you feel good --

DAVID MALUKAS: Yeah, this afternoon is going to be kind of all the answers. It's just all so unfortunate because I was behind Palou in practice and he was so fast on passing people. It was like, man, this is -- I feel like this happened -- where was it, Iowa? A race earlier this year where it was just me and Palou in the front and just battling him again. It's going to be a little bit like that again to start, and then obviously the beautiful chaos of Milwaukee is going to unfold and we'll see where we end up after all of that.

It's going to be a good race. We have some questions to get answered for this practice this afternoon, and I'm pretty sure we'll be able to answer them.

Q. Is there any secret or key to what's important to make a good lap here? And your teammate, how identical are the setups?

DAVID MALUKAS: You know, when it comes to setups with every single driver, everybody has their own preferences and they vary drastically. It's very different, and we're very much on different wavelengths on where we want the car. It's hard to say from our perspective. It's a different story.

When it comes to being quick here, it's a short time. You have one practice session and you're going straight go qualifying, and it's about carrying momentum and finding the best line that works for you. I think out of the qualifyings that you'll see on ovals, this is the track that differs the most on what lines people do use. You'll see some people going in on that lower line, some people going high and some people try and find something that works more in the middle, and it depends on what car is best on what line.

Q. The warmup lap you had the fastest, I think. Do you think you went a little faster?

DAVID MALUKAS: Yeah, (indiscernible) warmup 2 was (indiscernible) I was the fastest. It just goes into strategy on what we were thinking with tire deg. The tire deg is so bad, you can actually feel it within the few laps that we do in qualifying.

I think people were on different strategies in warmup and maybe trying to save some tires, but from our perspective we kind of wanted to go more full push from the beginning.

Q. Just talk about how chaotic this race is more than likely to be. Seems like 40 laps is the stint, tires are going to drop off. Walk us through what you expect coming up tomorrow.

DAVID MALUKAS: It's going to be a tire deg race, and it's going to be a lot of fun. From a viewing standpoint, the car when you put new tires on and you're going out and doing some undercuts, it's going to be fun. It's going to be a fantastic race, and honestly, it's one of those races that you don't know where we're going to be at until we get a yellow or until the race finishes, and we're just going to go out there and try to be as fast as we can and try to pass as many people as we can.

Q. I know qualifying really seems to have been your big strength this year. What has clicked over one lap, and conversely, how do you start converting that into more race results?

DAVID MALUKAS: 100 percent. Going into the season, we've made gains from the start. We've learned so much. Like I said, it's a younger crew, and I myself am 23. There's a lot that I'm learning.

We've found a very good car when it comes to qualifying, and for road courses as well that one-lap pace and for qualifying here -- we've had a lot of success in qualifying this season. It's more just trying to focus on the road courses, on the races especially.

There's a lot of answers that we still need to work on. We have a long off-season, so we'll make sure to get those answers and figure it out, but from our side we're very happy. If we look at where we were at the start of the season, it's been a drastic change.

Q. What are some of the big things you feel you have learned across the year?

DAVID MALUKAS: Just a street course car (indiscernible) massive gains. We've been competitive in (indiscernible). That was the one thing we were struggling the most on, and we made drastic changes in qualifying.

The last thing is just trying to figure out our race pace. I think that's the last puzzle to kind of complete everything, and then we can start fine tuning some things here and there and be competitive.

Q. The most important question, are Dorking in the Premier League yet?

DAVID MALUKAS: Still not. I've been trying so hard. I'm literally mid world championship trying to survive. I'm not going to lie, the championship is very difficult. I am struggling.

But I have really good players on there, but they're just -- one has a good season performance and then the next season I'm trying to talk with them and trying to praise them and lift them up a little bit.

Q. Last year Santino and James Schnabel turned into a really powerful combination. Santino had his best season in INDYCAR. I love seeing what you're building this year. Speak to that a little bit; where will you go now? The two of you are producing at a pretty high rate.

DAVID MALUKAS: Yeah, I think off of that point, it goes a lot of kudos to James Schnabel. He's transformed Ferrucci, transformed me. In a season it's crazy what performances he's been able to accomplish and what he's been able to do.

We sat down, had a lot of talks and felt it out. We built that chemistry from a personality standpoint and getting to know each other and learning what I want from the car, and he's done an incredible job understanding what I'm needing and giving that to me.

Like I said, if I look back at the start of the season St. Pete and just -- the first three months, it's crazy how different things were. We were struggling to even make the top 10 in qualifying, and now we've had some Fast Six performances and now we're here again on the front row at Milwaukee. It's kudos to James.