Max Chilton talks Carlin’s promising sophomore IndyCar season

Max Chilton is determined to find more success in Carlin’s second IndyCar season, and spoke about how the team is continuing to improve in year two.

Carlin is one of the newer teams in the NTT IndyCar Series, but that’s not stopping them from striving to win a championship. Leading the charge is Max Chilton, a four-season veteran who’s been with Carlin since the organization joined the series in 2018.

After establishing the groundwork last season, Chilton has his sights set on better results during the 2019 campaign. “Last year we were thrown off the deep end,” he reflected, pointing out a busy IndyCar schedule that runs from March to September with few breaks in between.

“You’ve got no time to really sit back and learn from what you’ve learned in the season, so you have to rush throughout the season. Then we had six months off from the last race to the first race [in 2019] to learn as much as we could. I feel like we made a good step forward over the winter.”

While the first few races this season haven’t gone as well as he’d like, his focus is on getting the best possible results so that the team can continue to move forward and build its name in a highly competitive series.

“I was quickest in the first test of the season but then I qualified last at the first race of the season,” he explained. “It proves how competitive IndyCar is. You can be great one day and not great the other day.

“Hopefully we’ve found out enough to be a better car than where we were the previous year.”

Carlin made an incredibly promising pickup in the offseason, when the team added Patricio O’Ward to its roster alongside Chilton and Charlie Kimball. Though O’Ward is only running part of the 2019 IndyCar season, he’s already made a strong impression on track.

Meanwhile, Kimball is only running a partial season himself after driving full-time for Carlin in the 2018 season. What do these changes with his teammates mean from Max Chilton’s perspective?

“It makes it a slightly different atmosphere,” he said. “Everyone is still here for the right reasons. Charlie is more eager than ever to do well in those races to show himself. Patricio is very new to the team, He’s quick; everyone knows he’s quick.”

“I think it’s part of life,” Chilton continued, speaking about not just the changes on his team but the changes that have happened in the IndyCar Series. “Every day you wake up your life changes a little bit—same thing with your job, you just sort of adapt to it…You just have to stay on the top of your game.”

The nature of IndyCar means that Chilton has a chance to win on any given week, as long as he has the speed in his No. 59 car, because everyone is competitive. But the biggest key to him being able to capture the team’s first NTT IndyCar Series win might be his mindset; he continues to look at the journey, rather than just the destination.

“You never stop learning,” he explained. “I learned through being teammates with Scott Dixon [at Chip Ganassi Racing]—five-time champion and he’s always trying to learn things as well, because you can only get better. The main thing to do is keep focused.”

Watch Max Chilton in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach this Sunday, April 15 at 4 p.m. ET. For complete coverage of the 2019 IndyCar season, follow the IndyCar category at FanSided.