Chevrolet recently re-assigned the manager of its IndyCar program, Chris Berube, to an engineering position at its Milford Proving Ground. Since Chevrolet re-joined IndyCar in 2012, it has won four championships, scored 43 wins and won two Indy 500s – and it was all done under the watchful eye of Berube.
Berube won’t be around in 2016 to discuss Chevy’s IndyCar program, so Motorsport decided to sit down with the racing expert and talk about his time spent with Chevy and IndyCar and some of his favorite memories from last four years.
Motorsport maintains that Berube is a very humble person in real life and the remarks he made to the publication directly reflect this. One of the first points he makes is that he’s not resposonsible for Chevy’s immense success in American open-wheel racing over the last for years, explaining that it is a massive team effort.
“Honestly, it’s not something I can take credit for personally,” Berube said. “But to be part of that team for the last four years has been a privilege. It’s a team – it takes a village, not an individual – and it starts right from the top. You know, Mark Reuss has shown constant commitment to the project, and is so obviously in it to win, not just show up. So the resources have been applied accordingly. That gives us the chance to surround ourselves with great people.”
One of the points Berube touched on was Chevy’s perceived advantage in reliability over its rival Honda. The team decided to make repairs to its engines after the first race this year in order to ensure they were reliable and while they still experienced failures throughout the season, Berube says this decision paid off.
“Failures on track were really not allowed,” Berube explains. “So this year’s repair after St. Pete was because we didn’t think the engine would make it for their specified mileage [2500 miles in 2015]. We had to do something about it and so we sucked up the points penalty for repairing the engines ahead of schedule. That was tough, because you really don’t want to start the season on minus points!”
Finally, Berube discusses some of his favorite wins from the last four seasons, which of course include Juan Pablo Montoya’s and Ryan Hunter Reay’s Indy 500 wins and also St. Petersburg 2012, which was the race he won with Chevy.
Head on over to Motorsport to read the rest of his rather interesting Q&A with the publication.
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