1.       NDYCAR Conference Call with Tony Kanaan and Simona de Silvestro2.       O'Gara to make Firestone Indy Lights debut at Freedom 1001. INDYCAR Conference Call with Tony Kanaan and Simona de Silvestro: Earlier today, IZOD IndyCar Series drivers Tony Kanaan and Simona de Silvestro participated in an INDYCAR Conference Call to discuss the start of the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series and preview the April 7 Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama. Selected comments from the call are below.  ***Q. Simona, after the sixth-place finish you had at St. Petersburg, how important was it to you and the team to get off to such a strong start there?SIMONA DE SILVESTRO: I think it was really important. I think especially more for me than for everybody else. I think I had a little bit of doubts during the off-season if I was able to run up front after the season I had last year.It was just a big relief that we started off the weekend really strong, qualified up front and pretty much raced up front the whole race. So it was really good. I think it was a big confidence boost for me and the team.I think now we can clean up a few things to be even better.Q. T.K. Just talk a little bit about St. Pete and how important it was to get off on the right foot.TONY KANAAN: It's always good to have a good start obviously. I had a few of those in the past years. Three years ago I finished third and Simona finished fourth. Like Simona was saying, for the team we had few struggles last year, so we had definitely all the eyes on us at this time. I think Simona had a lot to prove because people were, We'll see, this and that. Us as well.I think as a team we did a great job. Still got to do better. We want to win races and finish both cars on the podium. But it was a good weekend.Q. Simona, talk a little bit about working with a teammate for the first time. Seems you and Tony work really well together from watching you in testing and at St. Pete.SIMONA DE SILVESTRO: We do actually. I actually enjoy working with T.K. He has a lot of experience. I feel like we have a good friendly competition going on in the team.I think we really push each other every session. I think the team gets better that way. I think that's going to make us pretty strong the whole season.Q. Tony, your top-five finish at St. Petersburg was your 107th top-five finish in your Indy car career and tied you with Helio Castroneves and Gordon Johncock for 10th all time. You're also closing in on Jimmy Vasser for the consecutive starts record.I know you're not ready to retire, but can you talk about seeing your name with some of the legends of the sport?TONY KANAAN: I haven't been around all these years because I'm a lucky guy. Obviously, it feels awesome. Like you said, I'm nowhere near ready to retire yet. So hopefully being part of the record book, it's awesome, you're part of history, you did well in your career.I didn't know about my top -5 finishes. That's awesome. I don't count them a lot. But trying to beat Jimmy Vasser on the most consecutive starts will be great. I think by the time we get to Baltimore, that's when it's going to be.Hopefully him being my boss, he will let me do that. Hopefully he won't sit me out for a couple races because I'm going to beat his record.Q. The next race is at Barber Motorsports Park. What kind of race do you expect at Barber? The speeds were below the track record. Do you think it will be as competitive as it was at St. Pete?SIMONA DE SILVESTRO: Yeah, I think so. We had a pretty good test there. I think the race in St. Pete was really competitive. Everybody was racing really hard. I think we're going to see the same thing at Barber.Last year I thought it was a pretty exciting race, quite a bit of passing, which we didn't see in the past. Hopefully it's going to be the same this year and it's going to be pretty action-packed hopefully.TONY KANAAN: I agree. We're going to be talking about how competitive this series is for every racetrack we go. I don't see us or anybody pulling away. Barber, obviously we had the opportunity to test, so I think it will bring the field closer there because everybody got their hands on a couple days of testing.I think the racing will be really exciting. Last year we already witnessed that with a lot of passing, a lot of action. I don't expect anything different.Q. You have a new teammate. Are you feeling that with Simona? Is she pushing you any further? Do you feel like you're going to have to step up to not get beat by her?TONY KANAAN: For sure. It's two different things. When Rubens came in, he was definitely pushing me. But because of our relationship, we've been like brothers forever, it was completely different.Simona brought a lot of spark and light into the team. I enjoy working with her. I have no problem teaching her whatever I can. But I like to see this young girl that wants to do well, because that's her opportunity. That obviously pushes me to my limit. I'm going to admit that she's extremely fast. I said that even before she was my teammate, so I'm not trying to make any excuses.For me it's good. I learned my entire career. I had hard teammates. I had (Alex) Zanardi as a teammate, Dario (Franchitti) as a teammate, (Ryan) Hunter-Reay as a teammate. Those are people that are extremely good. It's good to get beat sometimes. That's how we learn.Me and Simona, if we keep working together to make KV successful, I think that's the secret. I'm going to beat her sometimes, she's going to beat me sometimes. We're going to be cool. She's not going to like the days I finish ahead of her and likewise. As long as we use that to our advantage, it's going to be awesome.To answer your question, yes, it's a different time. It's a young blood that really wants to do well. The relationship between her and me right now, it reminds me of when me and Zanardi were teammates back in the day.Q. Tony, if Simona is like driving with Alex (Zanardi), working with Jimmy (Vasser), is that more like working with Michael Andretti or Mo Nunn as an owner?TONY KANAAN: I think that's a good question (laughter). I would say it's more like Michael because they're both race car drivers. Having Jimmy in my radio is fun. It was weird at first because Jimmy has been a friend of mine. Just hearing the sound of his voice calling my race, it was weird at first.I'm using in my advantage. Obviously we know each other extremely well. That's a big plus for me. He's been a driver. We discuss a lot about tires and strategy and a couple things that we usually don't do with the guy that does your strategy because some of them are not racecar drivers.To answer your question, it's more like Michael than Morris. Morris was much calmer than Michael and Jimmy anyway.Q. Simona, do you debrief with Tony and Tony's engineer? If you don't, do you talk during the weekend?SIMONA DE SILVESTRO: Yeah, we do. I think, for sure, at the beginning of testing we're starting to learn how to do that. On our side, I've never had to do that in the past for years. I think in Barber at the test and in St. Pete, in the evening I think we talked about it. Also after the sessions, we talked about what they ran, what we ran, what we experienced, even after the race.I think things are starting to click, kind of learn how to work with a teammate.Q. T.K., you obviously have known a lot of champions. What do you think it takes for a contender to become a champion?TONY KANAAN: Well, I think he has to be in the right place at the right time, got to be able to sustain the pressure. I think the better you do, the more pressure you're going to get. Nowadays I think talent, there's no question that we had plenty of them around, but a complete driver will be the one that will be able to manage a difficult situation or a situation that he is under pressure over the course of a championship and overcome that.A lot of times people don't do well like that. So I would say the biggest advice, if I could give to anybody, what it takes, it would be consistency and be smart every race weekend to be able to judge. Sometimes if you have a fourth-place car, you try to finish fourth. Otherwise those will be points you waste away. As we witnessed the last three years the championship was decided on points the last race. I think that would be the biggest key.2. O'Gara to make Firestone Indy Lights debut at Freedom 100: Kyle O'Gara has had May 24 circled on the calendar for quite a while.The 18-year-old native of Beech Grove, Ind., will graduate from Indianapolis' Roncalli High School on that day. He'll also take the next step of his racing career on the same day.Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing announced that O'Gara, the team's development driver, will enter the Firestone Freedom 100 on Carb Day in a partnership with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.

O'Gara will run the No. 67 entry, with the design of his helmet proudly displaying his school's colors."I'm very happy to be a part of this partnership," O'Gara said. "When they put an opportunity like that in front of you, you can't turn that down. That's something that I always wanted to do, and I'm looking forward to it."One of O'Gara's sponsors for the race, SportEvents.com, is providing tickets to the race to each student at Roncalli High School. The team made the announcement at the school auditorium filled with his fellow students, and the news that they would all be attending to support him on was greeted with loud cheers.Team owner Sarah Fisher, also O'Gara's sister-in-law, was also on hand to discuss the news."I've been watching Kyle and working with him since he was about eight-years-old," Fisher said. "So to take him to Indianapolis has been a very personal goal of mine and also of my husband Andy, Kyle's older brother."Andy has worked incredibly hard to put this together, and he's been with Kyle day in and day out during his whole career, and to see the two of them working together has been an amazing experience for myself."Schmidt Peterson Motorsports has won seven of the 10 Firestone Freedom 100s that have been run. In 2012, Esteban Guerrieri won the race from the back of the field. The day after the race, O'Gara will also run a USAC Midget Series race at Lucas Oil Raceway in the Night Before the 500.O'Gara will test with the series at Auto Club Speedway in late April following the series' race at Long Beach, and also again at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May. He tested a Firestone Indy Lights car at Kentucky Speedway last year with Fan Force United.                                                                  ***The 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series season continues with the Honda Indy Grand Prix Alabama on April 7 at Barber Motorsports Park. The race will be televised live at 3 p.m. (ET) by the NBC Sports Network (Verizon FiOS 90/590, DirecTV 220, DISH 159 and AT&T UVerse 640) and broadcast by the IMS Radio Network, including on Sirius andXM Channels 211 and www.indycar.com. The next Firestone Indy Lights race is the Legacy Indy Lights 100 on April 7 at Barber Motorsport Park. The race will be broadcast by NBC Sports Network at 1 p.m. (ET) on April 7, immediately preceding the IZOD IndyCar Series race broadcast.