I’ve never had to fuel-save before – Robert Wickens

Robert Wickens has admitted he has never had to fuel save before as he found the final stint of the IndyGP to be very challenging.

The Canadian has spent most of his career in race series mainly based on sprint racing, where saving fuel isn't always required. Driving in DTM since 2012 and before that he spent time in junior single-seater series, where races do not have any substantial length attached to them.

After 2017 series champion Josef Newgarden brought out the caution flag on lap 56 out of 85 after spinning on the Turn 11 kerb trying to pass Sebastian Bourdais, everyone was able to pit for the last time in the race, but it required a tough fuel and tyre saving strategy to manage the final 29 laps.

"I've never raced in a category where you had to save fuel," said Wickens. "In winter testing you always put it on the list, like 'oh, we're going to practice a long run with fuel saving', and then obviously the engineers get greedy, you end up doing set-up change, set-up change, set-up change, and you run out of time, and then we don't actually end up doing it.

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"So really, like apart from warm-ups or kind of like ins- and out-laps, I'm not really practicing it that much, and it's something that I became very apparent to me this weekend, like this afternoon, that that's something that I have to work on because obviously, they were hitting the same numbers that I was to try and make it to the end, but their pace was way quicker than mine.

"Yeah, I have to work on it, but yeah, that was definitely a first for me."

Wickens will tackle his first Indy 500 later this month and he admits he is cautiously excited at the opportunity to race in the event he had always dreamed of taking part in; he recently passed his rookie orientation programme last week in team-mate James Hinchcliffe's car after his No.6 Schmidt Peterson car developed problems on the day.

"I'm ecstatic. I mean, I've dreamed of doing a 500 since I can remember," added the Canadian.

"There's been so much history, so many good drivers. I mean, anything can happen there. To be honest, I just want to take it, like I've been saying all along, just kind of one day at a time because every day in IndyCar seems to be different.

"I can't find kind of a trend to get into a routine to do this, that or the other. I feel like something is new every time. I think all next week it's just going to be interesting with practice and trying to get a good car.

"I was able to do my rookie orientation last week. It was fun. But definitely, once we get into kind of the qualiy trims and stuff like that, it's going to be a whole new animal because we were just driving with quite a bit of downforce on because it was just rookie orientation. I've heard the nightmares of qualiy trim, and I'm cautiously looking forward to it.