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| More than 200,000 people line the streets of #DowntownIndy to celebrate the return of Indy’s biggest celebration before the #Indy500 ... the 67th AES 500 Festival Parade welcomes then P4 107th Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge qualifyer Santino Ferrucci and guests. Image Credit: FB/META Contribution (2023) |
Santino Ferrucci Shares How He Almost Won It All For AJ Foyt Racing At
INDY500
During the NTT INDYCAR ZOOM Call video news conference on May 31, Santino
Ferrucci of AJ Foyt Racing discussed his impressive performance in the 107th
Indianapolis 500 and shared his thoughts on the upcoming Chevrolet Detroit
Grand Prix.
Driving the No. 14 AJ FOYT RACING/SEXTON PROPERTIES Chevrolet, Ferrucci
secured a career-best third-place finish in the Indianapolis 500, which took
place on May 28. He expressed confidence in his chances of winning the race
and claimed that he was a serious contender for the victory most all race
long.
In addition to discussing his Indianapolis 500 performance, Ferrucci addressed
a rumor regarding his pit stop during the race. He clarified that the
speculation about the team owner, 88-year-old A.J. Foyt, being slightly over
the wall and stabilizing a tire during his pit stop was false.
Edmund Jenks - Motorsports Journal - BEGIN
Q. In the Indy 500 if that last accident didn't happen behind you, you were
about to swoop past the two cars in front of you, with as many laps were left,
what was your thinking? How do you think you would have been able to fare?
SANTINO FERRUCCI:
Yeah, we'll go back. Say it stays green. Newgarden had one of the faster
cars. I was two-wide going into one. I wasn't going to pinch Ericsson and
crash with Ericsson. I was going to actually lift and give him the place
because I wanted to be behind him into two, get the run outs of two because
we were really good there, or wait one more lap and get the run out of two.
My intention was to lead. The reason being because I passed Ericsson earlier
in the race and I led and I knew he couldn't pass us. Like, I knew our car
just had the raw speed, with the downforce level that we had, to just lead
and run away. Yeah, that was my thinking right there.
Had it stayed green, would he have been able to pass us in the end of stint?
Again, I don't know. It would have been an interesting shot if he could. But
from what I saw early in the race, especially on the end of a stint when the
tires are old, our car was one of the best cars from lap 20 to lap 33.
No, I was getting ready to lift into two to give him the lead back to take
it again and try to lead it till the end.
Edmund Jenks - Motorsports Journal
Q. Given the race dynamics, you had the confidence, the car, the measure of
the drivers, you felt you would have had a measure of the race?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Yes, yes, 100%.
Edmund Jenks - Motorsports Journal
Q. Did you know you had an extra crew member over the wall? If you look behind
me, you'll see the finger is pointing directly at A.J. Foyt over the wall,
touching a tire.
SANTINO FERRUCCI: That's not A.J.
Edmund Jenks - Motorsports Journal
Q. It isn't?
SANTINO FERRUCCI:
That is Craig Baranouski, team manager. Trust me, they look exactly the
same.
Yeah, I'm sure if you blow back up that picture, you'll see A.J. sitting in
his chair with the headset on 100%.
ENDS
AJ Foyt Racing issues a confirming direct statement after this interchange
with Santino Ferrucci on an image captured during the INDY500 broadcast that
had some people thinking they saw AJ Foyt himself helping during a Ferucci
pitstop, as reported by
Asher Fair of Beyond The Flag.
AJ Foyt Racing As Quoted:
“This is not our usual post, but this photo has been circulating with
speculation that A.J. is leaning over the wall and helping with the inside
front tire. That is not true. Despite A.J.’s reputation for working on his
own cars, it is Craig Baranouski who’s pictured here assisting with the tire
on the stop. Hope this helps clear up any confusion/rumors.”
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NTT INDYCAR SERIES News Conference - Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Santino Ferrucci - Press Conference (click image to launch ZOOM Call Video)
THE MODERATOR: Just days after the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500
presented by Gainbridge, don't blame our guest today if he's still smiling, if
he's not mowing his yard, that is, Santino Ferrucci. Great month, actually for
the entire AJ Foyt Racing team, culminating for Santino, a career-best
third-place finish on Sunday, heads to Detroit this week, site of his NTT
INDYCAR Series debut back in 2018, and if that wasn't enough, he'll start his
50th INDYCAR race. It's also your birthday, right, Santino?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: There's a lot going on today between the 50th start this
weekend, the good finish, my birthday. My hands are gross. I'm mowing and
doing yard work because I'm only home for one day before I turn around and go
out to Detroit, so excuse me for being really sweaty. It's like 100 degrees
over here in Texas.
THE MODERATOR: Driver of the No. 14 AJ Foyt Racing Sexton Properties Chevrolet
joins us today. A few days to chill, or if you're not chilling you're doing
your yard work. I'm sure you're still excited about everything coming out of
the 500.
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Yeah, of course. I mean, it's one of those things to where
I'm very happy with how everything went. We had a hell of a month. Couldn't
have asked for a better day at the end, but also it could have been a hell of
a lot worse, all things considered. So just very thankful for that.
I think it's pretty clear that we'll win that race one of these days. Yeah,
excited to be home for a brisk 24 hours to mow my field, and then back to
Detroit.
Q. Looking ahead to Detroit, obviously you've got some fond memories there,
making your first start back in 2018, new circuit, a lot of different features
to it. What are your thoughts heading into Detroit?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Yeah, I mean, honestly, hats off to the entire Detroit GP
team, Bud Denker. That place looks phenomenal. We went in the wintertime to go
check it out. I just got a picture of pit lane. Super excited for everything.
Very happy to be going 200 miles an hour down Jefferson. I probably will buy a
mouth guard at Dick's Sporting Goods before I head over there because it was
still bumpy in the Tahoe that we took a hot lap in, so I can't imagine what
it's going to be like in the INDYCAR.
Q. Obviously no one has driven the Detroit course yet, but have you had a
chance to get in it on like a simulator? Do you have any thoughts on the
layout and what it might race like?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: So we're actually one of the few teams that we don't have
the simulator, just because it's so allotted to some of the top teams and they
book their days out in advance. I actually won't be able to see it virtually
or run it until we go to practice on Friday.
But having taken some laps there in the Tahoe, was definitely a lot of fun.
They do have a much better suspension than the INDYCAR, though, and heated
seats when we were there, so it was really nice.
Really looking forward to being back in Detroit. I am going to miss Belle
Isle. That place has always been very special and very good to me, so kind of
bummed I didn't get a shot to win that race again this year because we've been
really close with Rahal in the past years and with Coyne before that.
Yeah, just have to make it happen on the new track.
Q. Do you have any thoughts on the split pit lane and how that might work?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: I'm actually really excited. I think it's one of those
things to where it's already chaotic enough in an INDYCAR to have the pit lane
in Detroit the way it was, so to split it, it's going to be -- I think Max
Papis is going to have a really rough two weeks with going from the 500 now to
Detroit with the zero contact rule in pit lane. That one might have to get
waived a little bit.
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| Outside of the INDY500, Santino Ferrucci second driving strength is considered to be street courses. Going into a new course for every driver with wide track surface, Ferrucci feels his chances are good at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2023) |
Q. Obviously everybody talks about the Indy 500 hangover that can happen
sometimes. You had a terrific month of May. Have you guys talked about that or
has the team had any pep talks or sort of hey, how do we regroup and face the
final 11 races this season?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: I have to laugh because we were talking about the Detroit GP
before we even ran the 500. Everything that we did leading into Indy, all that
preparation was already done, so all we really did was drive the car and
manipulate things. We actually had a really stressful Friday, which kind of
put us -- wasn't great, but obviously Sunday being good, I've already sent in
all my reports to the team. I have their reports.
No, I don't know, it's a really long week for me just because you have the
500, then you have everything to pack up and leave, because I don't live in
Indy, then the banquet, and then I had to drive home 12 hours yesterday with
my dogs. Then on top of that, getting home, birthday, having to basically
cycle, reset and then jump on a flight early tomorrow morning.
It's kind of nonstop, so getting sleep is tough, but it's a lot of fun, and I
like the energy of go, go, go, and I'm pretty sure the team does, too, at this
point, and continuing that momentum.
We feel really confident with what we're gaining on our road and street course
cars. We're almost there, so hopefully we'll continue being competitive inside
the top 10.
Q. When I talked to you after the race Sunday, you were pretty sad. A lot of
times people with a third-place finish in the Indy 500, you'd be pretty happy
about that, but to be that close, how long did it take for you to kind of go
from sad back to looking at the big picture?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: I was happy about -- once we got into the press conference I
was in a much better mood. I wouldn't necessarily call the emotion sad. It
wasn't just like one particular thing when I got out of the car, and as
everybody saw on national television I was basically crying. It's just one of
those competitor things in you that there was so much riding on that race, and
it was going so well up until that -- it finished really well.
When you have that kind of -- it wasn't just pressure to perform but emotional
pressure to just be there and to know that we probably had that race won, had
it gone yellow two seconds later, it's just kind of heartbreaking. But still,
at the end of the day, you come home in third, to join Helio and one other
driver, I believe it's Henry Fultz or Henry Hines, in five for five of your
first five starts in top 10s, and then you really start to look at what you've
accomplished at the 500 in your first five starts with four different teams
and what you did with A.J. Foyt -- what we've done at AJ Foyt Racing, who
hasn't had a podium or top 3 since the year 2000 at the speedway.
You know, there's so many positives, and that day could have been so much
worse. We had so many close calls between pit lane and some of the crashes on
track that at the end of the day I was just really, really happy to -- I went
to bed that night knowing that I did the best I could, the team did the best
they could, and that's the track.
Q. Do you believe you were more negatively impacted by that last red than
Marcus because everybody says first and second can fight for the win, but
third really can't?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: No. So the way that everything played out, the way that
INDYCAR finished under green was 100 percent correct for the fans. It didn't
affect anything for me. What affected me wasn't the red, it was the yellow.
So the second it went yellow, had it gone yellow two seconds later had they
waited, which you can't wait when you're crashing, so there's nothing you can
do, I was in third, I was about six inches behind Newgarden, and that's very
clear in the video.
So at the end of the day, nothing changed for me. The fact that they actually
went red and restarted the race gave me that opportunity to win again. I just
didn't have a great restart because it's chaotic when you just go -- you've
got to also remember there's no restart zone. At that point when you're going
green for one lap, it was really cool to see the shootout, I'm not going to
lie, but you know that they're going green, so you were literally at the hands
of the leader on a completely random -- you could start going into 3 in the
middle of 3 and 4 out of 4. He could start the race whenever he wanted to
start the race instead of in the zone, so it was completely unpredictable.
He just had a really good jump, and I just -- I did not, so it took me out of
the -- that's what took me out of the win at the end of the race. It had
nothing to do with INDYCAR or the red in my opinion.
Q. Also, what was A.J. like after the race? He had a smile on his face for the
whole month, considering the beginning of the month was one of the saddest
months of his life, but between what you did and Benjamin Peterson, he was
smiling all month at Indy. What was he like after the race?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: I think he was really proud. There's truly two people that
understood my emotions and felt my emotions on
Sunday. A.J. was one, and Michael Cannon was the other. If you look at some of the photos from that day, you can kind of see it in
my eyes, just -- you really have to have it in your hands and then lose it in
your hands to kind of understand that feeling of when you work that hard. So
you have to understand you're coming from a team with two cars, a budget
that's a quarter of the size of Penske and Ganassi, and that's all month long.
We wanted it probably that much more than everybody else that day.
To come up that short, A.J.'s finished second and third on dominant days in
the '70s, and he talked about those races, where we had the car to win. We
were by far the best car at the end of that race. Once the Team McLarens were
out of it and the 10 car and the 21 had the incident in pit lane, that left
us.
We were the car to win, and yeah, just sitting third knowing there's nothing
you can do, after all that hard work, yeah, it's a feeling that very few
people would understand.
But he was incredibly proud of I think what the organization accomplished. I'm
very proud of Larry and what Larry has done with the team because Larry has
had control of this team since 2007, and to see him get his first podium as a
team boss and team owner at the speedway was huge.
I think everybody was incredibly proud of what we've accomplished.
Q. You were just talking about the unpredictability of those restarts. Do you
think it would benefit if IMS had a restart zone like we see in NASCAR, and
also, what do you think about the guys using the pit lane entry as they were
coming up to the green and the checkered? Do you think using that's a little
bit dangerous with the pit attenuator in play there?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Yeah. Well, the restart zones, we do have one. It's not
necessarily as clearly marked as NASCAR, so it's not terrible. It's just the
way that they start the race, if the Hondas are starting it slower, the
Chevies needed to start it a little faster, so the fact that Marcus started it
slower, it was obviously huge to his advantage, and you saw that when he left.
As far as using the pit lane and using it towards the attenuator. I'll be
perfectly honest, that's a driver's choice there. I wouldn't call a rule on it
for track limits. At the end of the day they're going to risk their life if
something happens and they hit it. That's on them.
I didn't personally go down there. I would be really nervous cutting the car
down that low with that much momentum if something were to happen because
you'd look like an absolute more on if you wrecked trying to go below the
attenuator to break the draft. But their cars were really good.
No, you're going to do anything you can to win that race. I'm honestly
surprised that it finished the way it did. Josef had a fantastic run at it,
too, and Marcus was able to completely clear him before going into 2, which is
good.
Q. Going to Detroit, obviously your last street race on Long Beach was pretty
stout. With cannon coming across from Ganassi on your road and street program,
where do you see you're at with stuff like damper programs and stuff like
that? Do you feel you're getting stronger?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: So our damper program, to be honest, is about a decade
behind. We are slowly working towards improving it. If you look everywhere
we've started, we've been about two seconds off the pace, closed the gap off
to a couple of 10ths.
The issue that we have is the way that we can move forward in a timely
fashion. So we are building what we can at the shop, adjusting, adjusting,
adjusting, playing catch-up at the track until we run out of adjustment.
Long Beach we had a great race car, but we didn't really have anything better
than I believe we finished 11th. We didn't really have anything better than
that.
Moving forward, I think that we're building off of that slowly. We obviously
need to qualify the car. We haven't qualified in the last two races because of
electrical issues. So not great. Doesn't help when you're fighting in the
midfield that's as competitive as it is.
We will get there. I'll say with the 500 being done, all of our attention will
now be on the road course and street course program. Michael has been working
diligently with a couple of the other engineers on making sure that the 500
was going to be as sound as it was. That just shows what we were able to do
with a couple of months of preparation.
I'm excited to see what we have now, knowing that we're going to take that
car, put a cover on it, full focus on everything else this year.
Q. Any good overtaking spots on this track?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Jefferson is going to be very interesting. They still needed
to rework it. They needed to rework the track again after they go through
winter because the winters are really rough. But it was rather bumpy. It will
be kind of interesting to see the lines.
The straight is longer than the one at the GP. The GP, you do have a lot of
passing at the end of that straight going into the hairpin or the first turn.
I think, yes, it will provide for some great racing. I hope we have a great
strategy race like we did on Belle Isle. I think that was our best street
course race as far as entertainment goes. I'm hoping the new Detroit track
lives up to that.
Q. I was talking to Larry just ahead of the Indy 500. He was saying how he's
really enjoyed having Michael join the organization. What do you think his
contribution has been so far? What do you think he can do going on for the
rest of the season, including helping you guys in Detroit?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Yeah, so the way that Michael puts it, it's called Racing
101 in his eyes. It's basically a way to organize things.
The setups on these cars throughout the paddock are almost all the same.
Everybody is similar as far as diffs, geometry, roll centers, ride high, aero.
So there's nothing special going on there.
Mike is just trying to bring in some of his knowledge obviously from years
past. Obviously having worked with him before, the thing with dampers is that
every place is very different, every place has there own custom way of doing
things and getting things done.
Mike is just trying to work out with my race engineer how to best get the
dampers to suit the car for my driving style. We are getting closer every time
we get to the track. I'm just excited to hopefully be able to show if we do
get it right what we can do on a road and street course.
Q. A.J. referred to you as the funny looking kid. Off the track, you're a
rising start, be the next big thing. Tell us what you're doing to try to
handle the pressures of being a celebrity off the track?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: I wouldn't necessarily call myself a celebrity off the
track.
What's cool with driving for A.J., driving the 14, one of the things I really
appreciate Larry for doing this is letting me be myself. I get to kind of be
who I want to be, completely unfiltered, just enjoy my life and enjoy being a
race car driver, which is a lot of fun.
With that obviously driving the 14 has actually made me more popular than I
was expecting because we're also doing really well. I just want to make A.J.
happy. I just also really want to get this program going for Larry.
We're as much friends as he is my boss. We're just having a great time. We
love being there. Just as long as we're having fun, I think we'll be
competitive as well, just kind of that mental adage: we don't feel like we're
really working even though we're one of the hardest-working teams on the grid.
Q. You talked about the finish of the race, the red flag, you took the white
flag, then race for the victory. You talked about NASCAR with the
green-white-checkered. Indy races by the miles. What would your thoughts be if
that race would have ended under a green-white-checkered?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: I don't know. I mean, that's kind of funny to say Indy races
under miles, because so does NASCAR, and NASCAR does green-white-checkered.
Sometimes they don't finish under 600 miles, sometimes it's 620 miles. That
would change up the strategy, because you would have a lot of fuel saving
things 'cause the cars are so much more calculated than the NASCAR where you
fill the tank, send it, you're normally fine at the end of the race.
We're calculated to run out at exactly 500 miles. It would change the dynamic
of the race completely if you did something like that.
Would it be fun? Yeah. Would it be strange? Very. I think it could also be
kind of dangerous because our tires wear fast. Every time we pull our tires
when we were at the end of a stint, they were basically toast, zero wear left,
almost on the cords. If you're going on extra 10 laps per se on these old
tires, you risk so much more than what the reward is.
I think it would be fun to do at a track like Iowa 'cause it's a short track,
not necessarily Indy.
THE MODERATOR: How much land are we talking that you're mowing here?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Only a third of an acre on a push mower, though. Very old
school. My fiancée thought I was crazy when I bought this thing at Home Depot.
You're going to mow the lawn once and pay somebody to do it. Nope, I'm
sticking to it. Very committed.
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| Street courses may be the key for Santino Ferrucci and Rookie - who was also named INDY500 Rookie Of The Year qualifying P11 and finishing P21 - Benjamin Pederson's success through the rest of 2923. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2023) |
Q. You are good on road courses. You say the team is now truly focused on the
balance of the season. Do both you and Ben feel the same about going into this
next weekend here?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Yeah, I mean, I don't know what we're going to get. We're
making another adjustment into the correct direction. It's not like we're
going back to Indy GP just yet where we have an idea how to change the car.
We are heading in the direction that we want to. Whether we get there when we
roll out or we get there throughout the weekend is going to be kind of up to
us to push the engineers in the right direction.
Also you don't really know what you're getting with the street course because
it is kind of new for everybody. It's a hard one.
But I do feel more confident and comfortable going into this road course than
I have St. Pete and Long Beach.
Q. I would like to ask you about your race, very good race. How do you rate
your race and your team on a scale of 1 to 10 and why?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Oh, man, honestly it was a 9.5. You're just missing the win
with the rings. Everybody performed flawlessly all month long. We were fast
come Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Friday we had a
hiccup, which was interesting, but we recovered really well going into Sunday.
Even the way we picked our race downforce, ran the race, I mean, all the way
from the safe on the last pit stop with catching the tire before it rolled out
into pit lane, all those things, you're looking at a well-strategized
basically perfectly executed 500 run with the exception of the last red flag.
It's very hard to say that there's much that I would have changed throughout
that month.
Q. What is more important to you, this third place on the 500 or win another
race of the calendar?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: The third at this 500 was really important to me. I think it
was my first INDYCAR podium. It was something that we really needed to see for
the sponsors, for ABC, for Homes For Troops. It's really hard to knock this
finishing in the top three of this race for anything else.
Obviously still elusive to my first win. Would have been pretty cool to happen
at the Speedway to have my first win in the series there of all places. I
think we definitely will have opportunities to win some races later this year,
especially races like Iowa and Gateway because I do think we have a solid oval
program.
Yeah, no, hopefully I get that checked off the list as well. That third at
Indy is going to be something I cherish for a long time.
Q. You mentioned A.J. was maybe one of a couple people that understood what
you were going through after the race. What did he say to you? Did he have any
really wise words for you?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: I mean, he just said he was really proud of me, really happy
with what we accomplished. He said third is honestly not that bad in the big
picture of things. Having himself finishing third numerous times, second, I
think he knows that I'll win this race, and he knows that I work really hard.
It's just one of those things, basically you did everything you could. I drove
one hell of a race. It's a lot to be positive on. There's nothing to be
disappointed about. To just move on forward, we got the rest of the season,
come back next year and attempt to do it again.
Q. Anything could have happened. Third is not bad.
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Yes.
Q. By association a lot of people put A.J. Foyt and Tony Stewart in kind of
the same conversation. Did Tony before the race or after the race reach out to
you to say anything about the race?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Funny enough, his dad. I'm actually pretty close to his dad,
too. Tony is probably pretty busy with the Coke 600 and all that. I know he
watched. I actually do need to reach out to him and see what he's doing.
I grew up watching him, idolizing him. Because A.J. is a little bit pre my
time. Just to carry on that 14, I don't want to say it's that persona that
comes with it because I am myself and my own person, but I do think I fit the
14 very well.
I'm still missing a few race wins and championships, but I'm sure we'll get
there.
Q. I want to talk about this track. You mentioned nobody has raced on it. You
mentioned you have no sim experience on this. What differences are you
expecting heading into this weekend compared to Belle Isle? Is there any
differences you're expecting from looking at the track layout?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Yeah, I think this track is actually going to run a little
bit more like Long Beach in a sense than Belle Isle. Belle Isle is challenging
because it was multiple different types of pavement, concrete, old stuff, new
stuff. It was like a blend of everything. Versus this track, they repaved most
of the city, changed everything.
This is actually a pretty wide street course, believe it or not. This is going
to be really fast. Might run more like a race that was pre my time in this
series, might run more like Baltimore or Houston.
I'm excited for the dual pit lane. I haven't seen that before. I think that
will really change things up. I just hope we get the race distance right with
the strategy. I trust Firestone to do the right thing with the tires so we
have some tire deg as well, which is kind of huge.
There's so many unknowns going into this event, the one thing we know will be
different is pits.
Q. As a driver, you try to focus on yourself heading into a weekend. Will you
be keeping an eye on the INDY NXT to get an idea how the track races?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Yeah, we'll probably definitely watch the series that are
with us that weekend to get an idea because you'll be able to see the bumps.
Those cars are sports cars. The INDY NXT series are low cars. It's just one of
those things that where our tire compounds are so different to everybody else,
it will be unique in a sense.
It will be cool to see how people are passing each other.
Q. It looks like a fast layout. Are you expecting a fuel saving race this
weekend or do you think it's going to be a flat-out race from start to finish?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: I actually don't know. I think it can go either way. To be
honest with you, when we ran Nashville, Nashville was just such a chaotic race
for everybody because it was a new track, but also it's almost like really
(indiscernible) type of how small that track is for our cars. They didn't make
that mistake with Detroit. It's wide open, a massive track.
I think it's going to be a fantastic race. I don't know if fuel saving is
going to play a part. That's kind of like INDYCAR, cars are running for a
number. That's kind of what made Detroit an interesting fuel race. If you can
make the alternate tire last, and if you can make it in two stops, but you're
making a pretty hefty fuel number.
I'll be curious to see what we get for mileage and what we predict. Then again
it's always different, we don't know the track, but it should be a lot of fun.
Q. Podium is a pretty big landmark in your INDYCAR career. Looking back, how
much do you feel you've progressed as a driver? Do you think each time you
changed teams has helped you learn different things off people?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Europe, they don't change the car. You show up in a team,
Hey, go drive this. We'll change the front sway bar a little bit. They don't
adapt. It was tough for me as a driver because I like a very loose race car.
No, going through all the different teams in INDYCAR has definitely helped me.
Being part-time for a couple years definitely hurt a little bit compared to
some of the full-time drivers having progressed. We were really starting to
become a good racer during the Rahal year.
I think things were starting to click for me in my third season. To have
another full-time season, it was a bit off the back foot to start, but I'm
definitely getting back to where I was really comfortable like I was in '21.
I'm driving a lot better.
I think I make a lot of good decisions on track, too, to finish these races.
My rookie year, I did have three fourth-place finishes. I've been really close
to the podium a bunch of times. So to finally check that off the list,
especially at the Indy Speedway, it was huge. Next one is the win for me.
Continuing on the trajectory that I am, I'll definitely be able to accomplish
that this year. Just hoping to be in the right place at the right time because
it's just one of those things where the series is so competitive that even
though we're really good at the 500, we ran up front all day, you still don't
win the race. You have to remember you have to do the same type of race at
every other track because they're all very long, they're all very tough, and
there's always about 10 or 12 cars that can show up to win.
[ht: FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports]
This weekend's first time downtown street course race, the Chevrolet Detroit
Grand Prix, marks the balance of what is now an eleven race championship
season and the world begins anew for many drivers ... but the spotlight will
be clearly focused on the fortunes of Santino Ferrucci in the No. 14
and Benjamin Pederson in the No. 55 both powered by the naming sponsor
Chevrolet of AJ Foyt Racing as led by
Technical Director Michael Cannon.
The Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix, which will be held on the streets of
downtown Detroit, marks the return of NTT INDYCAR SERIES racing to the city
after a hiatus since 1991 - on a completely new temporary circuit. The event
will be broadcast on NBC at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, June 4, with a simulstream
available on Peacock. Fans can also follow the race through various radio
coverage options, including the INDYCAR Radio Network, SiriusXM INDYCAR Nation
160, and SiriusXM NBC Sports Audio 85. Additionally, live coverage will be
accessible on racecontrol.indycar.com and the INDYCAR App powered by NTT DATA.
... notes from
The EDJE
FEATURED ARTICLE >>>
TAGS:
Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix, INDY500, Santino Ferrucci, Michael Cannon,
AJ Foyt Racing, Craig Baranouski, ZOOM Call, NTT INDYCAR SERIES,
Chevrolet, The EDJE
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