Team Penske made all of the headlines last weekend in St. Petersburg, and rightfully so after Josef Newgarden and his teammates secured first, third, and fourth in the Firestone Grand Prix. They were chased home by Arrow McLaren, Andretti Global, Chip Ganassi Racing, Meyer Shank Racing, Ed Carpenter Racing and, in a welcome development, A.J. Foyt Racing, whose Santino Ferrucci qualified 14th
One year prior, the Foyt team was breaking down its pit equipment and gone from pit lane before the race had reached its halfway point after Ferrucci and former driver Benjamin Pedersen were involved in opening lap crashes, and after that bad start, the rest of the season had more lows than highs.
A solid effort that had Ferrucci’s No. 14 Chevy in the mix with some racing-winning drivers in Rinus VeeKay and Kyle Kirkwood foreshadows what’s possible for Foyt.
“All the way from the st art, we gained a couple of positions and we were just as quick as anybody in that lead group,” Ferrucci told RACER. “At the first stop, we lost a little bit on pit lane, fell a couple of spots back. We made them back up and then we kind of rolled around, we avoided a lot of carnage; I watched some people get punted, avoided those, and we were in a massive fuel-save game and held on there against Kyle.”