Six years ago, on Thursday, preparation day for the NTT IndyCar Series weekend, Santino Ferrucci sat in the back of a nondescript administration trailer, the kind you would see on a construction site, in the Portland paddock and talked about the career he wanted to revive in America.
The driver from Woodbury, Connecticut had thoroughly ruined his name and reputation on his way to Formula 1. Boorish behavior and a generally bad attitude towards his Formula 2 teammate Arjun Maini led to him being dropped by his team over the summer. With the door closed in Europe, Ferrucci returned to the United States and rejoined the Dale Coyne Racing team.
He had done well in two races for Coyne in the Detroit doubleheader in June, a month before his Silverstone crash. Ashamed and remorseful, Ferrucci sat in that trailer in September 2018 with two races left for Coyne and spoke of his hope to earn a second chance in the sport – to make IndyCar his home.
Fresh off his first IndyCar Series pole for the AJ Foyt Racing team and seeing his personal sponsor Phoenix Investors grace the sidepods of the No. 14 Chevy for the first time, that more than five-year-old dream began to come true Saturday in Portland.
“That was six years ago, and man, there’s a lot of emotion here,” Ferrucci told RACER. “For people to give me a chance, for me to make it this long in the series, for me to be with this Foyt team, it meant everything to me.”
“Now to get my first pole is the icing on the cake. We’ve struggled with qualifying all year. I think it’s no secret, but the race pace was insane. Now we can get the field green and see what happens.”
It was a career first for his race engineer James Schnabel, whose talents are a perfect match for Ferrucci. Foyt’s technical director Michael Cannon, who joined the team 19 months ago and oversaw the connection with Team Penske in a new technical alliance, has been instrumental in the transformation of the team, which was the worst team in the series in 2022 and now sits 10th in the championship standings in Portland.
Add in its Indianapolis 500-winning chief mechanic Dider Francesia and all the strong players across the No. 14 Chevy program, and the team, like its driver, is the embodiment of how much progress a program can make with the right people and the right support.
“Just working with James has been incredible,” Ferrucci added. “Mike Armbrester and Cannon are just powerhouses. Adam Kolesar is my performance engineer and he’s more than qualified to do what he does. It’s incredible to turn it all around, fight for wins and do that on a consistent basis. Look at next year. It’s just going to be better.”
