DETROIT (June 2, 2024) -- Chaos! There is no other way to describe what took place on the streets of Detroit today! The 100-lap race was slowed by 47 laps of caution due to eight incidents of contact involving 22 drivers - some of whom were involved in multiple incidents.
When the checkered fell, it was Scott Dixon, aka "The Iceman," who prevailed amidst the chaos to win his 58th NTT INDYCAR Series race. Contributing to the craziness was a brief rain shower prompting most of the field to pit for rain tires (after just having pitted for slicks) and then pitting again because the track dried sufficiently for slicks.
Santino Ferrucci, who had an adventurous race that started on lap 1 when he got caught in a seven-car tangle and went from starting 10th to 20th, pulled out a ninth-place finish in the Sexton Properties Chevrolet maintain his 12th place in the driver standings.
On lap 15, Ferrucci tagged Helio Castroneves after hitting a bump in the track and Castroneves spun which was compounded by rookie Kyffin Simpson running into him having no place to escape. Ferrucci received a stop and go penalty for avoidable contact but kept his nose clean for the rest of the race, avoiding another close call in the middle stages of the race.
He was able to capitalize on the misfortunes of others which included four drivers who started in the Firestone Fast 6. Savvy pit strategy contributed to his fourth top-10 finish in six starts which is the best start to the season since the days when Takuma Sato drove for the team.
“First off, I really want to apologize to Helio (Castroneves)," said Ferrucci after climbing from the Sexton Properties Chevrolet. "That’s one of my closest friends in racing and we blatantly got into the back of him and ruined his day and for all of those guys, so I’m sorry for that. For us, hell of a rebound getting wrecked at the start, to a stop and go penalty, back to last twice, the rain. I mean, helluva strategy on the stand from the boys to put us back into ninth. I’m just really proud of this Sexton Properties Chevrolet team. It was a solid race day considering all of the emotions of this weekend, and can’t wait to get on to Road America.”
Sting Ray chats with race strategist Craig Brooks (L) and race engineer Mike Armbrester.
Sting Ray Robb had one of his best races of the season going in the No. 41 Goodheart.vet/Pray.com Chevrolet. He had avoided the carnage on lap 1 to advance from 23rd to 16th. He ran in the top 16 for a good part of the race and was running 14th when he was punted by Scott McLaughlin (who was a lap down from an earlier incident) on lap 63. Getting restarted took a while and Robb lost a lap in the process. He finished 21st.
"Wow! That was a crazy race!" said Robb. "I don't know if you could ask for more craziness in one event. We went to the front, to the back, to the front, to the back. Unfortunately, our race was hampered by not necessarily a miss-call, but a hindsight call. We should have stayed out when it rained. Then we had contact with the wall with a little help from another car which didn't help us. I couldn't get it restarted fast enough to get back on the lead lap. So, if we had done that, we would have finished top-12/top-10. Look where our teammate was, we weren't far behind. So, it's really unfortunate about what could have been, but I'm really proud of the pace we had, and we had really good pit stops. I'm really looking forward to Road America."
Following Dixon across the line were Marcus Ericsson, Marcus Armstrong, Kyle Kirkwood and Alexander Rossi.
Teams head to Road America this week for the XPEL Grand Prix which will be broadcast by NBC on Sunday, June 9 starting at 3:30 p.m. ET.
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