NEWTON, Iowa (July 13, 2024)--With Parnelli Jones riding near their cockpits, Santino Ferrucci and Sting Ray Robb turned in season-high drives in the Hy-Vee Homefront 250 at Iowa Speedway.
Ferrucci finished sixth after starting eighth in the Sexton Properties Chevrolet while Robb claimed 15th after starting 24th in the Goodheart Chevrolet. Both cars carried Parnelli Jones tribute decals in honor of the 1963 Indy 500 champion and good friend of A.J. Foyt. Jones, 90, passed away June 4th.
The race started and was quickly slowed when David Malukas spun in Turn 2 and collected the cars of Augustin Canapino and Romain Grosjean with Christian Lundgaard also spinning to avoid the cars ahead. None of which restarted.
On the restart, Ferrucci who started eighth and was running seventh when the green waved on lap 19, moved to the outside lane a moment before the green waved. He moved into fifth taking the high line but he incurred a stop and go penalty for getting out of line on a restart before the green flag waved. The penalty dropped him from fifth to 22nd and a lap down when he served the penalty on lap 43.
The frustration came across loud and clear on the radio to the point where race strategist Larry Foyt strongly ordered him to focus forward. When the yellow came out for Graham Rahal's tow-in from Turn 1 on lap 80, Ferrucci got the wave around three laps later and was back on the lead lap albeit in 20th position.
Meanwhile his teammate Robb was running between 12th and 13th having skillfully avoided several incidents in front of him and keeping the current point leader Alex Palou at bay.
Ferrucci worked his way into 15th by the time of the next caution on lap 176. On the next restart, the magic started to happen. In two laps Ferrucci passed cars high and low to go from 15th to 11th.
Another restart after a lap 211 caution (for a tow-in) created another opportunity for Ferrucci who took full advantage -- again passing four cars in two laps to move into seventh.
"Did I get four?" he asked on the radio which Foyt confirmed, saying, "You're P-7. Awesome moves."
Colton Herta half spun causing a caution on lap 224 and on that restart Will Power tagged Pietro Fittipaldi sending him into the wall. Ed Carpenter had nowhere to go and he hit Fittipaldi. Fortunately, no one was injured.
The final restart on lap 238 saw Ferrucci again take the high line to move past Marcus Ericsson into sixth but Rinus Veekay shut the door before Ferrucci could claim fifth.
Santino chats with INDYCAR.com's writer Eric Smith while Tony Donahue films.
"It was pretty awesome job by the team," Ferrucci said. "I think it goes to show the Fourteen's back on the short ovals. We got Parnelli Jones right on the side of us and Godspeed for him and honestly, he was probably driving more of it tonight than I was let's be honest. I was just so fired up. Not in the right headspace, and Boss came on the radio, basically yelling at me to get on with it and do my job. And yeah, he just reminded me I'm one of the best, especially around this track. And we made it happen."
Asked about his moves to pass cars high and low, he explained, "Driving the car at such a high speed when it's so loose with the vibrations, and when you're doing starts and restarts, you're already going slower. You might as well just wheel it there too. So it's not like getting a little sideways and trying to power slide the car around the outside is going to hurt you anymore than say (doing it on) 55-60 lap old tires. So yeah, I just I knew that we were one of the best cars in the second groove and I figured that out real quick at the start. And I just tried to use that completely to my advantage. And, you know, once I got us up to 11th, I knew I could get us up to seventh. And then from there, I thought I could get us to the top five and that's what I tried to do."
Robb, who had been running in the top 13 for most of the race, had problems on the late restarts with his car being too loose. He slipped to 15th.
Sting Ray debriefs with race engineer Mike Armbrester after his 250-lap run.
“Really good day here," the 22-year-old summed up. "Just really disappointed we couldn’t hold on to those spots at the end of the race. We raced to the front really well, and thought we had a top-10 in our sights, just couldn’t hold on to the rears for some reason on those last few restarts. We’ll go back and look and figure out what we need to do for tomorrow. The beautiful thing about this weekend is we get two chances to go forward. Really good points day for us. Super proud of the Goodheart Chevy team, and I think we’re going to be good in the points by the end of the weekend.”
To put the turnaround in perspective, last year Ferrucci started 25th and finished 26th, nine laps down. His teammate last year started 28th and finished 27th, 15 laps down. Tonight's finish is Ferrucci's seventh top-10 in ten races. He is currently tied for 11th in the standings while Robb moved to 21st, also in the Leader's Circle top 22.
Scott McLaughlin won the race after starting second. He grabbed the lead from pole winner Herta on lap 87 and went on to lead the next 164 laps to score his first victory on an oval track in dominant fashion. Pato O'Ward finished second. Rounding out the top five were Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon and Rinus Veekay.
The Hy-Vee One-Step 250 kicks off tomorrow, July 14th at 12 noon ET on NBC.
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