Ferrucci fired up after Barber bravura

03/05/2024 21:25

Santino Ferrucci drove like his career depended on securing a top-10 finish at Barber Motorsports Park. His No. 14 A.J. Foyt Racing Chevy had more than a few scuff marks and divots on its flanks after multiple bouts of contact — most notably with championship leader Colton Herta — on the way to the Connecticut product's run to seventh on Sunday.

"It feels good," Ferrucci told RACER. "We’ve been off to a rocky start in some sessions, to say the least, and it’s been a lot of learning. We’re learning to get the sustained full potential out of everything. St. Pete was great. We missed FP2 though, which hurt us in qualifying, but I had a good race car.

"At Long Beach, we didn’t really practice at all because of technical issues. So things that were more out of our control in St. Pete, we were just on the wrong strategy at Long Beach. This weekend at Barber, we missed it again in qualifying but we just had a really strong race car. And I’m kind of sick and tired of being pushed around."

Barber was a perfect example of how Ferrucci might be among the smallest drivers in physical stature, but behind the steering wheel, he isn't afraid to take the gloves off and give his rivals the business.

"I was a little flustered in the warmup when Grosjean hit us for no reason whatsoever in Turn 5," he said of the corner where his No. 14 moved or was moved by others in the race. "So I was like, 'Well, if that’s how we’re racing today, I know I’m faster. I know I have a better car than most of the people that I’m gonna be starting around. I know what we were capable of. I might as well roll up the sleeves a little bit.'

"I’m not going to not challenge just because people think that it’s a clean sport. It’s very much not. It’s now almost impossible to pass because it’s so competitive and so tight. When you do make them, you need to put full commitment. You can’t half-ass it like you saw a lot of as well on Sunday. I took a very calculated approach, where I knew people were on different strategies and I knew where people were lifting. I knew my car’s potential. And I exploited everything to the max."

Ferrucci raised his hand on the roughhousing with Herta, who ended up finishing one spot behind the No. 14 Chevy in eighth.

"The Herta thing was quite strange, I’m not gonna lie. That one, probably not among my proudest moments," he admitted. "Turn 1, he braked, I’m gonna assume because when he went off the track in Turn 17 your tires going into Turn 1 have dirt on them, and they’re not going to have the same grip. So to be perfectly honest with you, in my case, at the incoming rate that I had, it was way easier just to send it up the inside because the gap in the space was there and the hole to make the pass was there.

"I was putting my front wheel almost into his front wheel. He turned in because he saw me and you can see him turn in and turn out. And I was like, 'You know, two can play this game.' So that’s why the pass back on him (at Turn 5) was as aggressive as it was. It was more of saying, 'Look, I’m quicker, so chill out a little bit.'"

With finishes of ninth at St. Petersburg, 21st at Long Beach, and seventh at Barber, the Foyt team and its lead car and driver enters the month of May with its strongest position in the championship since 2016 when Takuma Sato held seventh in the standings after three races. Sitting 10th, Ferrucci credits many people for Foyt's surprisingly strong start to 2024, including team principal Larry Foyt and technical director Michael Cannon.

"It’s kind of funny for both myself and Cannon when we came here, because we told Larry, 'Look, it’s gonna take a little bit of work to get it right,'" he said. "But for clarity, look at Arrow McLaren when they changed over from Schmidt Peterson and it took them a couple of years to really get that program up and going. Nothing ever happens overnight. And to see all the mechanics working as hard as they are, the engineers, and everybody pushing to be in the top 10 to start the year is really gratifying.

"I’m really, really, really proud of Larry, because it really takes someone to believe in a company, it takes the owner to really completely believe that we want to change, and to really believe in me and to believe in everybody that we have to do that. He’s done a phenomenal job making that a reality."