F1 test driver Ferrucci aces IndyCar transition
He reminds Pancho Carter of Sam Hornish on an oval. Michael Cannon thinks he favors A.J. Allmendinger in the talent department. And Dale Coyne isn’t sure who to compare his resplendent rookie to, but he knows they don’t come along very often.
Nineteen races into his NTT IndyCar Series career, it’s safe to say Santino Ferrucci has made quite an impression on his spotter, his engineer and his car owner, along with making a whole lot of new fans with his aggressive style and perpetual smile.
All of Ferrucci’s good features were on display Saturday night at Gateway, where he led 97 laps and could have scored his initial victory with a little help from the caution gods and a better final pit stop.
As it was, he showed his rear wing to the Big 3 most of the evening and made his usual assortment of passes and saves before having to settle for fourth place in his Cly-Del Honda. But for a driver who is just 21 and was a virtual unknown prior to 2019, Ferrucci has been the most pleasant surprise of the season. Even if his team had no clue about him.
“With that name, I thought he was a foreigner,” chuckled Carter, the former USAC champion and IndyCar regular who spots for Santino on the ovals.
“Never heard of him,” said Cannon, who has helped develop Patrick Carpentier, Mario Dominguez, Simona de Silvestro, Ed Jones, Conor Daly and Allmendinger.
“We looked at his resume and it was OK,” said Coyne, breaking into a grin. “But it didn’t look like this.”
What it’s looked like is a kid who has completed all 1,897 laps of competition, never crashed, probably passed more cars than anyone else, captured Rookie of the Year honors at the Indianapolis 500, and raced hard and clean with his peers.
Yet it’s his prowess on ovals, on which he’d never turned a wheel on until last May, that has made this former Formula One test driver such a surprising story. Asked if recalled anyone from a road racing background catching on to ovals any quicker, Carter didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, Sam,” he said of the 2006 Indy 500 winner and three-time IRL champ who became the master of the 1.5-mile ovals in the days of pack racing.
“Santino reminds me a lot of Sam, because he’s brave enough to go to the outside. Sam always ran a little higher to keep that part of the outside groove dusted off, and then he could keep one wing in clean air and make a run. Santino did that on Saturday night but late in the race couldn’t keep the outside dusted off by himself.”
Coyne adds: “The big surprise is how good he’s done on ovals . ... Oval racing is a state of mind. He’s carefree about it; that’s what you’ve got to be. Try to analyze, go nowhere. Got to feel what’s all around you.”
Cannon marvels at the Connecticut native’s simplicity. “He’s delightful to work with. He listens, and you tell him something in passing, and it sticks. We went to Pocono with a baseline setup and made two tiny changes, and that was it. We came here and made one change all weekend. I can go sit in a corner and take a nap.”
Carter agrees. “He’s always asking questions and he listens.”
It was quite a tribute to Coyne’s little team that Ferrucci and Sebastien Bourdais were running 1-2 and pulling away halfway though Saturday night’s race.
But Ferrucci’s driving was complimented at Indy, Texas and Pocono, and he leads the rookie points standings with two races remaining.
Coyne, who says he wants to re-sign Ferrucci for 2020, gave the kid a chance and is being rewarded with one of his most enjoyable seasons in four decades. “He’s a great kid, and it’s been a lot of fun. He was the class of the field (at Gateway). We just didn’t get the win.”