Legendary team owner AJ Foyt couldn’t hide his delight after Santino Ferrucci in the No.14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet finished the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St Petersburg presented by RP Funding just outside the top ten in eleventh place. Ferrucci, who started the race from 14th place, had a free choice of tire strategy for Sunday’s 100-lap race and stayed out of trouble at the start, worked his way, and, as a result, came home in a well-deserved 14th place.
Speaking from his home in Texas, where he watched the race broadcast on NBC, AJ Foyt said:
It was a wonderful race!
While Ferruci had a great race, Sting Ray Robb in the No.41 Pray.com Chevrolet was disappointed. Team President Larry Foyt confirmed in his post-race comments that Robb had a brake issue.
Speaking following the race, Foyt said:
Overall, a positive start to the season for sure,” said Foyt. “Very proud of the 14 guys and the race Santino drove. He did a really great job saving fuel and keeping up with pace under definitely hot difficult conditions today. It’s a shame for the 41 guys and for Sting Ray that he had the brake issues that put him out of the race. We’ll have to look in and see exactly what happened there and make sure we can fix it going forward. Both guys did a good job on the weekend plus the crews did a good job and the cars were handling nicely for the drivers. There were a lot of positives to take from this weekend and it shows a lot of potential for this season going forward.”
Santino Ferrucci commented on the race saying:
“Obviously a fantastic race day for us,” said Ferrucci. “You know, this event was a little bit more of a qualifying race than it was anything else and starting 14th, we avoided some good carnage early, and moved up a couple of positions. First stop, there was a little bit of a hiccup, lost a couple there, but we made them back. And we just kind of did our own thing. We were in a big fuel save like everybody else. You know, we made it work. We stayed clean. We didn’t touch another car. We didn’t touch the walls all day. And we had a really clean green flag stop. Had a solid restart and we picked up a couple more positions. It was solid way to start the season with the Sexton Properties Chevrolet!”
Sting Ray Robb said:
“It was a tough day today. “The start was not great, but once we settled in, I think that we had better pace than the guys in front of us. And on the first pitstop we made up a couple of spots, which was really good by the crew. We went on a different strategy from the guys in front of us so I think that we were just going to keep moving forward. After the restart, we gained a position, but then we had a brake failure. It’s something I think we’ve been struggling with through the year so far, just getting the brakes too hot. So it’s something to look at. I think that’ll be a little project that we get to do before the next race but for the most part, I think that we’re still heads up. We have a good car and I think that Santino’s performance today showed that we’re capable of doing a lot better than what we did. We’re looking forward to the next one with the Pray.com Chevrolet.”
Next up for the Foyt team is the $1 million Challenge at The Thermal Club.