AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci says that the new hybrid system that will be adopted by the NTT INDYCAR SERIES later this season is working just great.
Ferrucci, driver of the No.14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet was in the No.41 Pray.com Chevrolet on Friday as the team conducted hybrid testing on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course on Thursday and Friday.
Speaking during Friday’s lunch break, Ferrucci who has had a great start to his second season with Foyt said:
“I’m using it to start the lap. I’m using it coming off of the banking to hold the car stable under the first initial hit; it’s really easy to lock. For all of your corners that are slightly more than 90 degrees where you have entry and stability to a front wash, the way you can transition in and out of the hybrid you can calm the car down. You’re really using it as a balancing tool, and the energy they’re giving you for a lap, it’s a lot of work to be using it every lap, depleting it and reusing it, you’re very busy mentally driving the car, not just physically anymore. So I think the races are now very long, very difficult, adding this step is going to add to driver fatigue and you’re going to have to train extra hard on everything that you do. It just needs to become second nature. Right now, for every team in the paddock, how we have the button layout, the steering wheel isn’t exactly fully adapted yet for the hybrid system, so there’s a little bit more thought process going into it. Where my button is, it’s right on my PLC. I’ve hit the PLC numerous times on my lap to deploy the hybrid on numerous laps. It’s going to become easier once we build the steering wheels around the system, but for testing, its honestly working just great.”
Ferrucci also confirmed that he has spoken to Team Penske’s Will Power about the new hybrid system due to Foyt’s technical partnership with Team Penske.
Ferrucci and his teammate Sting Ray Robb will be back on track at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the oval course in less than two weeks for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval course which takes place from April 10-11.