Santino Ferrucci in the No.14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet which carried a tribute livery to Marlyne Sexton scored his career best permanent road course result with a brilliant drive to third at the XPEL Grand Prix of Road America.
Ferrucci came from 18th to finish on the podium, his second in three races.
All I could think about to myself is that we are doing this for Marlyne. “They were counting down the laps, and I told Mike (strategist Armbrester) I’ve got to focus because this is getting stressful and just let me drive. The crew did an amazing job – awesome job on stops. And, I stalled it too! Even with the stall, to come back and finish how we did was pretty amazing. This one goes to Marlyne. She was running with us today. I’m very proud. This one tastes a little bit sweeter.”
David Malukas started seventh and came home in 12th, speaking following the action he said:
I had an incident at the start of the race that put us in the back, but, man, I couldn’t believe it. That was probably one of the most chaotic races I’ve ever been a part of, and it was a lot of fun,” Malukas said laughing. “I had no idea what was going on. I was really hot, and around lap 35 I was hallucinating from the heat and seeing bears in the carousel. I’m just joking, maybe not, but yeah, it was a lot of heat, a lot of fun, a lot of passing, and we finished right where we started. So good recovery, really good job from the team and the entire crew at the No. 4 Clarience Technologies Chevy.”
Larry Foyt, President of AJ Foyt Racing said:
“Wow, what a special day and a very emotional day paying tribute to Marlyne Sexton. “Her daughters Tracy (Copeland) and Nicole (Sexton) surprised us by showing up today for the race and that just really added to the gravity of it. It was more than just an Indy car race for us today.
“It was definitely an up-and-down day with the 4 car spinning on the first lap and having to go to the back of the field. Then we had the stall in the pits on the 14 car and it looked like at the halfway point that it just wasn’t going to be our day. But what I love about this team right now is nobody gives up and we just keep fighting!
“As for the 14 car, I can’t say enough about the engineers just nailing the strategy and Santino doing an amazing job to hit the fuel number. “The car literally was on fumes as it crossed the line, but it just shows how on top of it the guys were and they just nailed it and came home with a podium. That was amazing.
Ferrucci has moved up to ninth in the championship.