AJ Foyt driver Santino Ferrucci finishes in 11th place.
At the third round of the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season, the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, Santino Ferrucci could end in 11th place, the best finish for AJ Foyt’s team this season. His teammate, rookie Benjamin Pedersen, could only finish 24th, three laps down.
Ferrucci had a solid race. He started 18th and could avoid Helio Castroneves’ spin just in front of him. He moved up another 3 spots with O’Ward and Dixon’s crash.A great second pit stop by the no. 14 crew made him gain 2 more positions, and he had to defend his 12th to a charging Graham Rahal. He held him off and gained another position on the last couple of corners, as Alexander Rossi’s suspension failure saw the Arrow McLaren driver crash in turn 9.
“Solid day here in Long Beach,” the driver declared. “It’s our first actual result as a team, P11. So, all things considered, I think we did a great job, the team did a great job on pit road — passed a bunch of cars and moved forward for what was a very long green (flag) race.
“I’m worn out, but I’m just happy that we are improving, we look better, and everything feels better, so onto the next one.”
AJ Foyt’s teammate, rookie Benjamin Pedersen, didn’t have a smooth race, as he could only finish in 24th place, three laps down on race winner Kyle Kirkwood.
He had a great start to his Sunday, as he finished 15th on Warmup. But, at the race, he first had a steering wheel issue and had to change it on his pit stop in lap 22.
Due to a miscommunication, he had to serve a drive-through penalty and he went to the runoff at turn 1 on lap 46, almost causing a yellow flag.
He declared after the race: “Unfortunately, not a very smooth race for us. Started out great with our warm up today. We were very competitive, P15. Very honest lap time in terms of how much Push to Pass we used and everything.
“However, in the race we just had a lot of internal issues with a couple of things with the car, etc., and an unfortunate penalty. We’re going to take what we learned and move on. On the bright side, we had very good pace in the race. Top-10 pace for sure. We’ll just keep working really hard and get the little kinks fixed, and onwards to Barber.”
