In the wake of the announcement of Sting Ray Robb as A.J. Foyt Enterprises’ newest driver, the situation on the car’s driver from last year — Benjamin Pedersen — hasn’t been clarified yet.
Both Robb and team president Larry Foyt, grandson of the team’s namesake A.J. Foyt, were present at a media session yesterday that included Pit Debrief. The latter remained tight-lipped about the Danish-American driver, who finished 23rd in the championship last season and who was thought to have a contract for 2024.
When asked whether Robb’s announcement to drive the number 41 car would mean that the team’s relation with Pedersen would come to an end, Foyt answered politically: “Not sure about that. We’re sorting all that out. So, yeah, I can’t really speak to that yet.
“Today we’re just talking about Sting Ray. I think, yeah, he probably will run out of Indy shop, which is good. We’re just going back [from number 55] to a number [41] which is more one that we have run in the past. We’re just sticking with that.”
Last year there was a little controversy surrounding the team’s starting numbers, as the original plan was to drive with numbers 14 and 88, A.J. Foyt’s number and his age last year respectively. That combination however has some white supremacist connotations surrounding it, prompting the team to switch to number 55 for the second car.
According to Larry Foyt the plan is still to run a two car operation next season, with the other car of course bearing A.J.’s legendary number 14. Last year the car was driven by Santino Ferrucci, who finished 19th last year.
“Our plan is to stay at two cars. We’re just sorting that out now, working on that. There will be more announcements on that to come.
“Yeah, we’ll keep that to come out in a little bit.”
When pressed on the nature of this announcement, whether that would be the driver for the 14 car or something else, Foyt tactically diverted the focus back to his already announced driver, Sting Ray Robb.
“Well, I just have to wait for the announcement. I want to keep today about Sting Ray. Yeah, we’ll announce our other plans at a later date when we get that all sorted out, so…”
