CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
ONTARIO HONDA DEALERS INDY TORONTO
STREETS OF TORONTO
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA
TEAM CHEVY PRACTICE REPORT
JULY 19, 2024
SANTINO FERRUCCI AND AJ FOYT RACING LED TEAM CHEVY IN FIRST PRACTICE ON THE STREETS OF TORONTO
- Santino Ferrucci, driver of the No. 14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet for AJ Foyt Racing, set the pace for Team Chevy and finished sixth in the first practice on the Streets of Toronto.
- Chevrolet finished the session with four in the top-10, including Ferrucci in sixth, Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi in eighth, and Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden in ninth and 10th, respectively.
- Rossi, driver of the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, made contact with the Turn 8 wall late in first practice resulting in a broken right thumb. Rossi will be unable to compete in Sunday’s Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto. A substitute driver will be announced by Arrow McLaren.
- Saturday sees a second practice session at 10:30 a.m. ET, as well as qualifying and the Firestone Fast Six at 2:45 p.m. ET. Both sessions are broadcast via Peacock, INDYCAR Radio, and SiriusXM Channel 218.
TEAM CHEVY TOP-10 PRACTICE RESULT:
Pos. Driver
6th Santino Ferrucci (01:02.0519)
8th Alexander Rossi (01:02.2747)
9th Scott McLaughlin (01:02.3324)
10th Josef Newgarden (01:02.3361)
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING (Quotes):
Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet:
“First off, I’m thinking about my teammate right now and am just gutted for him. As for the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, it was a tough day. We had a hybrid water coolant issue that we’re still investigating, which meant that we didn’t get to run on the Firestone Alternate tires. It was a tough session; not just for us, but others as well, so we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
Nolan Siegel, No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet:
“It was a bit of a hectic session. The grip was very low at the start, and the track changed quite a bit throughout the session. I think it will continue to evolve through the rest of the weekend. We don’t really know where we’re at, but we will continue to work to get better. Of course, I am thinking about my teammate Alex and am crushed to hear about the injury.”
Alexander Rossi, No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet:
“First of all, I’m very thankful for all the men and women on the INDYCAR medical team and for all the great work they do. I do have a broken right thumb. It’s unfortunate because the injury occurred when I almost made it around the corner and I didn’t want to give up on it, so I didn’t quite get my hands off the wheel in time. However, everyone seems optimistic about the kind of injury it is. We’re going to take the next steps here and get ready for Gateway.”
Gavin Ward, Team Principal at Arrow McLaren:
“We are just gutted for Alex and the entire 7 crew. We’ll do everything we can to support him, and that is really what matters today. We had an issue on Pato’s (O’Ward) car that was related to the hybrid coolant pump. We don’t know the exact details yet, but we’re looking into it. We will focus on getting the most that we can out of the weekend. We continue to race for Bob (Jeffrey), and we will do what we do and carry on.”
Agustin Canapino, No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet:
“We finished today P17. It was a difficult session for our team because we tried some new things, but it was a good lesson. We are going to try and do some changes for tomorrow to improve on how we have the car.”
SANTINO FERRUCCI, NO. 14 SEXTON PROPERTIES AJ FOYT RACING CHEVROLET – End of Day Press Conference:
THE MODERATOR: Currently joined by the sixth-place driver in the practice session, Santino Ferrucci. This will be his third start on the streets of Toronto. Best finish came his rookie year.
Nice start to the weekend for you. Your thoughts.
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Yeah, it’s definitely a solid start. Obviously want to keep that top 10 momentum going for us and the team. It’s very important. Really do love this place. I think I can do quite well here. I’ve had some really good street racing success this year. It’s good to roll out of the trailer and be somewhat competitive.
THE MODERATOR: What is about this place you like so much?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Very flowy. Has the Detroit Belle Isle feel with the chicanes, high-speed corners, some massive brake zones. Track has a lot of character. It’s a lot of fun.
THE MODERATOR: We’ll open it up for questions.
Q. What’s better for AJ Foyt Racing right now than it’s been? What is going the right direction?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Honestly, it’s everything. Continuity as a driver. Engineering, staffing, mechanics. Just talent across the board has been really good. The guys have been real fired up. The mentality is in another place it’s never been before.
Working with Larry (Foyt), he’s really wanted to make a difference in this team. The Team Penske alliance is another big thing. It’s everything that is making a difference. It’s not like all of a sudden we have the Penske alliance and it’s plug-and-play and it’s done.
Like I’ve been telling everybody, if you look at the start of the year, it was really rough. We were nowhere in pre-season testing, terrible in Thermal, not great in Long Beach. All of our testing was abysmal. We found more things that we hated about the car than we actually liked.
Now we’ve put all our minds to it, it’s starting to actually come together. We’re trying to minimize mistakes on every weekend because we have a chance for fighting for top fives. In Iowa last weekend we probably could have fought for the win in race one.
It’s a complete team effort. It’s everybody and everything that’s starting to gel together now.
Q. This circuit was under water just a few days ago. Does it feel, the grip level, dramatically different?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: It’s the cleanest it’s been, to be honest with you. It looks like they came through and scrubbed the place. It’s awesome.
Even walking the track yesterday, most street circuits have time to build, with the traffic in Toronto, the city trying to make it as good for people that live here as possible. Honestly, it’s in great shape.
Happy they repaved the brake zone into eight as well and fixed the bump in the middle of nine or 10. Some really big changes that needed to be done. You don’t often see that in street courses. Happy that the track and the promoters managed to make that happen.
Q. With the hybrid, does it feel like you have to attack the track differently?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Hybrid, we were so scary last year that the car feels amazing right now. I can definitely feel the weight of it moving comparatively to last year.
I mean, going back to 2019, the aeroscreen and all that, all the weight tacked on, is a better reference for me. You can tell the brake zones are a little bit more difficult.
Our car, we’re really struggling with rotation. Actually the first street course where I haven’t had that issue.
No, it’s been great. Honestly the hybrid is changing every weekend for us. You’re learning more with it. I really love the system. I do like the regen for my driving style because I like the nose to be planted off a brake.
I’m always at max regen, always trying to get more out of it.
It’s been fun a lot of fun. There is a lot of tune-ability around it. Indy I was in manual. Here, so busy with your hands on a street course, you’re trying to get the most out of it. It’s obviously a tough thing.
You see struggles on the short oval obviously from qualifying. There’s obviously a lot of unknowns, series trying to overcome a hurdle.
Yeah, what we’re doing, I feel like it’s pretty good.
Q. Obviously group two doesn’t get much running, if any, on the alternates. Group one got all the running. Is there any perfect formula to figure out something with practice so it’s more equal for everyone?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: I think it’s a good job they did with groups. As drivers it’s something we came up with on the off-season. It’s going to work or not. I think it’s way better now than it was. When you have 27 of us 1.9 miles all running green at the same time.
Even though group didn’t get a run in, it’s not great for them. I mean, it’s up to every driver to keep everything in one piece to get the run in, so…
Q. Both drivers had the same incident in turn eight, Rossi and Lundqvist. What is the difficult there? On entry? Under the braking for that?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Braking for me.
Yeah, it’s a bump the wrong way, doesn’t matter, hybrid, no hybrid, new tires, old tires, if you lose it, you lose it, so…
Q. Santino, you gave us more fireworks than anyone last weekend. How did you make that high line work?
SANTINO FERRUCCI: As all of us want to do that high line practice, that’s super important, not just for revving on the track, but getting confidence in your car to go up top.
I tend to run a looser car on the ovals. It benefits more on the top line. I feel like every time, if anyone ever went up there, they understeer and push off, versus for me, I was able to have room on the tools, enough front wing to just kind of go up there and hang it around the fence.
Yeah, I feel like I got a really good feeling around the short oval on the outside lane, and I’m comfortable sliding the car at those speeds. Obviously it will bite you when it bites you.
The scary part about going up there, you have to know who you’re racing. Like (Rinus) VeeKay, for example, trying to fight for the top five. I lifted out of it because I watched him get a wiggle. If I kept pushing the air off of his floor, he probably would have lost it, hit me, took us both off in the wall.
It was a lot of fun. I feel like it’s cool. Also I have never come back from a lap back in race one and finished as well as I’ve done. That’s honestly a big thing of the team, crew, big stops, good balance adjustments.
The first stint in race one, I don’t know if anyone has onboard, I think I crashed three or four times in that stint, and somehow just was praying to pit. Got lucky with the yellows. Pulled three turns of front wing out of it.
No, it was fun. I hope that Iowa either repaves the rest of the track, or like Graham said earlier today, we run more high line practice, because that is one of the best tracks on the calendar. We made it unfortunately one of the most boring races I feel like we’ve had all year.
The track deserves a lot more than that. Hy-Vee deserves a lot more than that. All the fans that come out to bake in the 100-degree sun deserve more than that.
Q. (Question about the difference in time compared to last year.)
SANTINO FERRUCCI: Part of it is due to the repave. The track is quicker. We’re not going to go faster everywhere. There’s no way.
It’s a good car. What’s nice about the series, everyone calls for a new car, right? Our racing is good. With the hybrid, it has changed a little bit. Hasn’t been as great. It’s all about finding the happy medium. Once we get another boost in power or maybe a bigger tire, then I think we’d be fine.
We need all the weight for the safety of the car. Look at Sting Ray’s crash. The dude literally walked away. That’s about as big as it gets nowadays.
THE MODERATOR: Great start to the weekend. Good luck tomorrow.
About Chevrolet
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