Story By: ANNE FORNORO / AJ FOYT RACING – MADISON, IL – Both Santino Ferrucci and Sting Ray Robb will have their work cut out tomorrow in the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway, the 1.25-mile oval outside of St. Louis.
Ferrucci, who will start 17th in the No. 14 Bommarito Automotive Group Chevrolet, had limited track time in the sole hour-long practice as the team had to sort out several issues during the session.
“Actually, I thought I put together two solid laps,” said Ferrucci. “Driving-wise, I felt very comfortable and very in control, and then I saw the number on the dash, and it was slower than what I had felt we were going for. That’s never a good thing. We have an issue that will take some work to figure out but I’m confident we’ll have a good car for the race.”
Robb, who was encouraged by his 17th quick time in the No. 41 Goodheart Chevrolet in the morning practice, will start 24th in the 260-lapper.
“We were middle of the road,” said a disappointed Robb. “Balance felt great. Car felt very good and consistent. I have a lot of confidence rolling speed into (turns) one and two. I tried to change some stuff up in my driving for (qualifying) and the car just wasn’t there. Conditions did change a little bit, and way more than I was expecting, so that’s a bit frustrating and I feel like we could’ve done a much better job than that. Hopefully, it’s not the worst of the day, but it seemed pretty bad at the end. We’re going to do what we can. This track is very limited on what kind of passing we can do — similar to Iowa it seems like. It seems like a single-lane track right now and the tire (degradation) seems fairly low. Not good for a race to the front.”
Scott McLaughlin won the pole with a two-lap average speed of 179.972mph for his fourth NTT P1 Award of the season and ninth career pole. Behind McLaughlin are Meyer Shank Racing teammates Felix Rosenqvist and David Malukas. Rounding. out the top five were McLaughlin’s teammates Josef Newgarden and Will Power.
The teams will have a final 30-minute practice tonight, preceded by a short high-line practice with the cars split into two groups to rubber in the outside lane in an effort to broaden the track’s traction for tomorrow’s race. The Bommarito 500 will be broadcast by the USA Network starting at 6 p.m. ET Saturday evening.