Story By: ANNE FORNORO / AJ FOYT RACING – PORTLAND, OR – The No. 14 is back — at the sharp end of the grid!
Santino Ferrucci earned his first career pole in the NTT INDYCAR Series Saturday afternoon at Portland International Raceway in the No. 14 Chevrolet sporting a brand new Phoenix Investors livery. Ferrucci posted the quickest time of the weekend with his lap time of 58.2046 seconds to win his first NTT P1 Award.
“I mean, this is definitely one of the greatest days of my career.” said the 26-year-old Connecticut native. “In qualifying, too, it’s so tight. This series is so incredibly talented. To be doing this today is such a feat for us and the team, and it shows how hard we’ve been working. I can’t thank everybody enough for believing in me.”
Ferrucci advanced out of the first round of qualifying for the third time this season; the first coming at Indianapolis where he started sixth in the Indy 500 and the second time at Detroit where he started 10th.
“Man, I think it’s no secret how hard we’ve been working this year, how hard I’ve been working, Larry (Foyt), our entire staff,” Ferrucci continued. “I mean, my first career pole in an Indy car and I’m not known for being the best qualifier and today, we just felt it. We unrolled off the trailer amazing. It’s been a year of hard work and progression. We’ve showed some real speed at certain times and it feels great to put it together, man. I can’t just thank this entire team enough, Sexton Properties, Phoenix Investors, everybody that’s involved, Chevrolet. We brought it.”
For the Foyt team it was the first pole since 2014 when Takuma Sato won it in the second race in the Detroit doubleheader. They’d also won the pole at the season opener in St. Petersburg that year.
“It’s just awesome,” said Team President Larry Foyt. “I mean, the trajectory where we’ve been headed as a team, it’s just been great. We’ve added so many great people to our group. Santino (Ferrucci) is just getting better all of the time. This is just a testament to everything we’re doing. Thanks to the affiliation with Penske. Certainly, a huge help. Those guys are awesome, but our guys just really delivered today and Santino drove the wheels off. It’ll be good to call dad. It’ll be a fun call for a change. I hope the Sextons were watching because they’re a huge part of this comeback. The Phoenix livery looks beautiful too. It’s great, just a great day.”
Although A.J. was not at the track, he did call in to tell the team congratulations, saying, “We’ve been close before but it’s so close now where they’ve been right there three or four times so I’m just glad it finally happened. I told Larry to tell Santino and the team congratulations because they’ve worked really hard and I’m proud of them.”
Sting Ray Robb was not as happy with his car and will start 25th in the No. 41 Goodheart Chevrolet. “Qualifying was great for the team, seeing Santino in P1 was very exciting,” said Robb, who posted his career best finish of ninth last weekend in St. Louis. “We’re going to his car to try it out in the warmup and see what happens there. Hopefully that will improve it for us and I think that we’ll be in a good spot.”
Michael Cannon, the team’s technical director, who along with a few key hires, first sparked the fire that put the team in the spotlight a year ago at the Indianapolis 500 where Ferrucci finished third, was asked about his role in turning this team around.
“I’m just so blessed to work with so many really good drivers, really great drivers, a lot more great drivers and these great engineers,” replied Cannon. “This has been a 19-month project getting here and I can’t thank Larry (Foyt) enough for giving me this opportunity to build a racing team, Roger Penske and his group, Ron and all the guys there (at Team Penske) with all of the help they’ve been giving us, it’s made a world of difference. We’ve turned this team completely around from tail end Charlie to pole. This is magnificent.”
Asked what this accomplishment today meant to him, Cannon revealed, “Everything. It means everything. I hope A.J. is watching. I hope he’s proud of us. It was what I was hired to do. A lot of us came in here given a blank slate, not necessarily a blank check but a blank slate. To pull this off is remarkable. It’s one of the best days of my 42 years of racing that I can remember. Just truly remarkable, so proud of (this crew), and I’m so glad I could do this for Larry and A.J.”
Ferrucci edged out his Team Penske Alliance “teammate” Will Power who is the record holder for NTT P1 Awards with 70 to his credit. Power, with his lap time of 58.3120 seconds, will start alongside him in the 110-lap race on the 1.964-mile road course. Rounding out the Firestone Fast Six were: Alex Palou, Christian Lundgaard, Kyle Kirkwood and Graham Rahal. There will be a final 30-minute warmup this evening.
Commenting of Ferrucci saying that he’s not a good qualifier, Larry told him, “You can’t say you’re not a good qualifier anymore!”
The BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland will be broadcast on the USA Network starting at 3 p.m. ET. and will be streamed on Peacock.