On the first day of practice for the Indianapolis 500, Santino Ferrucci put his AJ Foyt Racing Chevy into the third spot on the timing charts.
The result was a bit unexpected, even among the team, because they struggled to find balance on the #14 entry during the open test day last month.
But that all changed as soon as the car rolled off the truck earlier this week, and the car has been on rails from the outset.
He was only fractionally slower than Takuma Sato and Scott Dixon at the top the charts on the opening day, both of whom have won the Indy 500 before.
“We weren’t strong on the open test at all, but we didn’t really have everything together,” said Ferrucci.
“To have all that extra day, especially the rain day yesterday to roll out today and to immediately just be comfortable was really, really nice. I haven’t been this comfortable in a couple of years.
“Honestly, we were looking for a tow lap like everybody else. What I didn’t expect was to be passing people in that lap, and to be able to follow as closely as we did.
“No, I’m pretty comfortable, and this is definitely a car that I can see not needing too much adjustments for next Sunday.
“I think was a huge relief because we didn’t really know what we were going to have, and to just roll out and be straight comfortable, I don’t feel like that’s something we’re going to lose this month.
“I think the team is really proud of themselves. I’m really proud of the team. We’ll just keep the Homes for Troops car up there.”
Ferrucci has competed in the Indy 500 four times, and has finished in the top 10 every one of those races.
This year with AJ Foyt Racing marks the fourth different team under which he is contesting the famous race, and if his comfort level is already this high, he may well earn a fifth top 10 next weekend.
