IndyCar: Content Day 1 – Afternoon Overview Part 2
The NTT IndyCar Series and its drivers assembled in Indianapolis Tuesday for their annual preseason media presentations (called Content Days), to introduce the returning drivers, the new drivers and some exciting new sponsors.
Santino Ferrucci, AJ Foyt Enterprises, #14
Santino Ferrucci is having trouble focusing on the INDYCAR Content Days when he has a Midget car waiting for him to drive at the Chili Bowl Nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“I feel like that’s one of the big things or the big draws that AJ had towards me as a driver when I started was that I’ve done dirt racing, done NASCAR. I want to continue to pursue it.”
“Trust me, if I could channel my inner AJ this week, that would be awesome. I’d like to have 1/1,000 of his dirt knowledge. It would be better than what I’ve got. Yeah, I’ve been in his office and he’s pulled earnings back from the ’50s when they paid out like a dollar for winning races in like this little Manila envelope. It’s so cool. He has so much history with the dirt racing and him being able to share those experiences and stories with me is something that I’ll forever cherish.”
The American was asked about last season and his expectations for this season.
“One of the things from the ’24 season to the ’25 season that will help us, getting that track time, minimizing mistakes. Now you have the engineers overlooking the car here in Indy, making sure that the mechanics are doing everything correct and as guided.”
“It’s just all the meetings are now in house. There’s no one playing telephone tag or if there’s a quick question you don’t have to try and get a hold of somebody and wait and delay. You just walk and switch rooms. Having that is going to be huge.”
“With the Texas shop in Houston, I loved it because it was a three-hour drive from my house, so I was at that shop all the time and I loved going down there. I loved the Waller shop. AJ is always down there, so I got to spend a lot of time with him.”
“So I’m going to miss that side of things now that everything is in Indy, but as far as performance goes, this was a very much needed thing.”
Kyffin Simpson, Chip Ganassi Racing #8
Kyffin Simpson will be starting his second year with Ganassi Racing working with only two teammates instead of five.
“I think last year having five cars was good in a lot of ways because we got a lot of data. I think having five cars at a test is very helpful because you’re able to run through far more test items than you would with three cars.”
“In some ways having five cars is better, but it’s a lot more focus when you downsize to three cars.”
“We’ll see how it goes this year and see how we go when we get to Sebring.”
The 20-year-old is fortunate to drive next to one of the best in IndyCar, Scott Dixon.
“I think Scott is — he’s just so passionate about the sport and passionate about what he’s doing, even though he’s been racing for 20 years. It’s great to see and very motivating, as well.”
“But yeah, just how he conducts himself out of the car, how he puts so much into training and being physically ready for every weekend is great to see.”
“I’m looking forward to getting back to St. Pete and trying to start off a lot stronger than we did last year, but I think I’ve done a little bit of qually sim work over the off-season, and hopefully that will be shown in St. Pete.”
Jacob Abel, Dale Coyne Racing #51
Jacob Abel is the 2024 runner up in the Indy NXT by Firestone Championship and was announced as the DCR #51 driver just yesterday.
“Yeah, it’s amazing. Huge thank you to everyone who’s kind of helped me out in my entire career for making this happen, and particularly Dale and everybody at Dale Coyne Racing.”
“I’m really looking forward to going there and having a full season to build on things and really hopefully gain some momentum throughout the year.”
“I’ve gotten a good relationship with Dale over the past couple of years and he has confidence in me, and that’s something I think that’s really important, and it’s good to feel as a driver. He’s always been kind of confident in my abilities.”
“That’s a good thing for sure, and I think there’s a lot of good things to come with the team, and hopefully, yeah, we’ll be getting some good results.”
” I think it’s certainly a smaller team, but at the end of the day it’s still an INDYCAR team, and there’s a ton of people and a ton of stuff that goes into it.”
“But yeah, I think you get a lot of interaction with Dale, with the team owner himself that you might not get other places. I think he’s always been known for developing young drivers.”
Christian Lundgaard, Arrow McLaren # 7
Christian Lundgaard will be racing this season in a papaya racing suit, for his 4th season in IndyCar. He will be driving a Chevrolet instead of a Honda
“My transition to this team has been very smooth, to be honest. We did a test in October. It was exciting for me to try to feel the car on an oval, obviously, going into the Sebring test, as well, I’m just excited to feel it in different circumstances. But the transition with everybody has been very, very smooth. A lot of familiar faces, a lot of new faces, as well, and I think really that’s the challenge.”
“It’s the first time in my career that I drive for a different team in the same series. That’s the only thing that really takes some getting used to.”
“I received a lot of questions from Chevy at the test at Indy, and I was kind of surprised in some of the differences. There’s obviously a few differences, but there was also some that was not really because of any manufacturer, just because of the car, and a lot of it turns out to kind of translate to just being the philosophy of the cars that were actually different.”
“I think being in a new car with new people, not having the information from the prior year, any data, it’s going to be tough in that sense. Obviously I know my way around, but there’s a lot of tricks and small little fine tunings that I think we all need to nail at the time, and we achieved that prior in some races and some we didn’t.”
“But I think from my own perspective, yes, the ovals are something that I need to improve. Having been in a position where it’s fighting for dear life just to a certain regard just getting the car home, and it’s tough enough to fight other cars out there, I’m excited for that challenge.”
Nolan Seigel, Arrow McLaren #6
Nolan Seigel is looking forward to driving for just one team this season after moving up from the Firestone Indy NXT series last year mid season.
“Last year, I mean, really all year, I’d go to the racetrack, and whether it was I didn’t know if I was racing the next weekend or didn’t know what I was driving or something new came up, there was so much to think about apart from driving the race car.”
“That brought a lot of challenges that I won’t have this year. So I think it’s going to be really nice to know what I have and know what I’m doing and be able to focus on driving the race car instead of focusing on finding a ride for the next weekend or finding a ride in INDYCAR or WEC or IMSA, INDY NXT.”
“I’m really looking forward to this season. We’ve done a lot of work this off-season, and I think I’m really happy with the people that I have on my car. I’m excited about the group that we have on the 6. I can’t wait for St. Pete. It’s been too long.”
“It’s just been good to have time with everyone in the off-season because I started in the busy part of the season and we just didn’t have a lot of time away from the racetrack to get to know each other and to talk.”
“My relationship with Tony and with Pato, those relationships have grown a lot, and they’re both very, very valuable assets for me.”
“Obviously both have a ton of experience at the speedway. Both been very fast at the speedway. I’m looking forward to going back in May.”
“I think that’s the month that I am most looking forward to, and I think it’s going to be a different experience this time around.”
“The goal this season is to be on the podium and win races. It’s an incredibly competitive race series, and it’s by no means easy and every weekend isn’t going to be smooth, but I think if we capitalize on the weekends where we have a strong race car and we’re in the positions that we want to be in, we’re going to have chances to be up front and be celebrating on Sundays.”
Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, #15
Graham Rahal will be in his 19th year in the series and will have his 300th start at WWTR later this season.
“I feel good about the upcoming season. The team has worked exceptionally hard this off-season to be in the position we’re in. It hasn’t been an easy off-season. You’re battling quite a lot with other teams and stuff, fighting for people, trying to just make sure your staffing is full, to be frank.”
“I thought we did a really good job kind of retaining, growing, adding some really key people. Yves Touron who is on my car is phenomenal. I worked with him just one time at Dreyer & Reinbold a bunch of years ago. But he came in and right away dug through out setups and some of that stuff. Has identified quite a bit of things that we need to look into.”
“Todd Malloy has done a great job head of engineering. Brought a lot of structure to us, a lot of organization to the way where we go about our business.”
“I feel a great sense of positivity. We’ve also been able to give a lot of young guys chances to escalate themselves. The chief on the 30, Isaac, young kid, really young guy, he’s going to get his chance to shine. He’s always put the work ethic in. So I’m excited for him and his crew.”
“I feel good about where we’re at, and I think we’ve got really bright days ahead.”
The American was asked about his new teammates, Devlin DeFrancesco and the Firestone Indy NXT champion Louis Foster.
“I’ll just tell you guys that I’ve been ultra impressed with Devlin. I understand what everybody wants to think of him and all these sorts of things, but I’ve told everybody today, he’s the first teammate I have ever had that the minute the signing happened, I received a text message with a list, literally, of items that he wanted help with, that he knew he needed help with, things he knew he had to get better at, that he wanted my advice and guidance to help him improve at. Tire saving, fuel saving, the list kind of went on. I was ultra impressed with that because I don’t think that that’s the common opinion of him.”
“His desire to get better is strong, and I also feel that his efforts to be at the shop almost daily, working out with the boys, being present has been really exceptional. I’m excited for him. I feel like it’s a good opportunity for him to maybe prove himself in a different manner for a lot of people, and hopefully we can help him do that.”
“On the driving side of things, Louis is going to have an uphill battle just with the learning. The speed is not going to be the problem, but pit stops and duration of the race, physicalities of the car over that period of time, all of those things will play a role in this.”
“It’s a great thing we are working with FOX. I mean, you’ve just got to build the stars. You’ve got to build the names. You’ve got to get the notoriety there and all of the things will come together thereafter.”
“To be honest, when I originally saw the script for the Josef Newgarden commercial, I was asked to be a part of it, and I was like, nah, that’s okay, because it was pretty much just a Josef highlight reel, and after i saw it, I was like, that was actually pretty damned good. The Brady part was perfectly timed, all of that sort of stuff.”
“Having Tom Brady in that advertisement validates the whole sport. That’s as big of a name as you’re going to get on an international or national sporting scale.”
“I thought it was phenomenal, and hopefully other drivers will have the opportunity to participate in that as we go down the road.”
Lucille Dust reporting live from Indianapolis