It’s been around 10 years since AJ Foyt Racing or Santino Ferrucci scored a pole position, but they put that right in emphatic fashion at Portland on Saturday. It’s just the latest chapter as both team and driver continue their respective paths to redemption.
At Portland, Will Power, the driver with the most poles in IndyCar ever? Beaten. Alex Palou, the championship leader? Beaten. Christian Lundgaard, an F2 race winner, something Ferrucci didn’t manage? Beaten. Kyle Kirkwood, the driver with the best junior single-seater resume in North American history? Beaten. Graham Rahal, last year’s pole winner? Beaten.
This was no fluke. Ferrucci and Foyt earned this on merit.
It’s six days until the 10th anniversary of Ferrucci’s last pole, in British F3 at Brands Hatch when the 16-year-old rocked up with only hours in the car and put it on pole ahead of a load of drivers who had done 15 races already that year.
How his career has changed since then…
Starting with Foyt though, this is the first pole in over 10 years as its last came with Takuma Sato in 2014 at Detroit in May/June.
For a long time, this has been a team that has struggled to escape the back of the pack or the midfield, with two cars - one run from Indianapolis and one run from Texas - often with a revolving crew of people coming in and out for race weekends. A far cry from the sprawling rival teams with dedicated development departments, windtunnel testing and so on.
If you’re not from the United States, a regular IndyCar reader/viewer or haven’t been around stretching back into the early 1990s, A.J. Foyt (above, left in 1971 - ISC Images & Archives via Getty Images) is still considered by many to be the best driver of all time from any background or championship.
He won four Indy 500s, the Le Mans 24 Hours, the Daytona 500 (the year after the above picture was taken), 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring among other accolades too long for this writer’s word count.
You can trace the architect(s) of the team’s current renaissance back to 2023, when team boss Larry Foyt - who took over in 2014 - signed long-time IndyCar engineer Michael Cannon (above) from Ganassi where he had been Scott Dixon’s engineer, and made him technical director.
Cannon immediately helped turn the team’s fortunes around at Indianapolis - not on his own, but played a major role - in 2023 when it qualified ninth and 11th, and in the race, Ferrucci was a constant threat for victory and finished third.
Cannon knew and told The Race at the time that his focus when coming in during the offseason of 2023 was to take the low-hanging fruit of focusing on the 500 at the detriment of the rest of the calendar, and as it was, Ferrucci didn’t score another top 10 across the season apart from that 500 podium.
Cannon wasn’t/isn't the only hire. He brought respected gearbox builder Rick Pearson from Ganassi, and the team added other key figures like Adam Kolesar as performance engineer from Rahal Letterman Lanigan.
The big change for 2024 was adding to the staff at the team and signing a technical alliance with Penske. Neither party did much to advertise this new relationship, so it was unclear initially what it would entail.
The fact that Ferrucci is now 11th in the standings - Foyt’s last top 10 finish in the drivers’ championship was 2002 - hints at how significant this relationship has become.
There was some friction between the drivers of Penske and Foyt at the 500 as Penske took a big step forward in qualifying this year and some attributed that to help from Foyt, which the Penske drivers weren’t quite in agreement on, but fundamentally I think they’ve all agreed that the partnership has helped both sides.
Foyt especially has benefitted though with its road and street course form.
All that hard work has finally paid off for @SantinoFerrucci!#INDYCAR // @AJFoytRacing pic.twitter.com/s3Jy9pk3vU
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) August 24, 2024
“I hope you were using my set-up,” Power said to Ferrucci while congratulating him, hinting at the level of data being shared between the two.
At the 500, Ferrucci admitted to being on Penske dampers as well, one of the few areas on the IndyCar which is open for development and goes a long way to explaining the competitive advantages and disadvantages between each car. He also claimed the Penske drivers were on his Foyt set-up.
Speaking of set-up, also new this year is James Schnabel as Ferrucci’s race engineer (holding the 'P1' trophy, below).
Schnabel has been at Team Penske since 2014 and his secondment is part of the relationship between the two teams. Among a varied Penske apprenticeship which has included working on sportscars and Australian Supercars remotely, he’s worked on ovals with Josef Newgarden’s team, which is about as good a learning experience as you’ll get.
Didier Francesia (below) embodies those on the team with more experience, the crew chief from near Magny Cours having worked on the Scuderia Italia F1 team when it scored a giant-killing sixth in qualifying for the 1989 United States Grand Prix at Phoenix with Alex Caffi!
With access to Penske parts and equipment, it’s no surprise to see Foyt competing at a higher level than for many years.
What might be a surprise to some is that Ferrucci is spearheading it.
British F3 aside, in the years following Ferrucci has never been a consistent race winner in any series. But when given the chance, he has always been impressive in IndyCar.
It was a place of solace to him in 2018 when he found a permanent home there after his infamous two-race ban in Formula 2 and the end of his career on the F1 ladder.
After those incidents, coincidentally, Portland was his first race back in IndyCar with the Dale Coyne team he would finish 13th in the championship for the following two years before Coyne had a reset after partner Vasser Sullivan left.
He switched to NASCAR to race in the Xfinity Series (below, left - Getty) but picked up a part-time programme with Rahal Letterman Lanigan - ninth, sixth, sixth, 10th, ninth and 11th in that impressive spell in a fourth car - before returning full time with Foyt for 2023 and beyond.
His most impressive contribution to the series is at the 500 - don’t forget, far more important than an IndyCar championship to many people in the paddock - where he has one of the best records in terms of his start to his career there in the event’s history.
He’s had a top 10 in all six of his starts across a range of teams with expectations of front, middle and back of the pack, and consistently delivered.
He may not be a future champion in the series and even a race win would be an incredible feat, but every time someone doubts him or moves him aside, he seems to come back just a bit more resilient and stronger than before.
This pole is extremely timely for Ferrucci as it looks like his future may be under threat again, as the Foyt team has announced David Malukas will join next year.
Before that, the indication was that Foyt wanted to keep Ferrucci and he certainly wants to stay.
The Race understands the Malukas deal comes with some financial aid attached, although that’s not been confirmed publicly. Ferrucci said on Saturday “that news [Malukas joining] is honestly a huge stepping stone for the team, there's a lot behind that”.
On his own chances of returning, Ferrucci said: “I want to stay. That's kind of in the cards here.
“Obviously there's a lot that needs to happen, still a pretty big off-season.
“Getting pole today definitely doesn't hurt.”
There's no doubt A.J. Foyt is a huge fan of Ferrucci, probably in part due to Ferrucci's 500 success, never-give-up attitude and intense, even combative, racing style on track.
He's certainly still never far away from the spotlight, as his duels with Romain Grosjean and his distasteful 'boyfriend' comment aimed at Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood - which he later apologised for - earlier this year showed.
Whatever you make of Ferrucci, he's a character and things are rarely quiet when he's involved.
Back in the present, after the Portland pole, there's still the small matter of the race, and the pedigree of drivers chasing him down to rob Ferrucci of a first series win to go along with that maiden pole.
A Foyt car at the front certainly brings a tantalising prospect in a Penske context too. Today, it cost its driver Power, who is in championship contention with four races to go, a pole position.
Perhaps Penske is weighing those scenarios against a (hopefully) more regular occurrence of Foyt also taking points off Penske’s closest rivals by being much closer to the sharp end of the grid.
Just in terms of numbers, Honda powers more cars on the grid than the Chevrolet used by Penske and Foyt. Having Foyt at the front might occasionally cost it points, but will presumably do the same for its rivals too.
“They could be a great asset to us, taking points from Palou,” Power said when asked about this dilemma by The Race.
Foyt has had the Penske alliance all year, and this is its best road or street qualifying performance since Detroit when it was 10th with Ferrucci, so it would hardly seem accurate to claim this is the start of a driver and team making a regular threat for pole.
Especially when fundamentally, while Foyt has made some excellent personnel hires and this new Penske relationship is fruitful, it still isn’t as well funded or structured as a Penske, Ganassi or Andretti, and just look at McLaren. It’s taking years for it to get to that level and it still isn’t there yet despite huge investment.
But what we can say is that, one milestone at a time, this team just tries to get a little bit better each day.
Perhaps it has found something here that it can replicate in the future.
Sunday is a different beast where pitstops and strategy are as important as race pace. There’s work to do in all areas - Ferucci’s crew is 19th in IndyCar’s pitstop rankings - but it’s shown it can make marginal gains.
Foyt’s last win came the year before at Long Beach with Sato - what an amazing story it would be to end that run.
Foyt scored what may well have been his last road or street course top 10 at Portland in 1990, three years before his eventual retirement, so that would be another interesting element to add to this folklore story.
When it comes to folklore, AJ Foyt’s team has some catching up to do on the driver it’s named after, but Saturday in Portland felt like a step.
