Thirty-two days remain between us and the 2024 IndyCar Series season opener from St. Petersburg. Things were better for A.J. Foyt Racing in 2023. Not great, but better, especially considering the team was third in the Indianapolis 500 and showed legitimate pace that could have won the race. However, the season is more than the Indianapolis 500. One great day in May can do a lot for an organization, but 16 uncompetitive days are a more accurate sign of where this team stands.
At First Glance... This is a test for the drivers
Late last season, it was announced A.J. Foyt Racing and Team Penske had agreed to a technical partnership supplying the Foyt team with dampers and providing engineering support. For a team that has long been in the cellar and behind the rest of the teams in the series, this is a shot in the arm for the Foyt organization.
Now, it is on the drivers.
These new parts and support will lift the team up to a certain level. It isn't going to take Foyt from 22nd to second on the grid, but it should be a boost. It should help the drivers. It is on the drivers to perform.
Last year, neither Foyt driver averaged a top 18 finish. There is very little room to go down, but there is a great amount to room to move up into. Can either of its drivers make that move?
Santino Ferrucci stood out as Indianapolis, as he has been accustomed to do on a yearly basis. His results elsewhere were reasonable for Foyt. He did have a few events where he did much better than expected, 11th at Long Beach and 16th at Road America after qualifying 11th are two examples, but he couldn't crack the top twenty at Iowa. He was outside the top twenty at eight races.
Sting Ray Robb did not impress anyone during his rookie season driving for Dale Coyne Racing. Robb had 12 finishes outside the top twenty last season. He didn't have a lead lap finish until the 13th race of the season. He didn't have a top fifteen finish until the final race of the season at Laguna Seca, where he was 12th.
Robb is here mostly because of money, but Benjamin Pedersen had worse results than Robb driving this second Foyt entry last year. There were three drivers between them in the championship. Any change from Pedersen was likely going to be an improvement.
Expectations must be properly set for the Foyt organization. The team isn't going to go from 22nd to second, but this is a team that has had only two driver finish in the top fifteen in the championship since the introduction of the DW12 chassis in 2012. The team hasn't had a top ten championship finisher since 2002.
For Ferrucci, fighting for the top fifteen feels practical. In the Road to Indy, Robb improved in each year he returned to a series. We know he can grow. Growing a significant amount in IndyCar will be his greatest challenge yet.
The equipment will be there. These will not be Penske cars outright, but they should be better than what the team had in previous seasons. If the results are stagnant from 2023, it will say more about the drivers, and it will likely lead to some changes come 2025.
2023 A.J. Foyt Racing Review
Wins: 0
Best Finish: 3rd (Indianapolis 500)
Poles: 0
Best Start: 4th (Indianapolis 500)
Championship Finishes: 19th (Santino Ferrucci), 27th (Benjamin Pedersen)
Santino Ferrucci - #14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
17: Average finish on ovals in 2023
18.2: Average finish on street courses in 2023
19.857: Average finish on road courses in 2023
What does a championship season look like for him?
The Penske parts works wonders from the start and Ferrucci starts with a surprising top ten run in St. Petersburg. Another top ten follows at Long Beach. There is a dip at Barber Motorsports Park, but he is back in the top ten on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
In the Indianapolis 500, this time Ferrucci wins the late battle and comes out ahead of the rest of the field in a somewhat surprising victory. There will be a hangover at Detroit, and Road America will only be a little better, but he is back with a top five at Laguna Seca. A victory in a wet Mid-Ohio race bolsters his confidence before he finishes on the podium and in the top five in the two Iowa race. He closes his pre-Olympic break run with a top ten at Toronto.
Returning from the Olympic break, Ferrucci wins Gateway, he is top ten in Portland, one Milwaukee race he is just outside the top ten, but he cracks the top five in the other. At Nashville, he needs to come up big and he finishes second, but trouble for others means Ferrucci comes from behind and takes a stunning championship by a few points.
What does a realistic season look like for him?
Better but still not extravagant. This could be a season where Ferrucci has three or four top ten finishes. His average finish gets a two or three position bump, and he could get into the top fifteen in the championship. That will be tough. His season lives and dies with the Indianapolis 500. It seems like A.J. Foyt Racing has it set up that way. Ferrucci has five top ten finishes in five Indianapolis 500 starts. Nobody has ever started an Indianapolis 500 career with six consecutive top ten finishes. History is not on his side. Though, a great Indianapolis 500 might not matter.
He was third in last season's Indianapolis 500, with a handful of qualifying points to boot, and he was still only 19th in the championship. Give him 15 more points, the difference between a victory and third, and he would have still only finished 18th in the championship. Even if he had three more top ten finishes, netting him another extra 15-25 points, that still might not be better than 16th or 17th.
Sting Ray Robb - #41 A.J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
0: Races started in the top 20 last season
24.235: Average starting position in 2023, the worst in IndyCar
22.176: Average finish in 2023, the second worst in IndyCar
What does a championship season look like for him?
A flu-bug runs rampant through the IndyCar paddock for the entire season. It is a bug that keeps a driver out for two months at a time. Once one guy gets it, it spreads through a team. It affects everyone but Robb. He is the only driver not to catch it. With every other driver missing anywhere from six to ten races at a time, and with it hitting drivers right as race weekends start, Robb is competing in depleted fields and allows he to amass more points than if the entire grid had been healthy. Due to Robb being the only driver to complete all 17 races and no other driver completing more than 11 races, Robb takes the championship despite not winning a race nor finishing on the podium all season.
What does a realistic season look like for him?
Top twenty feels like a stretch. Robb was 23rd last year and 30 points behind Devlin DeFrancesco in 22nd. Robb was 67 points short of 20th last year. Moving from Dale Coyne Racing to A.J. Foyt Racing might be a marginal improvement, especially with the Penske alliance, but it isn't necessarily a 67-point improvement. The IndyCar grid is tough and at least six full-time drivers are going to finish outside the top twenty.
Nineteen of the 22 drivers that finished ahead of Robb last year are returning, but Linus Lundqvist will now be full-time and driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, Pietro Fittipaldi is in the third Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry, and Christian Rasmussen might be only competing in 12 of 17 races, and Robb has already finished behind a driver that competed in only 12 of 17 races last year, so absenteeism isn't in Robb's favor either.
If Robb can crack the top twenty in the championship, it is great season. At best, we are looking at four or five top fifteen finishes, maybe one goes his way and is a top ten result.
The first round of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season will be the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on March 10. Coverage will begin at noon on NBC and Peacock.
