By Noah Poser, Staff Writer
Prior to Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix, Santino Ferrucci hadn’t finished runner-up or better in a race of any kind in a decade and Kyffin Simpson had yet to finish in the top five in his INDYCAR career.
Both stats changed after they, along with Marcus Armstrong, were the beneficiaries of a Lap 67 caution that came out just a few laps after they had made their final pit stops of the day.
With the leaders diving into the pit lane under yellow, Ferrucci suddenly found himself leading with Simpson and Armstrong rounding out the podium places with just over 30 laps to go.
“You get that lucky with the yellow flag, I mean any driver will tell you that is perfect positioning, perfect timing, perfect everything,” Ferrucci said. “It’s like the racing gods are looking down on you and in your favor for that, so having something like that…it just makes it all that much better.”
Ferrucci ultimately relinquished the lead to race winner Kyle Kirkwood with 22 laps to go, but after holding off Colton Herta and Will Power, brought it home for a second-place finish, the best of his INDYCAR career.
Simpson and Armstrong ended up crossing the line fifth and sixth, respectively, behind Herta and Power.
For Simpson, it’s the first top five finish of his INDYCAR career and just his second top 10, both coming in the last five races.
“It was a tough race but we made up a lot of spots and did a great job moving forward,” Simpson said in his post-race debrief with CGR socials. “The car was fast all day and we were able to capitalize on that speed thanks to some good strategy by Taylor (Kiel), so great job by those guys and let’s try to keep this momentum rolling.”
Speaking of momentum, few drivers have had more consistent success in Detroit since the track shifted from Belle Isle to the downtown location than Armstrong, Simpson’s former Chip Ganassi Racing teammate.
After finishing eighth in Detroit as a rookie in 2023, he followed it up with his first career podium when he finished third last year.
Ahead of his sixth-place finish this afternoon, Armstrong was optimistic regarding the possibility that he and his team were going to have the cars and camaraderie necessary to run up near the front.
“We’re pretty confident we have a good car here,” Armstrong said during Friday’s media bullpen. “So it’s going to be all about the tiny details. We’re going to help each other out, we’re going to give each other data and we’re going to work our asses off to be up at the front this week.”
The end result?
A third straight top 10 finish in Detroit and Armstrong’s third finish inside the top 10 this season, with his sixth-place finish narrowly beating out a pair of seventh-place finishes earlier in the year to become the new benchmark for his 2025 season.
Next up for Armstrong, as well as Ferrucci and Simpson, is a weekend off for the first time since the end of April.
Then they, along with the rest of the drivers, will head to the first traditional oval of the season at World Wide Technology Raceway, where they’ll be looking to, as Simpson put it, “keep this momentum rolling” for the remainder of the season.