Austin, Texas (March 23, 2019) – Dale Coyne Racing Rookie Santino Ferrucci reached his goal of making it into the second round of qualifying on Saturday and registered his best starting position in the NTT IndyCar Series with an 11th place on the grid for Sunday’s INDYCAR Classic at Circuit of the Americas.
Ferrucci initially went out in Group 1 for Round 1 of qualifying and registered a fastest lap of 1:46.6126 on his fourth timed lap which placed him fourth in his group and allowed him to move on to the second round of qualifying for the first time in his NTT IndyCar Series career.
The team used a different strategy in Round 2 and elected to head out on a set of Firestone Alternate tires with about nine minutes remaining in the 12-minute session. While Ferrucci registered a best lap of 1:47.3956 on his first timed lap around the 3.41-mile, 20-turn road course and sat atop the time sheets for most of the session, it would only be good enough for 11th when all cars had taken the checkered flag.
“It’s nice to finally make it to Round 2 of qualifying with our #19 David Yurman Honda,” said Ferrucci. “That was our goal today. The team did a fantastic job. When we tested here at COTA last month, we were always inside of the Top 10 but in practice here on Friday we were struggling quite a bit. So, to bounce back from that before the start of the race and to be starting more than halfway up from where I started at the first race of the season is really encouraging heading into tomorrow. Now the goal is to keep moving forward and to pick up more points for us in the race.”
The second race of the 2019 NTT IndyCar Series season will be broadcast live on NBCSN from 1:00pm ET (noon local) on Sunday, March 24, with the green flag scheduled for 1:43pm ET (12:43pm local).
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