Salinas, CA (September 21, 2019) – Dale Coyne Racing rookie Santino Ferrucci made it to the Fast 12 on Saturday during qualifying for the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey and will be starting the final round of the NTT IndyCar Series in 12th.
After placing sixth on the combined practice report, Ferrucci was hopeful heading into qualifying at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The 21-year-old driver went out in Group 2 of qualifying and jumped up to fifth on his final lap of the 10-minute session with a lap time of 1:10.72, which allowed him to move on to Round 2 of qualifying for the third time this season.
In Round 2, the rookie wasn’t as unfortunate. While he had the speed to move on to the Firestone Fast 6, Ferrucci went off track in Turn 6 and had to settle with a 12th place on the starting grid with a lap time of 1:12.4137.
“I’m disappointed with our qualifying effort today,” expressed Ferrucci. “The #19 Cly-Del Manufacturing car has been good all weekend and while it was nice to make it into the Fast 12, we had a car capable of moving on to the Firestone Fast 6. Everything was going well, and we were working on a good lap, but I went off track in Turn 6 and that cost us our chance to advance. We’ll have some work to do tomorrow to move up, but we’ll do our best to end the season with a strong result.”
Ferrucci currently sits second in the Rookie of the Year standings, 26 points out of first place.
The last race of the NTT IndyCar Series season will be broadcast live on NBC starting at 11:30am local time (2:30pm ET) on Sunday, September 22.
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