Felipe Drugovich was quick on his NTT IndyCar Series testing debut at Barber Motorsports Park on Monday; the 2022 FIA Formula 2 champion turning an unofficial best lap of 1m07.631s in the No. 11 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.
The Aston Martin F1 test and reserve driver completed 129 laps once the fog lifted, and he was joined on the day by Andretti Global’s Jamie Chadwick who made her IndyCar testing debut in the No. 25 Honda. The three-time W Series champion and first-time Indy NXT race winner in 2024 with Andretti posted a best lap of 1m08.687s, which came on her 81st of 87 laps.
As a point of comparison, Ganassi’s reigning champion Alex Palou set a marker of 1m07.9s using the hybrid car at a previous test.
Drugovich set an early best of 1m08.017s while Chadwick laid down an initial benchmark of 1m09.400s before lowering it to a 1m09.356s and eventually the 1m08.687s that stood as her quickest lap. Drugovich put in the 1m07.631s run on his 110th lap.
“He did a great job for us timing,” Ganassi performance director Chris Simmons told RACER. “He was quite competitive. It’s one of the most physical tracks to go to, and Felipe looked like he could do another 100 laps on top of 100-plus he already did. Says a lot about his fitness.
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“You never know what you’re going to get on an evaluation day, but luckily, his feedback was good and he was up to speed pretty quickly, so we’re able to run through some test items, some things that were probably good for him to feel, and some things for us to try out. We learned a little bit for ourselves and hopefully a little bit for Honda, and certainly got some good info on Mr. Drugovich for the future.”
Andretti’s chief IndyCar engineer Craig Hampson oversaw Chadwick’s test and was clearly impressed with the Briton.
“You can tell she’s way ahead of the car,” Hampson said. “She knows exactly what it’s doing. Feedback is excellent. Knows what she wants out of the car, so she can guide the engineers to make changes, to try and make it more to her liking. We were able to get through some test items for the team. We were definitely able to get through a bunch of test items for Honda. So that was all very productive.”
As the smallest driver in Indy NXT and IndyCar, the test helped identify the areas where Chadwick can focus her efforts to build more upper body mass and endurance needed to wrangle an IndyCar that’s far heavier than her NXT machine.
“The one thing that she will freely admit that she needs to work on is just the physical assurance required to drive the car, to steer it,” Hampson said. “She was never winded or tired like that. You know, she’s clearly very fit, but she’s smaller in stature, and this is probably our highest physical steering effort track that we go to.
“She had no problem making lap time in the slower speed corners. But there are three high-speed corners here that you can make big chunks of lap time on, and that’s where, she wasn’t able to get the lap time out of the car in those corners. And she knows it, and she was pretty honest about, ‘Hey guys, I’m out of gas here.’ We did do what we could do the car to reduce the steering effort in the high-speed corners, but I’m sure there’s more we could do to help her.
“But I think that was what today was about. ‘What do I have to get my arms and shoulders to be able to drive one of these on a regular basis?’ I don’t think it was a shock to her, because clearly everybody had been warning her. But it’s different hearing about it versus actually experiencing it. She’s certainly not the first driver who has complained about steering effort at Barber. And she knows if she wants to do this as a career within the NTT IndyCar Series, more upper body strength is still required. That’s not a knock on her.”
Chadwick’s extensive open-wheel training in Europe and in NXT over the last two seasons stood out as well to the four-time Champ Car champion race engineer.
“In terms of all the stuff we’re looking for and feedback, not making any mistakes, not stalling the car, not falling off the track, she was perfect with all that stuff,” Hampson said. “You can tell she’s been driving for a number of years in really good environments, because she’s super calm on the radio and with the debriefs, she answers every time you call her on the radio; really professional.
“It was a good day for her as an initial foray to experience the car. Didn’t seem overwhelmed by it in the slightest. Just ran up against a limitation in the high speed corners as to just how much torque you can put into the steering wheel. Without that, you can’t make the commitment that you need to in those corners to get the last bit of lap time, and she’ll work on addressing all of that. She was a pleasure to work with.”
Andretti’s Kyle Kirkwood attended the test to support his teammate, echoed many of Hampson’s sentiments, and sympathized with the punishing nature of the car and track.
“I thought she did really well; I did my first test at Barber and after a couple of runs I was shot,” he said. “Her feedback was phenomenal. Very professional and the way she talks with the team is on the level or better than some top drivers. She did a great a job. She should be proud of herself.”