Kyffin Simpson was the top rookie performer on Sunday in St. Petersburg. And while his run to 14th at the finish might not stand out as praiseworthy, the fact that he avoided the kind of mistakes to took out veterans and newcomers alike during the 100-lap contest was impressive.
But the part of the teenager’s IndyCar debut that was hardest to ignore was the blistering lap he fired in towards the end of the race which placed his No. 4 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda second on the day, only behind race-winner Josef Newgarden.
On lap 64, the Team Penske driver clocked a 1m00.6795s lap during his dominating performance, and on lap 88, the kid from the Cayman Islands threw down a 1m00.8779 to show he’s got serious speed to offer.
“It was a great first day,” Simpson told RACER after improving nine positions. “All this weekend, I haven’t been so comfortable in the car, but in the race, I just felt like having lots of consistent laps was going to help me, and I just kept going and getting comfortable with the track. I felt like that all helped a lot. And then by the end, when we got on the alternate [tires], I felt so much confidence to just push and push. I was really happy with the strategy and just having that ability to really push it to the end.”
Simpson’s No. 4 program was loaded with debut experiences as Danielle Shepherd had a successful first event as an IndyCar race engineer, as did Chris Wheeler, who called race strategy for the program after spending more than a decade as a spotter.
“That’s what we were hoping for,” Shepherd said. “We came into it and said, ‘Be good and get your first one under your belt and finish strong.’ And he did that; highest finishing rookie. He has a lot of experience elsewhere, so now we need to build that experience up here.”
Wheeler had a simple plan for Simpson that turned out to be the perfect strategy across the 100-lap contest.
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“There’s a lot of people on pit lane that have been doing this for a lot longer than I have, that would have loved to have Mike O’Gara and Sebastien Bourdais up there helping me,” he said. “It was just one of those things where we thought there’s gonna be some desperation going on, and I think we saw that from a few cars. I had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be a fully-loaded yellow race, like we’ve seen the last couple years. And we just decided, ‘Hey, let’s just keep it basic. Let’s keep it simple. We don’t need to be anything extra here. It’s literally race one of 18 — race one of an IndyCar career. Let’s keep it basic.’
“Kyffin did a great job and did everything we asked of him. Hauled the car from 23rd to 14th and put in the fastest lap of the race, only behind the guy who won. We’re super impressed.”
Simpson’s endurance racing experience was helpful on Sunday as he managed risks when necessary and turned up the speed when the time was right.
“It was pretty tough, especially on the start,” he said. “Colin Braun and I went side by side, all the way from Turn 5 through Turn 9, and it was really tight all through that section at the start, just trying to keep it out of the wall. When I was pushing it at the end, and the tires started to get a little hot, I started to make some mistakes, so then I just had to remind myself to calm down. I had Chris on the radio telling me to calm down and just bring it home. The goal for today was just to finish all the laps, and that’s what we did.”
Wheeler was understandably proud to see how far the reconfigured team has come during the offseason and wants to get back to work once the second event of the year at The Thermal Club later this month.
“A lot of this goes back to all the questions that we’ve heard in the offseason about going to five cars, having some rookies, and we just went to five cars and this rookie driver went from P23 to P14,” he added. “I think that says volumes for all the people that Chip Ganassi Racing that really bought into this program and have dedicated so much to the five cars over the last four or five months. Honestly, I’m kind of bummed that it’s over. I wish we were here doing a doubleheader so we could go again tomorrow with Kyffin, but I’ll have to wait ’til Thermal.”