Portland – Page 2 – Syndication Server

Sonoma brings championship changes for Ferrari Challenge

It was a dramatic day of racing on Saturday at Sonoma Raceway, as qualifying and race sessions for Ferrari Challenge North America yielded unpredictability across all classes. However, the respective race winners found themselves atop the podium in …

Trofeo Pirelli
Starting outside the front row, Jason McCarthy (Wide World Ferrari) lunged at the start of Saturday’s race to beat Roberto Perrina (Ferrari of Seattle) to Turn 1 and the eventual Trofeo Pirelli win. It was McCarthy’s third win of 2024 and he defended Perrina’s efforts to retake the position throughout the race. While Perrina finished runner-up, Dylan Medler (The Collection) finished third with all three drivers winding up within one second at the finish line.

In Trofeo Pirelli Am, it was Tony Davis (Continental AutoSports) continuing his mid-season momentum with his fourth win in five races. Davis started from the pole position, but faced opposition from David Musial Sr. (Ferrari of Lake Forest) even in the final corners. This was Musial’s fourth second-place finish of the season and he held off points leader, Brian Cook (Ferrari of Seattle), in third.

Coppa Shell
The race for Coppa Shell was marred with off-track incidents that ultimately resulted in Yahn Bernier (Ferrari of Seattle) and Jeffrey Nunberg (Ferrari of Central New Jersey) claiming class wins.

Bernier started the race third, but found himself in the lead after the top two cars of Rey Acosta (The Collection) and Chuck Whittal (Ferrari of Central Florida) spun simultaneously, albeit without contact, on the first lap. Meanwhile, Nunberg started from the Coppa Shell Am pole position and kept multiple cars from other classes between his competitors.

Robert McWilliams (Ferrari of Washington) and Eric Marston (Ferrari of Westlake) completed the Coppa Shell podium, while ladies Jerri Walters (Ferrari of Vancouver) and Melissa Kozyra (Ferrari of Naples) – the latter of whom held off a hard-charging points leader in Roger Monteforte (Ferrari of Central New Jersey) – finished second and third in Coppa Shell Am.

488 Challenge Evo
The 488 Challenge Evo race concluded Saturday’s turmoil, with the Coppa Shell results coming down to the final minutes.

Massimo Perrina (Ferrari of Seattle) continued his undefeated stretch of seven poles and seven wins in 2024, finishing ahead of Logan Broughton (Ferrari of Lake Forest) in second and Titus Sherlock (Wide World Ferrari) in third. It was Sherlock’s first podium and first race of the season.

In the Coppa Shell class, however, Matthew Dalton (Ferrari of Long Island) entered the race tied with Gerdas Venslovas in the point standings. While Dalton paced the field after starting from pole, Venslovas tapped Dalton to gain the lead in the final five minutes. Dalton then returned the favor on the next lap, tangling with both cars and taking both from contention, elevating Enoch Hurd (Ferrari of Atlanta) to the win. Stephen Chen (Ferrari of Houston) and Brad Evans (Ferrari of San Antonio) rounded out the class podium.

Sunday schedule
Drivers will qualify once again on Sunday morning for their second of two races at Sonoma. Coppa Shell sees the first green flag for race action at 4:35pm ET, with Trofeo Pirelli at 5:2pm and 488 Challenge concluding the weekend at 6:15 p.m.

All Ferrari Challenge races will stream live on the Ferrari YouTube channel and FerrariRaces.com.

McNeilly completes USF Juniors 2024 finale sweep in Portland

Liam McNeilly fell a little short of his ultimate goal of winning the USF Juniors Presented by Continental Tire championship title, but the Englishman capped an impressive first season of competition in North America Saturday afternoon by completing a sweep of the Continental Tire Grand Prix of Portland tripleheader season finale. McNeilly, from Brentwood, England, tracked down and overtook Jay Howard Driver Development teammate G3 Argyros, from Newport Beach, Calif., then held off a late challenge from VRD Racing’s Sebastian Wheldon to secure his fifth win of the season.

Wheldon took the checkered flag in second for his season-leading ninth podium finish as Argyros rounded out the top three.

Fourteen-year-old Brazilian Leonardo Escorpioni led the field to the green flag, having captured his first Continental Tire Pole Award by virtue of posting the fastest lap in Friday’s second race of the weekend when his Zanella Racing team was one of only a few to gamble on a switch to slick Continental tires as the track began to dry in the closing stages.

A fine getaway on a dry track saw Escorpioni lead confidently around the opening lap, only to run a little deep into the chicane on the back straightaway, which resulted in him running wide onto the grass at the exit and immediately falling to fifth. Outside front row starter Argyros took over the lead as the yellow flags waved following a couple of separate incidents farther down the field.

Argyros continued in the lead at the restart, although teammate McNeilly quickly began to work his way forward after completing the first lap in sixth.

McNeilly slipped past Argyros with a fine move at the end of the back straightaway on lap 10, although instead of an easy run to the finish, he once again had to contend with Wheldon, who remained hot on his heels and never allowed the leader to relax.

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The top two were separated by only a third of a second at the checkered flag, followed by Argyros who claimed his third podium result of the year.

“Coming into Portland we knew it was going to be really tough to win the championship, so the next best thing was to try and win all three races,” McNeilly said. “Ultimately there were just too many things that went wrong this season, whether it was my fault or anyone else’s fault. To win all three races shows what we were capable of this year and the speed that we had in whatever conditions. We’ve just been getting stronger and stronger all throughout this year. USF2000 next year, we’ll see what happens there, but that’s all we could have done this weekend. Big thanks to the team and we’re on to next year now.”

Jack Jeffers, from San Antonio, Texas, took home the Tilton Hard Charger Award after fighting his way through from 12th on the grid to fourth for Exclusive Autosport, narrowly ahead of another 14-year-old, Christian Cameron, from Sonoma, Calif., who enjoyed another strong finish for VRD Racing.

Israel’s Ariel Elkin also posted an impressive drive for the first-year InterMS team. Elkin took the restart at the tail of field in 17th, then fought his way through the pack to finish in sixth.

McNeilly’s performance ensured another PFC Award for Jay Howard as the winning car owner, and cemented his second-place finish in the final points table behind VRD Racing’s Max Taylor, from Hoboken, N.J., who elected to concentrate his efforts on the final USF2000 race of the season after capturing the USF Juniors championship crown yesterday afternoon.

Taylor, 16, will pick up his prize – a scholarship valued at $263,700 to advance along the USF Pro Championships ladder – Sunday evening at the traditional Championship Celebration.

RESULTS

McLaughlin, Simpson latest grid penalty victims at Portland

Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin saw his day go from bad to worse on Saturday as an uncharacteristically poor qualifying run to 14th for the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland was compounded by the need to replace the engine in his No. 3 Chevy. The …

The unapproved engine change will give the New Zealander a fresh 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 powerplant to use for the remainder of the season, but that switch will also come with a six-position penalty, by regulation, and move the No. 3 back to 20th in the grid. Holding a distant fifth in the Drivers’ championship with four races left to go, the Kiwi will need to go on a passing spree on Sunday to minimize the damage in the standings.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyffin Simpson also received a six-spot penalty with his No. 4 Honda; having qualified 25th in the 28-car field, the Cayman Island native will be moved to the back of the field.

Larry Foyt is finally having fun again, and it’s his own doing

Larry Foyt is having fun. For the first time in many years, going to the race track has been an increasingly joyful experience for A.J. Foyt Racing’s team president, and that’s because of the decisions he’s made that have led to one of the sport’s …

Larry Foyt is having fun.

For the first time in many years, going to the race track has been an increasingly joyful experience for A.J. Foyt Racing’s team president, and that’s because of the decisions he’s made that have led to one of the sport’s biggest year-to-year turnarounds.

As a whole, the Foyt team has weathered hard times aplenty as ongoing sponsorship woes and an ever-changing driver lineup saw the NTT IndyCar Series’ oldest team plummet to the bottom of the Entrants’ championship. Pulling the team out of its downward spiral didn’t happen in an instant, but thanks to Foyt’s careful approach, he and his legendary father are reaping the rewards.

It started with hiring championship-winning race engineer Michael Cannon to be the team’s technical director, and then signing Santino Ferrucci to lead the team from the driver’s side.

Together at Dale Coyne Racing in 2019, Cannon and Ferrucci punched well above their weight, finishing 13th in the championship. Once Cannon left for Chip Ganassi Racing in 2020, he won the title with Scott Dixon, and became available late in 2022. His acquisition by Foyt, along with Ferrucci’s, set the team’s turnaround in motion. A new team manager in Craig Brooks was also brought onboard, and he’s well respected within the Foyt family.

By the summer of 2023, Foyt and Team Penske’s Tim Cindric were talking about forming a technical alliance, one that would benefit the Foyt team through the use of Penske dampers, chassis setups, and the assignment of Penske engineering talent in need of an opportunity outside the main three-car Penske operation. Foyt would welcome James Schnabel in from Penske as Ferrucci’s race engineer, and they’ve been wickedly effective in their first season together on the No. 14 Chevy.

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To appreciate the strides Foyt, Ferrucci, and the Penske-assisted effort have made, the No. 14 produced a single top 10 finish last season; in 2024, with a full year to develop as a unit, the squad has delivered seven top 10s and its maiden pole.

“It is just a total testament of where we’ve been headed as a group,” Foyt told RACER. “The engineering department that we’ve put together has been just fantastic. Everybody has been pulling in the same direction, and this is what it comes to. We didn’t really have ourselves winning the pole here, but Santino put together some great laps. The whole team is super excited and it feels great.”

The hardest times started for Foyt at Portland in 2019 when it was confirmed ABC Supply, its primary sponsor of 15 years, would be leaving that role. From 2020 onward, budgets have been precariously thin, but through the care and benevolence of Marlyne Sexton of Sexton Properties, other backers who stepped up, and a number of paying drivers who’ve kept the team afloat through their infusions of money to pilot the second car, AJ Foyt Racing has survived.

Breaking free of survival mode is just part of the reason behind the joy Foyt has felt this season as the No. 14 car, and the No. 41 with Sting Ray Robb, who produced a career-best finish of ninth last weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway, have caused Foyt to smile on a regular basis.

“It’s thanks to some great people that have helped us keep this race team going like Marlyne Sexton; we just couldn’t have done it without that whole family, and it means just so much,” he said. “I can’t wait to call her and talk to her, and can’t wait to call Dad, because it was tough.

“When you’re struggling, it gets hard. It takes a lot of work when things aren’t really going right, but no one on this team gave up and now, it’s a big thanks honestly to our friends at Penske, who’ve been fantastic. We’ve learned a lot and couldn’t have done this without them as well. We’ve just got a great group right now, and hopefully we just keep it going.”

Ferrucci’s pole shows what a difference six years can make

Six years ago in the Portland paddock, on the Thursday setup day for the NTT IndyCar Series weekend, Santino Ferrucci sat in the back of a nondescript administration trailer, the kind you’d see on a construction site, and spoke about the career he …

The Woodbury, Connecticut native had done a thorough job of ruining his name and reputation while chasing the dream of reaching Formula 1. Boorish behavior and a generally bad attitude towards his Formula 2 teammate Arjun Maini led to being dropped by his team during the summer, and with the door closed in Europe, Ferrucci headed back to the U.S. and reconnected with the Dale Coyne Racing team.

He’d done two races for Coyne at the Detroit doubleheader in June, a month prior to his meltdown in Silverstone, and shown well. Embarrassed and remorseful, Ferrucci sat in that trailer in September of 2018 with two more races to run for Coyne and spoke of hoping to earn a second chance in the sport. And namely, to make IndyCar his home.

Fresh from earning his first career pole in IndyCar for an A.J. Foyt Racing team with his personal sponsor Phoenix Investors adorning the sidepods for the first time on the No. 14 Chevy, that dream from more than a half-decade ago started to come full circle on Saturday at Portland.

“That was six years ago, and man, there’s a lot of emotion at this place,” Ferrucci told RACER. “For people to be taking a chance on me, to be making it in the series as long as I have, to be with this Foyt team, it’s meant everything.

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“Now to get my first career pole is the cherry on top of the cake. We’ve been struggling with qualifying all year. I think that’s no secret, but the race pace has been insane. Now we get to take the field to green and see what happens.”

It was a career first for his race engineer James Schnabel, whose talent is a perfect match for Ferrucci. Foyt technical director Michael Cannon, who joined the team 19 months ago and oversaw the connection with Team Penske in a new technical alliance, has been a massive part of the team’s transformation from being the worst team in the series as recently as 2022 to one that’s had Ferrucci holding 10th in the championship standings entering Portland.

Throw in his Indianapolis 500-winning chief mechanic Dider Francesia and all of the strong players throughout the No. 14 Chevy program, and the team, like its driver, is the embodiment of how much progress a program can made with the right people and support.

“Just working with James has been incredible,” Ferrucci added. “[Race engineer on the sister No. 41 Chevy] Mike Armbrester and Cannon, they’re just powerhouse people. Adam Kolesar is my performance engineer, and he’s so overqualified to be doing what he’s doing. It’s amazing to turn this place around and to be fighting it out for wins and be doing this on a consistent basis. Look at next year. It’s just gonna get better.”

Ferrucci storms to first career pole with two blinders in Portland

Santino Ferrucci is on pole position for A.J. Foyt Racing. That’s not a misprint. A decade removed from the team’s last pole taken in 2014 by Takuma Sato, the 26-year-old from Connecticut was a rocket in the No. 14 Chevy as he threw down a lap that …

Santino Ferrucci is on pole position for A.J. Foyt Racing. That’s not a misprint.

A decade removed from the team’s last pole taken in 2014 by Takuma Sato, the 26-year-old from Connecticut was a rocket in the No. 14 Chevy as he threw down a lap that was faster than the entire field to go P1, and with time for one more lap, Ferrucci put down another lap that even faster, settling the matter with a 58.2046s tour of Portland International Raceway.

Team Penske’s Will Power tried to topple his semi-teammate — the Penske team supplies the Foyts with dampers and chassis setup data — but he came up short in the No. 12 Chevy (58.3120s). Championship leader Alex Palou, fastest in an earlier stage of qualifying, also had no answer for Ferrucci with the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda (58.4316s).

“It’s no secret how hard we’ve been working this year,” Ferrucci said. “My first career pole in IndyCar, and I’m not known for being the best qualifier. It feels great to put it together. I can’t thank this team enough. We brought it.”

After Palou it was Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Christian Lundgaard in fourth with the No. 45 Honda (58.5809s), Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood in the No. 27 Honda (58.5960s), and RLL’s Graham Rahal (58.6332s) in sixth as he delivered a strong performance for the team.

The surprises weren’t reserved for Foyt and Ferrucci on Saturday afternoon. The other big news was found with the laundry list of those who were expected to shine but fell well short of expectation like Andretti’s Colton Herta (P10), Ganassi’s Scott Dixon (P11), and Penske’s Scott McLaughlin (P14), who hold second, third, and fifth in the championship. The Arrow McLaren team as a whole collapsed in qualifying as Alexander Rossi was best among its trio (P18) ahead of Pato O’Ward (P23), and Nolan Siegel (P24).

All will have 110 laps on Sunday to try and rectify their problems.

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Opening the Firestone Fast 12 eliminations, 14 drivers fought to make the top six transfer spots, and once the 10-minute run was over, the happy half dozen were headed by Lundgaard, Kirkwood, Ferrucci, Herta, Rahal, and Dixon.

Drivers who were locked into place were led by Pietro Fittipaldi (starting P13), Rinus VeeKay (P15), Christian Rasmussen (P17), a surprised David Malukas (P19), Toby Sowery (P21), O’Ward (P23), Sting Ray Robb (P25), and Conor Daly (P27),

The second phase of the Fast 12 knockout qualifying session promoted a top six of Palou, Power, Marcus Armstrong, Marcus Ericsson, Romain Grosjean, and Josef Newgarden.

A shocker to miss the cut was Scott McLaughlin (P14), who was fastest in the first two practice sessions, followed by an impressive Juri Vips (P16), Rossi (P18), Felix Rosenqvist (P20), Linus Lundqvist (P22), Siegel (P24), Kyffin Simpson (P26), and Jack Harvey (P28).

Three minutes into the proper Fast 12 saw Palou nose into the tires at the final corner, but he was able to quickly reverse and continue without causing a yellow.

Seventh through 12th were settled with Newgarden, Grosjean, Armstrong, Herta, Dixon, and Ericsson.

NEXT UP: Final practice at 8:15 p.m. ET.

RESULTS

Herta, Andretti fighting back into IndyCar championship mix

Colton Herta finds himself in a place of comfort he’s been seeking and missing in recent years. He’s latched onto the kingmaker’s formula in the No. 26 Andretti Global Honda, using consistency to propel himself to second in the NTT IndyCar Series …

Colton Herta finds himself in a place of comfort he’s been seeking and missing in recent years.

He’s latched onto the kingmaker’s formula in the No. 26 Andretti Global Honda, using consistency to propel himself to second in the NTT IndyCar Series championship with four races left to run. Eight finishes inside the top five made this possible, and with one more road course to use to his benefit—five of his eight career victories have been on road courses — he has a chance this weekend in Portland to narrow the 59-point advantage held by Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou.

His best championship output came in 2020 when he placed third; holding onto his current position and possibly improving it by one spot the focus of his world.

“We’re in a good spot,” Herta told RACER. “Obviously we want to be better, and we want to close down the gap to Alex. I think Will Power gained like 40 points on Palou at Iowa, so it’s not over yet. If we can have a good race here — and it’s basically double points at Milwaukee with two races there — we can have good two races and we’re not out of this thing.”

Herta is also wary of Team Penske’s dominance on ovals where the last three races are held.

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“This end of the year, the Penskes are going to be very strong; obviously they’re going to be fast at Milwaukee,” he said. “We saw that in testing and from what we saw in testing at Nashville, so it’s a bit of a two way thing. I have to protect from the guys behind me, but I really have to try and track down Palou.”

Beyond his return to title-fighting form as a driver, Herta’s benefitted from a reinvigorated Andretti team which has found the necessary speed to challenge—even if it’s a somewhat remote chance—for a championship against IndyCar’s two biggest juggernauts in Ganassi and Penske.

“It’s weird, you know?” Herta said. “I think there was a point in 2019 where everything was just working. The cars were super fast. This is my rookie year. [Former teammate] Alex [Rossi] won two or three races. I won two races. [Ryan] Hunter-Reay won a race. The team had five or six or seven race wins and Alex finished third in the championship, and then with the aeroscreen and whatnot [that arrived in 2020], we lost a little bit of performance, and we’ve been gaining ever since.

“And it’s not to say that we haven’t had fast race cars. We’ve had fast race cars a lot of the time, but just not consistently enough. I think this year we’ve had that. Iowa was a big Achilles heel for us. Gateway was another big Achilles heel for us, and we went well at both. Obviously we’ve been making small gains, and this year we were able to make big gains on both ends.”

McLaughlin leads Malukas in messy second Portland practice

It was 45 minutes of messy running on Saturday morning at the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland as Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin went fastest for the second session in a row. Hits and spins and red flags galore interrupted the preparation for the …

McLaughlin’s No. 3 Chevy (58.8605s) was shadowed by Meyer Shank Racing’s David Malukas in the No. 66 Honda (58.8868s), Penske teammate Josef Newgarden in the No. 2 Chevy (58.8942s), Andretti Global’s Colton Herta in the No. 26 Honda (58.9207s), Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi in the No. 7 Chevy (58.9525s) and teammate Pato O’Ward in sixth with the No. 5 Chevy (58.9690s).

Championship leader Alex Palou was a distant 13th, albeit just 0.1603s behind McLaughlin, with the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda (59.0208s).

Penske’s Will Power was the first to cause a red flag with an off and a stall. A.J. Foyt’s Sting Ray Robb was up next with a red for a trip across the grass and a light meeting with the tire barriers. Meyer Shank’s Felix Rosenqvist clobbered the barrier turning into the first corner and broke his right-front wheel, and others went for a variety of harmless rotations.

UP NEXT: Qualifying, 3:30 p.m. ET

RESULTS

McLaughlin fires opening salvo in Friday practice at Portland

Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was the fastest driver on Friday at the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland. The New Zealander’s No. 3 Chevy paced the field of 28 cars with a best lap of 58.3669s under heavily overcast skies and the threat of rain, …

“Portland, it’s not an easy place to put together a full lap,” McLaughlin said. “These corners take precision, and that is something that takes a few laps to work up to because there are slow corners but also some of the quickest corners we see all year long. It’s super important to think about how each corner sets up for the next section.

“It’s a fun challenge, and it’s a place we’ve had some success on already in my career. I think most people would assume that we have the last three races on ovals circled as places to capitalize on, but we are confident here at Portland, as well.”

Behind the Kiwi was championship leader and defending Portland winner Alex Palou in the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda (58.4337s) and Palou’s teammate Marcus Armstrong was third in the No. 11 Honda (58.6095s).

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Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi was a charging fifth; he was quick immediately and didn’t let a spin at the Turn 1 chicane interrupt his session in the No. 7 Chevy (58.6705s) and had Ganassi’s Scott Dixon close behind in sixth with the No. 9 Honda (58.7043s).

Elsewhere, Meyer Shank Racing’s David Malukas was strong in seventh, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Pietro Fittipaldi, who attacked the course with great vigor, led the RLL team in 12th, the most recent race winner Josef Newgarden was 16th for Penske, and after a year out of the cockpit, RLL’s Juri Vips impressed in 20th.

At the bottom of the field, Dale Coyne Racing’s Toby Sowery had his session cut short with a clutch issue and Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Conor Daly only got five laps in before a fuel pressure problem intervened.

UP NEXT: Second practice, Saturday at noon ET.

RESULTS

Vips driving for his RLL future at Portland

Juri Vips has one chance to make a final impression on Bobby Rahal, David Letterman and Mike Lanigan. The Estonian arrives in Portland, site of the first half of his two-race NTT IndyCar Series debut for RLL in 2023, in a fourth entry for the team …

Juri Vips has one chance to make a final impression on Bobby Rahal, David Letterman and Mike Lanigan.

The Estonian arrives in Portland, site of the first half of his two-race NTT IndyCar Series debut for RLL in 2023, in a fourth entry for the team as it looks to lock in its replacement for the outgoing Christian Lundgaard.

With only Graham Rahal signed for 2025, RLL could also be in the market for a second driver next year if it elects to move on from newcomer Pietro Fittipaldi. For Vips, a strong weekend on the 1.9-mile road course could make the difference in whether he’s chosen to help lead the team in its next chapter.

“Definitely, a lot of movement in the driving market at the moment, and a lot of very, very strong free agents,” Vips told RACER. “I think this opportunity also couldn’t come at a better time, because hopefully I can remind everyone in the paddock that I can still drive and keep my name up in the list of people. I’m super grateful for the opportunity, obviously, from Bobby, and just want to get going already, as you can imagine.”

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Vips impressed on his IndyCar debut in Portland and the following weekend in Monterey, and while he’s only scheduled to compete in Oregon, track familiarity — despite spending nearly a year out of an Indy car — and solid road racing cars from RLL should allow the 24-year-old to give a proper account of his capabilities.

“We’ve done plenty of simulator runs through the year,” he said. “Unfortunately, they didn’t have Portland in the Honda sim, but to be honest, I feel much more prepared than I did last year. OK, I haven’t driven all year, but I already know the track, so naturally in my mind, I have some references from last year. And I’ve been through an IndyCar weekend now, so I know how everything works and how the rhythm of a weekend goes. It’s definitely not easy. I miss the kind of muscle memory of driving the car, but I do feel a lot more prepared than last year.”

Getting through Turn 1 on the first lap and any restarts will be key for Vips, who needs enough of the 110 laps on Sunday to make a statement in the high-pressure audition.

“I will try and do the exact same thing that I did last year, and just stay on the inside, because generally with gravity, if you do have a crash, it tends to migrate to the outside,” he said. “Last year wasn’t actually too messy into Turn 1. But I did manage to gain two spots from the inside last year. So I’m just gonna try and do the exact same thing — find a gap there.

“If I do a good job, I will be able to fight in the top 10 and for the top positions. It’s a good feeling for a driver because you just need to execute. You know that the car is going to be more or less in the window, so I’m just going to keep it simple and focus on my driving.”