Latest news with #RoadAmerica
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Where does Santino Ferrucci see his first IndyCar win coming?
Santino Ferrucci is on a roll in the 2025 IndyCar season. The driver of the No. 14 A.J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet secured his second podium in three races and his fourth consecutive top-five finish last Sunday at Road America. It's the kind of run worth celebrating with a beer — as Ferrucci memorably did, catching a Miller Lite tossed by a fan from the grandstands at Turn 1. But, of course, he wants more. And not beers this time, but solid results in the IndyCar Series. Advertisement 'Oh, I'm still very thirsty to get more,' Ferrucci told 'It's really nice to have a string of top-fives like that: superspeedway, short oval, road course, street course. I think it just shows our overall strength and growth. So I'm definitely looking forward to the string of races in July.' 'This was definitely the goal from the beginning of the year. I think we just started off slower than we would have liked. But now that we've hit our stride, this is what I was expecting — especially based on how we finished the 2024 season.' Expectations were high heading into 2025, especially after Ferrucci finished ninth in last year's standings, closing the season with four straight top-10s, including two fourth-place finishes at Milwaukee and a sixth at Nashville Superspeedway. However, the start of this season was rough in terms of results, with an 11th at Long Beach being his best finish prior to the streak that began at the Indianapolis 500. Yet, according to the Connecticut native, the performance was there all along. Advertisement 'We were just a bit unlucky more than anything. The way the Indy GP went, and Barber — even Long Beach — we had pace at all three events. We just had a fuel issue at Barber, hit the wall at Long Beach, which wasn't great. And then at Indy GP, we didn't run any practice or warm-up. We literally just qualified and raced. We had a couple of mechanical issues that were completely out of our control.' Ferrucci confident that he will win Santino Ferrucci, A. J. Foyt Enterprises Santino Ferrucci, A. J. Foyt Enterprises Only two drivers have won races so far in the 2025 IndyCar season — Alex Palou with six wins for Chip Ganassi Racing and Kyle Kirkwood with three for Andretti Global. That makes it look tough for others to break through, but Ferrucci believes he's close. Advertisement 'Yes, for sure,' he said when asked if a win feels near. 'I actually thought it was going to happen at Road America with the pace we had. But with the big fuel number we had to hit at the end, it wasn't exactly ideal.' With eight races in two months coming up, Ferrucci has a clear idea of where he sees the best chances to break through. 'I think all the ovals for sure, and then Portland and Laguna Seca. I think Mid-Ohio and Toronto are going to be pretty tough — those are both survival races. But I do like my pace and what we've been learning over the last two years there, so I'll remain hopeful for those as well.' Qualifying pace still a challenge, but not a worry Santino Ferrucci, A. J. Foyt Enterprises, Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing Santino Ferrucci, A. J. Foyt Enterprises, Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing One might argue that Ferrucci needs to improve his qualifying performance to be a true contender. Every race winner in 2025 has started inside the top 10, and six of them from the top three. Ferrucci, however, doesn't seem too concerned about one-lap pace — and he may have a point. His recent hot streak includes starts from 15th, 21st, 19th, and 18th. Advertisement 'The funny thing is I'm not overly focused on it. I was really bummed with my performance at Road America — I drove really well, but we just missed something in the setup. Detroit was more on me, and same with Thermal.' 'Trying to find the limit over one lap is very difficult, as opposed to being perfectly consistent over a race distance, which I actually find easier. So, with the way the series is, I think the races have been really strong and we've been able to pass. So I've been more focused on getting the race cars right to win on Sunday.' Full focus on getting A.J. Foyt Racing back to Victory Lane Santino Ferrucci, A. J. Foyt Enterprises Santino Ferrucci, A. J. Foyt Enterprises Ferrucci signed a multi-year deal with A.J. Foyt Racing in September 2024 — just a month after his current teammate, David Malukas, joined the team following an opportunity at Arrow McLaren that didn't go as planned, and a partial season with Meyer Shank Racing. Advertisement Since Malukas signed with Foyt, rumors have swirled that the move could position him for a future seat at Team Penske if veteran Will Power, now in the final year of his contract, steps away. Malukas currently trails Ferrucci by ten points and three positions in the championship. When asked if he should also be considered for a top-tier ride, Ferrucci made it clear that his focus is solely on bringing success to A.J. Foyt Racing — which hasn't won a race in 12 years. 'I like to control what I can control. My focus is very much on what we're doing right now,' he said. 'What my teammate is up to is for him to answer — I don't really know how all of his stuff works. But you know, my goal at the end of the day is to deliver. I really want to bring A.J. and Larry their first win in a long time. I'm really happy where I'm at, and I'm very, very comfortable with my engineering lineup and everything else. So right now, my full focus is on my current program.' Advertisement Read Also: How a 'grumpy' Alex Palou ended up thankful for his winning strategy at Road America Winners and Losers from IndyCar's Road America weekend To read more articles visit our website.
NBC Sports
a day ago
- Automotive
- NBC Sports
How to Watch MotoAmerica Round 4 at Ridge Motorsports Park: Schedule, TV/stream info, past results
The MotoAmerica Superbike Series rolls into Ridge Motorsports Park in Shelton, Washington, June 28 - 29 for a double header in Round 4 of the 2025 season. Josh Herrin swept the weekend at Road America and closed to within two points of the championship leader after Cameron Beaubier crashed in Sunday's feature. Meanwhile, Bobby Fong moved into third by three points over Jake Gagne, making for a tight battle at the top of the chart. Here's what you need to know to watch this weekend's races on Peacock and NBC Sports NOW. Ridge Motorsports Superbike entry list How to watch MotoAmerica Superbike Series in 2025 Coverage of the fourth round at Ridge Motorsports Park begins Saturday at 6:00 p.m. ET on Peacock and NBC Sports NOW. You can stream the remainder of the 2025 schedule on Peacock App and NBC Sports NOW, a free 24/7 streaming channel from NBC Sports offering daily sports talk shows, live sports, and highlights on on Peacock, The Roku Channel, Xumo, Pluto TV, and more. View the full list of Peacock's supported devices here. MotoAmerica Superbike Series 2025 The MotoAmerica Superbike Series is a nine-round, 20 race season, making stops at some of the country's premier race tracks. Barber Motorsports Park, Apr. 4-6 (won by Cameron Beaubier, Jake Gagne) Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, May 2-4 (won by Cameron Beaubier) Road America, May 30-June 1 (won by Josh Herrin) Ridge Motorsports Park, June 27-29 WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, July 11-13 VIRginia International Raceway, Aug. 1-3 Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Aug. 15-17 Circuit of the Americas, Sep. 12-14 New Jersey Motorsports Park, Sep. 26-28 Past MotoAmerica results from Ridge Cameron Peterson beat Gagne to the checkered flag in Race 1 of the 2024 doubleheader while Herrin bested Fong in the second race of the weekend. It was a tough Saturday afternoon for Beaubier with a crash in the first race, but he rebounded to finish third on Sunday.
Forbes
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Forbes
IndyCar TV Rating Drops Below 1 Million But Continue Overall Gains
Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda celebrates in Victory Lane during the NTT IndyCar Series XPEL ... More Grand Prix at Road America on June 22, 2025 in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. (Photo by Michael L. Levitt/Lumen via Getty Images) Lumen via Getty Images The IndyCar television rating for the FOX telecast of the XPEL Grand Prix At Road America may have dropped below 1 million viewers for the first time in four races, but the overall increase in viewers over last season remains substantial. The year-to-year increase is now 33 percent more viewers watching IndyCar on FOX than last year on average. This comes despite FOX's IndyCar Series coverage from Road America posted 781,000 viewers in an early afternoon starting time on June 22. That was down 10 percent from last year's 863,000 viewers for the Road America Race in 2024. The race peaked with 934,000 viewers from 3:30-3:45 p.m. Eastern Time. There are some differences, however. Last year's Road America IndyCar race was one week closer to the Indianapolis 500. Road America was on June 9, and the 2024 Indy 500 was May 26. In the TV world, the additional viewers in 2024 could have been aided by momentum from the 500 that was still fresh. In 2024, the IndyCar schedule did not have any breaks after the Indy 500 as the schedule went straight to the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix the following weekend and one week after that, Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. But there remain some positive and impressive trends. Sunday's race viewership is up 25 percent over last year's 626,000 viewers for the IndyCar 2024 non-Indy 500 race average on NBC/USA/CNBC. Through the first nine races of the season, IndyCar on FOX is averaging 1,882,000 viewers, up 33 percent from last year's 1,420,000 viewers through the first nine races on NBC/USA/CNBC. IndyCar's greatest television competition on Sunday, June 22 didn't come from a competing sport, but from the major news developments with the United States bombing raid of nuclear facilities in Iran. Ratings for news coverage on CNN, FOX News, MSNBC and NewsMax were more than double last year's ratings for those networks one year ago. On Sunday, June 25, those four news networks had a combined average of 4.214 million. On the corresponding Sunday in 2024 (June 23) the viewership average was 1.862 million. On the actual Road America race date in 2024 (June 9), the four TV cable news channels had 1.99 million viewers. This year's Indianapolis 500 drew 7.01 million viewers and was the most watched Indy 500 telecast in 17 years. The viewership peaked at 8.5 million for the final 15 minutes of the Indy 500. It was the first time the Indy 500 was televised on FOX. Television ratings momentum continued with more 1.061 million viewers for the June 1 Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix and the June 15 Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway, which drew 1 million, 12 thousand viewers for a prime-time Sunday night telecast. This is the first season IndyCar has been televised exclusively by FOX with all races on the major FOX network.
Indianapolis Star
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Indianapolis Star
IndyCar Road America TV ratings dip following solid post-Indy 500 progress
The hope in IndyCar's jam-packed summer schedule with new exclusive media rights partner Fox was that momentum from one weekend would roll right into the next, creating a fly-wheel effect that would help network race audiences steadily grow and turn the sport's two-week stretch of average audiences above 1 million into a commonplace occurrence. But Sunday's down-to-the-wire thriller won by championship points leader Alex Palou – the two-time defending series champ's sixth win of the year – drew an audience of 781,000 in the early-afternoon time slot, marking Road America's least-watched IndyCar race on network TV since the track returned to the series' annual rotation in 2016. It comes off the back of post-Indianapolis 500 races at Detroit and World Wide Technology Raceway – the latter IndyCar's first-ever Sunday night primetime race – that averaged 1.061 million and 1.012 million, respectively. Why the notable drop? According to a Fox Sports spokesperson, news coverage of the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East drew more than double the average audience (from noon to 6 p.m.) combined across CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Newsmax (4.214 million) than last year on the comparable Sunday afternoon (1.862 million) and last year's Road America race date that fell two weekends earlier in the month (1.99 million). In the racing world, IndyCar ran up against IMSA's six-hour endurance race at Watkins Glen, which kicked off just after noon – the first three hours of which aired on NBC, overlapping with the first 90 minutes of Fox's IndyCar race broadcast and roughly an hour or so of the actual racing action. The series gained a major theoretical boost with a more than two-hour rain delay to the start of NASCAR's Cup race at Pocono that was scheduled for a green flag start just after 2 p.m., but was bumped to 4:30 p.m., 45 minutes after Palou took the checkered flag. Amazon Prime continued to air-elongated pre-race coverage in the lead-up to the delayed race start, though one would imagine anyone who would've been torn between the two races airing at the same time would've switched over to IndyCar with the opportunity to do so. Sunday's IndyCar audience on Fox peaked at 934,000 from 3:30-3:45 p.m. as Palou hunted down teammate Scott Dixon and eventually inherited the lead after the former was forced to make one final pitstop. A close call: Scott Dixon's 'nothing-to-lose' strategy almost won at Road America. Why it almost worked, but didn't Through eight non-500 races on network TV, IndyCar's race audiences are averaging just a tick below 900,000 after Road America (894,250 to be exact). NBC's network race average from 2019-2024, excluding the pandemic-altered 2020 season, as well as 500 broadcasts, rain-delayed races and ones that went up against the NFL, came in at 998,342. In order to meet that average by the end of the 2025 IndyCar season, the remaining eight races themselves would need to average roughly 1.1 million. At this point in NBC's final season a year ago – when only four races outside the 500 had aired on network TV – those races had averaged 869,000 viewers per race, a mark that the 2025 campaign is up on by 2.9%. NBC's whole slate of six network races last year not including the 500, the Thermal exhibition and the finale up against the NFL delivered average audiences of 932,833 per race – a mark the closing stretch of eight races left this year would need to average 971,417 fans watching per race to match across the entire season. Insider: Pre-race decision left Alex Palou 'looking really bad.' How the IndyCar leader pulled off 6th win Through nine races this year, the average per-race audience for 2025 IndyCar all-network TV slate is up 33% year-over-year, according to Fox, with the caveats that last year had Long Beach and Detroit on cable instead of network, Thermal was an exhibition race and the cable race planned for Laguna Seca in 2024 was bumped from USA Network to CNBC due to a NASCAR rain delay, where the race grabbed an average audience of less than 200,000.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Chip Ganassi Drivers Pull Off Major Fuel Save En Route to Sixth Alex Palou Victory in 2025
While Chip Ganassi driver Scott Dixon was unable to pull off a ___ fuel save, with the attempt to pit for the final time with 18 laps to go, the effort helped lead to a win for his teammate Alex Palou. Palou pitted with 16 laps to go and was able to complete the cooldown lap after the race as several drivers that pitted at the same time stalled after crossing the finish line. Knowing that Dixon, even if he's an all-time great when it comes to saving fuel, would need to splash and go on the final lap, CGR was able to utilize Dixon's position in the lead. Palou drafted behind Dixon in the closing stint to save fuel and keep his buffer over Alexandar Rossi, who pitted on the same lap as Dixon. When Rossi went to the pits with three laps to go, Felix Rosenqvist, who seemed to be on the winning strategy until CGR pulled off the fuel save, moved to third. Rosenqvist grabbed his first podium with Meyer Shank and was just two seconds away from his second career win, the first one came at Road America in 2020 with CGR. Santino Ferrucci completed the podium, his first podium since he was DQ'd from third at the Streets of Detroit earlier this month. With Palou's sixth win on the season, the streak of just two winners in 2025 continues with Kyle Kirkwood taking Long Beach, Detroit, and Nashville. This is the first time since 1980 that two drivers have swept the first nine races of a season. Johnny Ruthersford and Bobby Unser's streak was broken that year in the tenth race when Michael Andretti won the Gould Grand Prix at Michigan International Speedway. Kirkwood narrowly missed the podium, finishing a second behind Ferrucci. With their three-place difference, Palou extended his championship to 90 points, and Kirkwood jumped to second in the points, ahead of McLaren's Pato O'Ward. While the race came down to three fuel strategies, those were set up through multiple early cautions, including David Malukas and Jacob Abel tangling on lap one. Malukas would rebound for a top ten finish in seventh behind Kryffn Simpson and Marcus Armstrong. Sting Ray Robb, Robert Shwartzman and Josef Newgarden all DNF'd. Newgarden's out was his third DNF of the year. You Might Also Like You Need a Torque Wrench in Your Toolbox Tested: Best Car Interior Cleaners The Man Who Signs Every Car
