- Foyt duo matching top-tier pace with six top-seven finishes in past four races
- Ferrucci: “We’re performing. I feel lit. I just got to get my qualifying performance up.”
- Larry Foyt: “What this team is doing right now, I couldn’t be happier.”
The resurgence of AJ Foyt Racing has become one of the most compelling stories of the 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season. With Santino Ferrucci and David Malukas both posting elite-level results in recent weeks, the team appears to be inching closer to its first race win in over a decade.
Over the last four races—spanning a superspeedway, a street circuit, a short oval, and a road course—Ferrucci and Malukas have each collected 111 points. Only Alex Palou, Kyle Kirkwood, and Pato O’Ward have scored more in that span. Both Foyt drivers have earned recent second-place finishes, and together they’ve racked up six top-seven results in eight combined attempts.
Ferrucci extended his remarkable run at the Indianapolis 500 with a fifth-place finish, making it seven straight top-10s at the “500.” Malukas finished second at Indy and has started in the top seven in each of the last four races, including a front-row start in Detroit. He also started fourth at World Wide Technology Raceway and seventh at both Indy and Road America.
Their performances are reflected in the championship standings, where Ferrucci has climbed to ninth and Malukas to 12th. Just a month ago, they sat 15th and 19th, respectively.
“It’s obviously going very well,” said team president Larry Foyt after the XPEL Grand Prix at Road America. “The first half of (this) race looked like nothing was going our way with David starting up close to the front but having to go all the way to the back (due to contact) and Santino having a stall in the pits. It didn’t look like it was going to be our day. But everybody (on the crew) just stayed in it, and the drivers did a great job. This was such a crazy (race). Everybody was trying to figure out what the (best) strategy was, and our guys nailed it.”
Ferrucci now sits tied on points with Colton Herta and trails Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and Will Power by just six and 13 points, respectively. His consistency has come in spite of qualifying difficulties. His average starting position is 17.4, while his average finishing position is a much stronger 10.2.
“We’re performing,” Ferrucci said on the FOX broadcast. “We’re back to where we were at the end of last year. I feel lit. I’ve just got to get my qualifying performance up. Until then, I like padding my passing stats.”
He currently ranks second only to Christian Rasmussen in total passes for position this year. Both drivers were the only two in the field to log over 50 passes across the past two events combined.
“Obviously, starting 18th (at Road America) is not ideal,” Ferrucci admitted.
Malukas, meanwhile, has rebounded sharply from a slow start to the season. After averaging a finish of 17.4 over the first five races, he’s closed the gap to Ferrucci and Herta to just 10 points. At Road America, his race looked compromised early after he ran wide into Turn 3 and collided with Christian Lundgaard. The contact caused a spin and forced Malukas off track, but rapid assistance from the AMR INDYCAR Safety Team kept him on the lead lap. He fought back to finish seventh.
“(It was) a lot of fun, a lot of passing, and we finished right where we started,” Malukas said. “So, good recovery (and) really good job from the team.”
Looking ahead to the second half of the season, Larry Foyt remains confident that a victory is not only possible, but within reach.
“It’s so tough right now, which makes even a (top-three finish) feel like a win,” he said. “It’s still not (a win), and we still want to break through and get back in victory lane. That’s still the goal, but what this team is doing right now, I couldn’t be happier.”
The last win for AJ Foyt Racing came in 2013 with Takuma Sato at Long Beach. With two cars steadily threatening the front each weekend, that drought could soon be over.
If you enjoyed this story, be sure to follow Motorsport Reports on Microsoft Start.
