Dale Coyne Racing Drivers Ferrucci and Bourdais Excel at Texas Motor Speedway

Rookie Santino Ferrucci scored his best finish of the season with a fourth place aboard his #19 Cly-Del Manufacturing Honda, while Sebastien Bourdais took the checkered flag in eighth place with his #18 Team SealMaster Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan entry.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS

Sebastien Bourdais drove to an eighth place finish in the DXC Technology 600 at Texas Motor Speedway. He qualified in third, which is a TMS best and season high.

Starting from the inside of row two on the challenging 1.5-mile D-shaped oval, Bourdais ran in the top-10 for the vast majority of the race, and in the top-six for much of it, including three laps in the lead. If not for a couple of unlucky breaks, the result could easily have been in the top-five.

“We got some good championship points, but obviously we were hoping for a lot better,” Bourdais said. “The #18 SealMaster Honda was good – I think we had a top-five car. The guys did a good job with the pit stops and we had a strategy that could have worked, but the yellow flags worked against us. Honestly, I’m not really sure what happened. We’ll just have to sit down and take a look at the race and get it figured out.”

The 2019 DXC Technology 600 was Bourdais 197th NTT IndyCar Series start, his sixth at Texas Motor Speedway and 42nd on an oval. Bourdais earned 25 points and is 10th in the championship standings with 190 points.

SANTINO FERRUCCI

Rookie Ferrucci continued to impress with his on-track performance aboard his #19 Cly-Del Manufacturing Dale Coyne Racing entry on Saturday night as he scored his best NTT IndyCar Series finish with a fourth place at Texas Motor Speedway, in what was only the second oval event of his career.

Ferrucci, who was starting from the 18th position, gained a couple of spots at the start and sat 14th for the majority of his first stint. Upon exiting the pits following his first stop on lap 60, Ferrucci returned to the track in the same position and climbed up 12th by Lap 100.

About 15 laps after making his second stop on Lap 119, Ferrucci climbed to eighth place, gaining a few positions following a full course caution in which he avoided a spinning car in front of him. He would then fall back to 13th on Lap 186 after his last scheduled pit stop. From there, the 2019 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year continuously moved up the field, making it to seventh by the time a yellow flag waved on Lap 219 of the 248-lap event.

The rookie then made it up to fifth with less than 20 laps remaining when a final caution period came out. He would make his way to fourth on the final restart, getting by Ryan Hunter-Reay with 12 laps remaining. Ferrucci then held off the veteran driver to hang on to his first top-five finish in the NTT IndyCar Series and his fifth top-ten of the season.

“I can’t thank my crew enough. We had a stellar crew in the pits, they did fantastic stops, and we made our way to the front while avoiding a couple of incidents in front of us,” Ferrucci said. “I can’t thank my spotter Pancho (Carter) enough to get me to push my limits in the car, coaching me throughout the race. To bring home a top five with our Cly-Del Manufacturing Honda, my first in the IndyCar Series, feels pretty good. For someone who had no experience on ovals, I’m starting to say I love them. I’m happy with a fourth place. After Indy, knowing what kind of car we had, how hard our crew has been working, and how much power we have from Honda as well, I knew we could do something special here, regardless of what happened in qualifying, and we did.”

Ferrucci now sits ninth in with 193 points and leads the rookie of the year standings by 12 points.

NEXT RACE

The Dale Coyne Racing team will have one weekend off before heading to Elkhart Lake, WI for round 10 of the 2019 NTT IndyCar Series on June 23 – the REV Group Grand Prix at Road America on the permanent road course.