INDYCAR: Kyffin Simpson punted into Road America concrete
By William Soquet, LASTCAR.info Staff Writer
PHOTO: Small Budget Racing, @BudgetRacing51
Kyffin Simpson finished last for the 1st time in his NTT IndyCar Series career in Sunday’s XPEL Grand Prix at Road America when his #4 Journie Rewards Honda crashed out after completing 5 of the race’s 55 laps.
The finish came in Simpson’s seventh career start. Across NTT IndyCar Series history, it was the 16th for the #4, the 113th for Honda, and the 228th due to crash damage.
Heading into the 2024 season, Kyffin Simpson was one of the most obscure figures on the IndyCar grid. The 19-year-old Barbados-born driver stepped up to the IndyCar Series after a 10th-place championship finish in Indy NXT. However, there was much more to it than what met the eye. Sure, there was the disqualification at Barber and a lack of consistent results. But there was also an already-lengthy career in single-seaters and sports cars that included a Formula Regional Americas championship in 2021, a pair of Daytona 24 Hours appearances at age 17 and 18, a European Le Mans Series championship in 2023, and four top-five NXT finishes, including a runner-up at Mid-Ohio.
On the other hand, all that experience was due to funding. Kyffin is the son of David Simpson, who is such a prolific figure in the Cayman Islands that he has even donated to national defense. Kyffin signed a development deal with Chip Ganassi Racing in mid-2022, and since then, David’s Ridgeline Lubricants car has been featured prominently on several Ganassi entries. While Kyffin did compete two years of Indy NXT, including a pole run at Road America that ended in disaster after a first-turn incident, most observers thought that a third year of NXT would be best for the driver’s development. Instead, his camp pushed to go IndyCar racing in 2024, and they got it, with Ganassi expanding to a fifth entry to put Simpson behind the wheel.
Going into the season, most everybody thought that he would be near the back of the pack, and that keeping a clean nose and running all the laps would be the best achievable goals. To his credit, Simpson has performed better than most expected. He kicked off his IndyCar career with a 12th at St. Petersburg and backed it up with solid mid-pack finishes of 14th at Barber and 15th at the Indianapolis road course. His first finish in the 20s in IndyCar actually came at the 500 (21st), although an early-race tangle with Helio Castroneves hampered Simpson’s Detroit efforts. Another opportunity waited at Road America, where he claimed pole in Indy NXT the year prior running for HMD Motorsports.
Opportunities of a different kind were on the horizon for several drivers as well, as 2024 is quickly matching 2023’s pace for midseason entry list changes. Two more were announced in the leadup to Road America. Immediately before Friday’s opening practice, Juncos Hollinger Racing made the decision to take Agustin Canapino out of the car for the weekend. Between the death threats that his fans made to Theo Pourchaire after an on-track incident at Detroit, the vitriol that was then directed back at Canapino, and the insinuation that the situation was specifically due to the behavior of Argentinian social media users, the team noticed the driver slipping out of a competitive headspace. Faced with few options at the track with less than two hours before practice, the team elected to put Nolan Siegel in the car. In the immediate term, the deal worked out well for Siegel as well. Since he failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, he had an extra race to compete in before using up his pre-rookie eligibility. Additionally, David Malukas was announced as the driver for Meyer Shank Racing’s #66 car for Laguna Seca and all rounds following to fill out the calendar for this year. The move made sense on a number of levels – Helio Castroneves doesn’t have to formally exit retirement, the team gets an oval ace for an oval-heavy backend, and all signs point to Blomqvist staying within MSR to drive sports cars in 2025.
While it was not technically a change, Luca Ghiotto filled out the driver news cycle for the week with an announcement early on that he would be back with Dale Coyne Racing for Road America and Laguna Seca, driving the #51 car.
First practice proved to be a continuation of a tumultuous weekend for Juncos Hollinger Racing. Romain Grosjean, who was free of most online controversy in the preceding week (save for a few observers who questioned his knowledge of the Leaders Circle system), stuffed his car into the Turn 1 tire barriers and did not get a full lap in at pace. Siegel, as was to be expected, was the slowest car who took a full race lap. However, his best time was only a couple tenths behind Jack Harvey. It was truly a remarkable effort for a driver who quite literally sprinted out of his Indy NXT car to the Juncos garage before practice.
Second practice was much more of a mess, run in wet conditions. Again, one car did not make a full lap – this time, it was Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward. Most drivers ran fewer than ten laps in the session, which was true of Helio Castroneves, who ran three laps in the session and set down a best time of 2 minutes, 25.9 seconds. That was a whopping 18 seconds back of leader Colton Herta, the gap exacerbated by a long track and tricky conditions. Simpson held steady mid-pack, finishing 16th with a time of 2 minutes, 16.9 seconds.
Qualifying was much of the same story, with wet conditions playing a starring role in setting the starting lineup. Castroneves was the slowest of all cars, with his lap in the 2:09 range substantially off anyone in the field. Simpson finished sixth in Group 1 and made his first-ever Fast 12 appearance. It was not really a close call, either, as he was almost half a second to the good over Christian Lundgaard. He was last in the Fast 12, but was only a tenth and change behind O’Ward for 11th. For the second straight year, Road America qualifying was arguably the highlight of his single-seater career.
Castroneves’ stint at the back didn’t last very long, however. Lundqvist actually got a good jump on the start and cleared Herta, who started second. Marcus Armstrong, the third starter and one of Lundqvist’s Chip Ganassi Racing teammates, overdrove the sharp right-hander that is turn one and spun Lundqvist and himself. Herta then checked up and was bumped by Josef Newgarden, looping the #26. Further back in the pack, Luca Ghiotto got into Graham Rahal, sending the #15 through the gravel. As the ensuing caution sorted out, Armstrong was the final car in the running order after stalling and restarting.
On the ensuing restart, there was more trouble between the same characters. Herta ran over the rumble strips on the outside of Turn 1, and a couple of diffuser chunks fluttered out from under his car into the racing line. Then, he raced to the outside of Lundqvist heading downhill into Turn 3. The polesitter then body-checked Herta in the middle of the corner, sending him for another spin. The combination of the debris and spin caused the second caution, with Herta still at the back of the field.
It was a similar story on the second restart of the day. While Herta got by Armstrong in the opening corners, the green-flag conditions did not last long. Simpson gained two spots in the first-lap melee and was running tenth, right in front of Christian Rasmussen. Rasmussen, who finished last a week ago at Detroit, rebounded solidly with a 16th-place qualifying run. He picked up five spots on the opening lap and was running behind Simpson on the final corners of the track on Lap 6. When setting up for Turn 14, an acute right-hander, Rasmussen’s car came in hot and clipped the back of Simpson. The blue-and-gold Ganassi car made a full revolution in the grass before slamming the driver’s side against the concrete barriers, breaking axles and bouncing the car so far that it came to rest in the tire barriers that were around the corner from it.
Rasmussen was penalized for avoidable contact, and the stop-and-go after the next restart tanked his race. He eventually finished 20th. Armstrong struggled for pace after the race got into a green-flag rhythm and eventually retired with an undisclosed mechanical issue after 35 laps. After an extended sequence on pit road, Jack Harvey was relegated to 25th, four laps down. A suspension failure for Rinus VeeKay put that entry multiple laps down as well. Siegel was the only car one lap down. He rounded out the Bottom Five in 23rd.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
27) #4-Kyffin Simpson / 5 laps / crash
26) #11-Marcus Armstrong / 35 laps / mechanical
25) #18-Jack Harvey / 51 laps / running
24) #21-Rinus VeeKay / 53 laps / running
23) #78-Nolan Siegel / 54 laps / running
2024 LASTCAR NTT INDYCAR SERIES MANUFACTURERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (4)
2nd) Honda (3)
2024 LASTCAR NTT INDYCAR SERIES OWNERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Ed Carpenter Racing (2)
2nd) A.J. Foyt Racing, Andretti Global, Chip Ganassi Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Team Penske (1)
2024 LASTCAR NTT INDYCAR SERIES DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP
