INDYCAR: Tough weekend ends early for Fittipaldi at Barber
By William Soquet, LASTCAR.info Staff Writer
PHOTO: Christy Reynolds / OpenWheel.com
Pietro Fittipaldi finished last for the 3rd time in his NTT IndyCar Series career in the Children’s of Alabama Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park when his #30 Mi-Jack Honda retired due to contact damage after completing 42 of the race’s 90 laps.
The finish came in Fittipaldi’s 12th career start and was his first since Pocono in 2018, 99 races ago. Across NTT IndyCar Series history, it was the 12th for the #30, the 111th for Honda and the 226th for damage-related reasons.
The Fittipaldi name is one that many familiar to IndyCar fans. Wilson Fittipaldi raced Formula One in the 1970s, while both Christian and Emerson ran CART at various points. Uncle and nephew both achieved great success, with uncle Emerson winning a title and two Indianapolis 500s and nephew Christian racking up 135 career starts and two wins. Pietro, Emerson’s grandson, was destined to be a racer. He started karting at age 10 and moved into late models at 15, running the NASCAR weekly series and seemingly destined for stock car stardom. However, he pivoted to junior formula and worked through Formula 4, Formula 3.5 and Formula 3. Pietro took his first plunge into IndyCar in 2018, running six races for Dale Coyne Racing. While a sports car injury curtailed some of the original planned starts, Fittipaldi still had some good showings, including a ninth at Portland.
After a season in Asian F3 in 2019, Fittipaldi moved into more infrequent racing. He made two starts with Haas F1 in 2020 when Romain Grosjean was injured, and then began a reserve driver role the next year for the team. Fittipaldi remains with Haas as a reserve driver in 2024, his fourth season in that capacity. Besides that, he ran a few oval races for Coyne in 2021, splitting the car with Grosjean. The 2022 season saw a foray into the European Le Mans Series, while 2023 saw Fittipaldi run in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
When Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing released Jack Harvey midway through 2023, the options for who would fill the seat for 2024 were nearly endless. One name that did not come up much in conversation, however, was Fittipaldi. Despite that, on October 23, Fittipaldi was named as the full-time driver of the #30 car for 2024. A solid 13th at the opening round was followed up by a transfer to the main event, in which he was promptly disqualified for improper fueling procedures. Long Beach brought more misfortune to the team, as a pit stop issue relegated him to lap-down status.
As for the entry list at Barber, Theo Pourchaire completed another fill-in stint for David Malukas. Malukas was released by Arrow McLaren after the race, and at publishing time, the #6 has no further announced drivers for the remainder of the season. Additionally, Nissan Formula E simulator driver and European Le Mans Series competitor Luca Ghiotto hopped in Dale Coyne’s #51 car. It was announced the Thursday before the race that Ghiotto signed for Barber and the May race on the Indy road course.
It was Ghiotto who was at the bottom of the charts in first practice. It was to be expected, as the Italian had never before taken track time in an IndyCar before the weekend. He ran 39 laps, tied with Fittipaldi and Christian Lundgaard as most among the field, and wound up less than a tenth off Sting Ray Robb for the 26th spot in the speed rankings.
After ranking 20th in first practice, Fittipaldi’s second practice got off to a shaky start. Early in the session, heading into turn two, the steering wheel locked on the car, sending him straight into the gravel runoff. The team later diagnosed the issue as a steering rod problem, although Fittipaldi was unable to go out again in the session. That left him last with one lap completed in second practice, ten seconds off the pace.
The struggles carried over to qualifying as well. Fittipaldi was 13th in Group 2 in the first round of qualifying, locking him into the 26th starting spot. Rinus VeeKay led second practice, a rare feat for an Ed Carpenter Racing driver. However, the #21 car had an injector issue during qualifying which relegated him to the bottom of the group.
On the start of the race, VeeKay’s anxiousness showed. His green-and-black car was visibly squirrely on the front straight, ready to seize any passing opportunity into turn one. However, he bumped into Robb’s car, which led to both the #41 and Jack Harvey’s #18 car spinning into the asphalt runoff. Kyffin Simpson also had to take evasive action through the runoff. All cars drove away from the incident, and there was no caution flag displayed.
Robb was the one who drove away last from the incident, although it was not a significant loss of time. He was 15 seconds back of polesitter Scott McLaughlin at the end of the opening lap. That gap grew to 18 seconds at the end of the third lap as the field gradually strung out.
At the same time, it looked like Fittipaldi was doing a good job of turning his lemons into lemonade. He avoided all melees on the opening lap and moved up four spots to 22nd. By Lap 5, he was up to 20th. While it was a far cry from his RLL teammates, who were both running in the Top Ten, it was an impressive feat for a car that underwent a major change with little track time before the race.
Pato O’Ward, however, saw his race turn to lemons pretty early on. The Arrow McLaren driver started fourth but went off course on Lap 2, dropping him to 24th. He began to drive back up through the field and was up to 21st on Lap 5. On approach to a series of esses, he dove to driver’s left of Fittipaldi, the inside of the first turn, a left-hander. While Fittipaldi gave him plenty of room, O’Ward clipped the curb on apex, sending his car straight into the rear sidepod of Fittipaldi. The contact spun Fittipaldi 180 degrees, and the grass runoff did very little to slow the car down. The #30 came to rest with a crunch in the tire barriers on the outside of the turn, and Fittipaldi undid his belts and exited the car.
The broadcast listed Fittipaldi as ‘out’ a few laps after the incident, another sign of a day seemingly ended. However, the #30 made a quiet re-entrance to the race around Lap 22, running about 18 laps down. In fact, he was the driver that saw “Georgina” the mannequin fall from the bridge on Lap 52. It briefly appeared that he would climb out of last place, as Sting Ray Robb stuffed his car in the turn one barriers on Lap 55. The handling of the car proved to be a challenge, though, and Fittipaldi pulled off for good sometime around Lap 60.
Robb was 26th, a year after an engine failure left him in last place. Alexander Rossi was 25th. His race was done when the left rear wheel fell off his car following a pit stop on Lap 61, leaving him stranded. Christian Rasmussen was 24th. He had a good run going on an alternate strategy until a late spin put him one lap down. O’Ward rounded out the Bottom Five after an altogether miserable race. A drive-through penalty for the contact with Fittipaldi dropped him into the mid-20s for a second time in the race, and while he worked up into the mid-teens at points, it all came crumbling down at the end. He spun teammate Pourchaire on the final lap while battling for 18th place, relegating his teammate to 22nd and himself to 23rd.
LASTCAR STATISTICS
*This was the first last-place finish for the #30 on a road course since Takuma Sato in the 2021 season finale at Laguna Seca.
*It was the first damage-related last-place finish at Barber since 2021, when Ryan Hunter-Reay fell out on the opening lap.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
27) #30-Pietro Fittipaldi / 42 laps / contact
26) #41-Sting Ray Robb / 54 laps / contact
25) #7-Alexander Rossi / 60 laps / wheel
24) #20-Christian Rasmussen / 89 laps / running
23) #5-Pato O’Ward / 90 laps / running
2024 LASTCAR NTT INDYCAR SERIES OWNERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Ed Carpenter Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Team Penske (1)
2024 LASTCAR NTT INDYCAR SERIES MANUFACTURERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet (2)
2nd) Honda (1)
2024 LASTCAR NTT INDYCAR SERIES DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP
