It was around this time a year ago the technical alliance between A.J. Foyt Racing and Team Penske began taking shape, which has proven beneficial for both organizations this season.
The partnership has proven huge for Foyt’s team, which has enjoyed a resurgence with Santino Ferrucci scoring seven top-10s and sitting 10th in the championship standings through 12 races, with Penske-affiliated James Schnabel on the timing stand as his race engineer.
And there has also been a return for Penske, particularly at the Indianapolis 500. With the aided expertise of Foyt’s technical director and engineering maestro Michael Cannon, Penske pulled off a remarkable front row sweep in qualifying – its first since 1988 – led by pole-sitter Scott McLaughlin.
The race saw Josef Newgarden storm to his second consecutive victory after pulling off another last-lap pass, this time over Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward.
As it stands, Will Power sits highest among his team-mates in the championship standings, 49 points behind Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou (411-362), with his two wins the highpoint among a year of consistency.
While it’s still early days, Team Penske President Tim Cindric is seeing the significance of the union.
“I feel like being able to help people like James Schabel that’s over there working with Santino as a race engineer, it’s helping us grow people in this environment,” Cindric told Motorsport.com.
“At the same time, it’s helping him see where the top teams are from an organizational standpoint, because I think it’s as much how your processes are and how you interact collectively as it is what setup is on a race car.
“You know, I think you could have whatever the best setup is on the race car out on the track and still not be successful; you’ve got to have all the different facets of it.”
Cindric sees the association very similar to the one Penske shares with the Wood Brothers in the NASCAR Cup Series.
“You have to continue to grow your people,” he said. “If your people don’t grow internally, then they usually go grow somewhere else.
“So, for us, it’s very important to be able to incorporate that. Obviously, we were both successful at Indy this year and, without a doubt, I think there was a good collaboration there. I think we helped each other.
“At the same time, I think the Foyt group is benefitting from seeing really what it needs to get from where they are to where they want to be.”
When Cindric was asked what the long-term vision of the partnership with Foyt is, he simply said: “I think as long as it’s mutually beneficial, it takes care of itself.”
