By David Morgan, Associate Editor
INDIANAPOLIS – They knew they were here.
Carrying the banner of the man who made a name for himself at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, both of the A.J. Foyt Racing machines of David Malukas and Santino Ferrucci were in the mix down to the very end in Sunday’s 109th running of the Indianapolis 500, scoring finishes of third and seventh, respectively. [Editor’s note: Malukas and Ferrucci were listed finishing second and fifth, respectively, after the post-race penalty report on Monday afternoon revealed Andretti Global’s cars for Marcus Ericsson and Kyle Kirkwood failed inspection and were moved to the rear of the field.]
Had things fallen differently in the closing stages of the race, Malukas envisioned that it could have been his team celebrating at the end of the day, but alas, it didn’t quite play out that way.
Malukas made his final pit stop two laps after eventual race winner Alex Palou, but as things cycled out, he could only sit back and watch as Palou and runner-up Marcus Ericsson dueled it out for the win.
“All those yellow flags, seeing our position of the car and how good we were, I mean, we had it at the end there,” Malukas said.
“Definitely picturing it, and man, we gave it our all in those last — I think it was about 15 to go, and we turned it up and I was just hanging on for dear life trying to get something out of it. Those two lap cars kind of came in and ruined the fun for us and chose this winner. That’s just kind of how this track goes.”
The 23-year-old Chicago native explained how surreal it was being a contender at Indianapolis a year after having to watch the 2024 running of this race from the sidelines with a broken wrist.
“I mean, this past year that I’ve had has been the toughest year I think of my life really. It was a lot of different emotions, roller coasters,” said Malukas.
“And if I look back one year ago today, I wasn’t even in INDYCAR anymore. I didn’t have a left hand and I was up here in the media center just being a fan. And I could say one year later that I’m back in the 500 and not just back but I’m fighting for the win, which is incredible to say.
“It’s been an insane year. It’s always going to be a year of maturity for me. I’ve aged — although it was a year, I feel like I’ve aged 10. Everything happens for a reason and I’m taking all this knowledge and everything I’ve learned in the past year and all the hardships and going to put it into more success in the future.”
Malukas concluded with some thoughts on what a run like this will do for his team and the organization as a whole with the looming summer stretch the series is headed into between now and the season finale on Labor Day Weekend.
“This month was very necessary for us. If we just look outside of the 500 and the championship, we really needed this,” Malukas said. “And I think it’s going to be a big turning point for the team and for everybody that we can be there and things can go our way if we just have some luck.
“The morale is very high in the team. Even though we were still P3, man, it’s an incredible time. So many things can go wrong in that race, and everything went forward for us and the crew did an insane job on the pit stops, the engineers, incredible time and gave me a great car and strategists were on point.
“A lot, a lot of positives to take out of it, and we’re going to push into results for the rest of the season.”
So close. David brought home the No. 4 Clarience Technologies @TeamChevy P3!
Santino had a hard fought P7in the No. 14 @HomesForOurTrps Chevy.
Of course we wanted more, but it wasn’t in the cards this year. These crews put it all out there and we were consistently in the… pic.twitter.com/PiRo1qs5Oh
— AJ Foyt Racing (@AJFoytRacing) May 25, 2025
As for his teammate, who always finds a way to run well at Indy, he would have to deal with mechanical gremlins in his car as the race played out to stay in the fight.
“Woke up this morning wanting to win it. I told the guys, let’s go win this. Disappointed in myself that I couldn’t get it done for us,” said Ferrucci.
“But I will take what the day gave me. I had some fantastic restarts and some good passes. Dealt with a little more adversity than I anticipated. Here we are…another top-10. Slowly pushing my record down the line.”
Ferrucci added praise for his crew to remedy the issue he was having with his sidepod to keep him in contention.
“The crew did an amazing job. They got the sidepod bolted back on the car during a green flag stop, which was, I mean, damn impressive,” said Ferrucci.
“I mean, we needed it on. So, 120 laps of it flapping in the wind wasn’t great. But the last stop, we had an issue and we just lost some time, it kind of pulled us outside of the top five. Nothing we can do from there. Crew did a great job. I mean, strategy was great. It gave us kind of what we deserved.”
Great drives from both Foyt drivers and good to see Santino congratulating Little Dave. Team mates in harmony.
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