Santino Ferrucci is returning to the famed No. 14 for AJ Foyt Racing. The young American drove that same car to a 3rd place finish in the Indianapolis 500 last year. Team Penske won the race with Josef Newgarden and now both organizations with have a technical alliance this season. Ferrucci has finished inside the top-ten in all five of his Indy 500 starts.

Ferrucci will join new teammate Sting Ray Robb as the team’s two full-time drivers. Expectations are that the team will have a third entry at Indianapolis, but Benjamin Pedersen will not be in that seat. Pedersen had a multi-year agreement in place with the team but will not be returning after his rookie campaign last year. The full press release from today is below.

[AJ Foyt Racing Press Release]

He’s back! Santino Ferrucci will drive A.J. Foyt’s No. 14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet in the NTT INDYCAR Series in 2024.

Joining the team last year, Ferrucci drove to a third-place finish in the Indianapolis 500 after starting fourth to give the team its best performance since 2000 when Eliseo Salazar started and finished third in the 500. The year before, Kenny Brack won the Indy 500 for Foyt. Ferrucci’s performance continued his string of top-10 finishes in the Indy 500 which stands at five.

“I’m super stoked to be back with the team,” said Ferrucci who will tie the knot with his fiancée Renay Moore later this month. “It’s really good to start building some continuity with everybody and I think it’s going to improve our results. My expectations for the year are to come out of the gate a lot more prepared than we were last year; working with Penske things are hopefully going to be a lot smoother and I’m looking forward to being back at the Indy 500 again.”

Although the team’s only top-five performance last season came in the Indy 500, Ferrucci managed to secure a berth in INDYCAR’s Leaders Circle program when the No. 14 finished 20th in the Entrant Standings (Ferrucci finished 19th in the driver standings). Last year was the first time since 2020 that Ferrucci competed in the entire INDYCAR Series, marking his third full-time season.

Team President Larry Foyt echoed Ferrucci’s sentiments, saying, “I’m very happy to have Santino back. We worked well together, and he brings a good energy to the team. Obviously, we have our eyes set on the Indy 500, but we also had some good pace in other races but didn’t get the results. Together we are focused on moving up in the championship standings and I believe we can achieve that.”

Ferrucci will be joined by sophomore driver Sting Ray Robb who was signed last month to drive the No. 41 Chevrolet. The team is not planning to field a third car for the season which begins with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on Sunday, March 10.