Nearly a year in, Ferrucci and Kolesar partnership is paying off

Santino Ferrucci and his AJ Foyt Racing engineer Adam Kolesar have become a powerful pairing in less than a year.

Promoted from within the team’s engineering ranks, Kolesar was elevated to the frontline race engineer role for Ferrucci after the Detroit Grand Prix in June of 2025, and since then, the two have gone from strength to strength in a budding relationship that has the No. 14 Chevy on an upward trajectory. Their efforts on Saturday at Barber Motorsports Park gave the Foyt team its second consecutive berth in the Firestone Fast 12, where the Connecticut native pushed the No. 14 to take seventh on the grid.

Although he’s often dismissed as an oval specialist, the lifelong road racer is sending more reminders – after qualifying 12th at the team’s Texan home race at the Arlington Grand Prix – of what he brings to all types of tracks of the IndyCar calendar.

“It's just been sticking with the car that we unload with, and not making a lot of changes, and then letting me adjust via my driving,” Ferrucci told RACER of the biggest evolution in their driver-engineer approach. “So if the car’s consistent, I can be more consistent. And that was the big thing for Arlington. There's the big thing here, same in St. Pete, but at St. Pete, we didn't get to show our strengths in the race. But we’re working through that and finding our strengths.

“Since Adam took over the car after Detroit last year, we've had some really good races. Our focus this year was primarily to figure out that we can qualify better and not have to pass 15 people a weekend!”