FORT WORTH, TX – A year ago, Santino Ferrucci had never raced on an oval before. See, his whole life was about racing in Formula One. He was on tap to be the next great American driver in F1. Unfortunately, those dreams were dashed with some major issues last summer.

Now, those have been rectified which sent him back over to the United States for an NTT IndyCar Series seat. That meant for the first time of his career, five races on ovals in 2019.

See, he made four starts in the series last year, but two were on a street course in Belle Isle and two more on natural road courses at Portland and Sonoma. His first time on an oval was in a test at Texas last Fall.

Now, he headed to Texas this weekend on the heels of being named Rookie of the Year for the 103rd Running of the Indianapolis 500. He finished seventh in his first oval start of his life.

In his second oval start, he shined again. He remained on the lead lap throughout the entire DXC Technology 600 on the 1.5-mile track and brought his No. 19 Honda home an impressive fourth.

Two oval starts – two finishes of 7th and 4th respectively.

“I can’t thank my crew enough,” said the rookie driver after an impressive run. “We had a stellar crew in the pits, they did fantastic stops and we just made our way to the front while avoiding a couple of incidents in front of us. I can’t thank my spotter Pancho (Carter) enough to get me to push my limits in the car, coaching me throughout the race. To bring home a top five with our Cly-Del Manufacturing Honda, my first one in the NTT IndyCar Series, feels pretty good. For someone who had no experience on ovals, I’m starting to say I love them. I’m happy with a fourth place. After Indy, knowing what kind of car we had, how hard our crew has been working and how much power we have from Honda as well, I knew we could do something special here, regardless of what happened in qualifying, and we did.”

Ferrucci, held off an oval ace in Ryan Hunter-Reay who had much fresher tires than the Connecticut native did. It was his fourth top 10 finish in his last five starts on the season overall as he remains ninth in the series standings heading into the second half of the year.

To make that even more impressive, he’s sitting ahead of his veteran DCR teammate of Sebastien Bourdais in the standings and has finished ahead of Bourdais four times already this year.

This could be shaping up to be a banner year for him. Everyone thought that Colton Herta or Felix Rosenqvist would be winning season Rookie of the Year Honors but here Ferrucci is beating them all.