LEEDS, Ala. (March 28, 2026) — Santino Ferrucci was confident in his No. 14 Homes For Our Troops Chevrolet even before qualifying began for the Children’s of Alabama Grand Prix this afternoon at the picturesque 2.3-mile Barber Motorsports Park.
Afterwards he was jubilant as he posted his best qualifying run since winning the pole at Portland (Ore.) International Raceway in August, 2024. He will start seventh after barely missing out on advancing to the Firestone Fast Six by one hundredth of a second.
Santino hugs his race engineer Adam Kolesar after his best qualifying run in nearly two years.
“Honestly, one of our new things this year is to try and start with the car we rolled out with and just build on it. We’ve been missing time in Turns 12 & 13, and it’s been on me to fix that. And, I just kind of sent it through (Turn) 13 and I think I sent it too far because I passed the line off the track. It sucks, because that’s what cost us sixth,” said Ferrucci after posting a lap time of 1 minute, 6.3769 seconds (124.742mph).
“I can’t thank everybody at AJ Foyt Racing, HFOT.org and Chevy,” Ferrucci continued. “We’ve come a long way in the last few years. We’re trying to make this the new normal. We made the Fast 12 in Arlington (Texas) and almost in the Fast Six this weekend. We’ve had great race cars, but I just want to pass less cars. I like being the “Passmaster,” but it feels good to start up front.”
Caio Collet, who was in the same round as his teammate, was in P-1 when the session was red-flagged midway through it for Will Power’s crash in Turn 5 when his brakes failed. Power emerged uninjured and the session resumed with everyone putting on the softer compound alternate Firestone tires. On his optimal lap, Collet dropped a wheel in the grass and recovered, but lost precious time in his No. 4 Combitrans Amazonia Chevrolet.
“I think the car felt very good, both on black and red tires. On red tires, we only had one lap, and unfortunately, I made a big mistake out of turn nine, so that was it. I mean, after that, I lost a little bit of the peak of the tire, and qualifying was over,” said the disappointed young Brazilian. “Not much to say, except that I have a good race car for tomorrow,” he added. His lap time of 1 minute, 6.8444 seconds (123.87mph), puts him 21st on the grid.
Alex Palou won his first NTT P1 Award of the season with his lap time of 1 minute, 6.2341seconds (125.011mph). Rounding out the Firestone Fast Six were David Malukas, Graham Rahal, Marcus Armstrong, Kyle Kirkwood and Romain Grosjean.
The 90-lap race will be broadcast on FOX tomorrow starting at 1 p.m. ET.
In Race 1 of the INDY NXT by Firestone doubleheader, Alessandro De Tullio qualified on pole and held the point over second place qualifier Max Taylor until coming up on backmarkers, who were racing each other which allowed Taylor to cut down De Tullio’s lead and pass him. However, DeTullio fought back and took back the lead through the esses in Turn 12 only to have Taylor make contact in Turn 16 resulting in both cars spinning out of the lead.
DeTullio leads the pack in Race 1.
While Taylor restarted immediately, Alessandro DeTullio was stuck in the gravel trap and lost a lap before getting pulled out by the AMR Safety Team. Taylor was penalized for avoidable contact and dropped to the rear of the cars on the lead lap, finishing 19th. De Tullio placed 20th, first of the cars one lap down.
“Pretty unfortunate ending to the race,” said DeTullio. “We had a good race car, we were leading, and we had a gap. We were managing the race until we caught the lapped cars. That backed us up into P2. We had a decent battle going and then got taken out in Turn 16 unfortunately, but that’s part of racing and something that was not in our control. However, we go again tomorrow in Race 2, starting from the pole again. We know we have the car to win, so head down.”
Alessandro De Tullio’s teammate, Nicholas Monteiro, who started 16th in the 35-lap event, finished 14th for his best finish to date in the No. 4 AJ Foyt Racing entry.
Monteiro, in the black No. 4 car, posted his best finish to date this season.
“Race 1 was solid overall,” said Monteiro. “We showed good pace and learned a lot, even if we didn’t get absolutely everything out of it. There are a few things to clean up, but the potential is definitely there. Looking forward to tomorrow to put it all together and push for a stronger result in Race 2.”
Race 2 will be broadcast on FS1 tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. ET.
Santino chats with Purple Heart recipient Jeffery Williams who is attending this weekend’s race as a guest of Homes For Our Troops (HFOT) as HFOT Director of Development Chris Mitchell (left) looks on.