INDYCAR: Gearbox issues prevent Kyffin Simpson from taking the green flag at the Indy Grand Prix
by William Soquet, LASTCAR.info Staff Writer
Simpson’s car is pushed to the garage in the early stages of the race. (PHOTO: IndyCar.com)
Kyffin Simpson finished last for the 2nd time in his NTT IndyCar Series career in Saturday’s Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course when his #8 Journie Rewards Honda suffered gearbox problems before starting the race.
The finish came in Simpson’s 22nd series start and was his first since Road America last year, 15 races ago. Across IndyCar Series history, it was the 14th for the #8, the 14th for gearbox problems, and the 123rd for Honda.
Ever since Simpson was punted at Road America last summer, his IndyCar career has continued to progress. Sure, there were the tougher results – 23rd at Laguna Seca, 25th and Gateway and Milwaukee, 22nd at Toronto and Nashville – but there were also early signs of progress. He was 14th and 18th in the two Iowa races, 16th at Portland, and 13th in the second Milwaukee race. He finished the season 21st in points, three markers back of sophomore pilot Sting Ray Robb and four back of Pietro Fittipaldi.
The offseason was a bit of an eventful time for Simpson. Likely due to the funding he brought to Chip Ganassi Racing, he survived the team’s downsizing from five entries to three, leaving Linus Lundqvist and Marcus Armstrong as the casualties. Simpson shifted to the #8 car for his second season in IndyCar. Additionally, in the doldrums of the offseason, Simpson was one of only a handful of drivers consistently posting on social media. Due to his young age (20 at the time of this article), he was a natural connection for many of the sport’s social media fans, providing some jokes and personality in a series known for drivers (Alexander Rossi, Josef Newgarden and others) who are notorious for not opening up about their personal lives.
A couple factors pointed to Simpson having better results in 2025. The first is the traditional progression made from year one to year two in a driver’s career. It also probably helped that Simpson was introduced to racing the hybrid at the same point in time as the rest of the field, giving him a bit more even footing than going into a “regular” second season as a driver. The second is that Chip Ganassi Racing has simply been rocket-fast throughout the whole team the entire season so far. Alex Palou is in the midst of a generational run, and Scott Dixon has finished in the top five multiple times this season.
That speed has translated to Simpson as well. He was 15th at Thermal and 10th at Long Beach, two races that featured almost no attrition. He qualified 10th at Barber, but eventually slid back to 21st at the end of the race. That 21st was his worst result of the season to date, progressing to a point where results in the 20s are the exception rather than the rule.
Despite the Indianapolis Grand Prix occurring in the month of May, there were no extra entries for the race. IndyCar’s field size limit of 27 entries, instituted before the 2025 season, can be thanked for that.
As has often been the case this year, Prema’s Robert Shwartzman encountered issues in first practice. This time, the issues were big and consistent enough to keep him from running a full lap at speed. His best circuit clocked in at 1 minute, 18 seconds, while the rest of the field was at least in the 1 minute, 11 second range. Simpson was a bit of a shock, finishing the session in second place. Teammate Alex Palou was the only driver to run a lap in the 1 minute, 9 second time bracket, but Simpson was less than a tenth from also breaking into that bracket. Louis Foster, the rookie for Rahal Letterman Lanigan, was another refreshing face atop the leaderboard in third.
Santino Ferrucci, who was fourth in first practice, sank to 27th and last in second practice. His lap was 1:11.4, a lap at speed, but not good for anything else in a razor-thin qualifying sim round. Foster kept up his burst of speed, placing second. Simpson did well for himself, placing eighth.
Qualifying saw some interesting shakeups. Shwartzman was the 14th and final car in Group 1, leaving him in the 27th spot on the grid. Jacob Abel, last race’s last-place finisher, was last in Group 2. Rinus VeeKay, the underdog story from Barber, was 12th in Group 2, a low placement for a driver whose only career win is at this track. Simpson was sixth in Group 1, squeaking into the Fast Twelve by about two-tenths of a second over Colton Herta. In the Fast Twelve, he was tenth, outqualifying Ferrucci and Felix Rosenqvist.
Ferrucci’s up-and-down weekend continued on Saturday morning, when the engine blew on his #14 car during the morning warmup. Since the race was not until 4:30 in Indianapolis, the team had enough time to replace it, not endangering his race.
After the command to fire engines, the racecars drove off pit road and began the parade laps. All, that is, except Simpson’s car. The blue-and-magenta Journie Rewards machine was shown on the broadcast being pushed to its pit stall in hopes of finding and resolving the issue quickly. If it was a quick fix, the team could theoretically get him back out on track in enough time for him to start from his qualifying position, tenth.
The car did not move from the pit box before the green, or after the green flag. Midway through the first stint, the car was taken back to the garage. Chances of a return were slim, and it did not happen. Simpson noted in a post-race social media post that the car did not take first gear, making it impossible to get off pit road to start the race.
Marcus Ericsson, who retired with an unspecified mechanical issue, was 26th. His horrid run of luck at Indianapolis from last year, including finishing last in the 500, appears to have continued this year. Herta, Abel, and David Malukas all also retired from the race early and rounded out the Bottom Five. Malukas, stuck with a car that overheated its electronics, brought out the first caution in four races in the later stages of Saturday’s race.
LASTCAR STATISTICS
*Simpson is the first driver not to complete any laps of a race due to a mechanical failure since teammate Scott Dixon suffered hybrid issues at Mid-Ohio last year.
*This is the first last-place finish for the #8 on the Indianapolis road course and is the first at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway since Scott Sharp crashed from the pole on the opening lap of the 2001 Indianapolis 500.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
27) #8-Kyffin Simpson / 0 laps / gearbox
26) #28-Marcus Ericsson / 6 laps / mechanical
25) #26-Colton Herta / 64 laps / mechanical
24) #51-Jacob Abel / 67 laps / mechanical
23) #4-David Malukas / 68 laps / overheating
2025 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES OWNERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Team Penske (2)
2nd) Chip Ganassi Racing, Dale Coyne Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (1)
2025 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES MANUFACTURERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Honda (3)
2nd) Chevrolet (2)
2025 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP
