Despite recent crashes, Caymanian-Barbadian racer Kyffin Simpson, continues to overcome adversity, racing to a new personal career milestone in the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series.
Kyffin, 20, made his debut at the Indianapolis 500 on 26 May 2024, placing 21st out of 33 racers. He was the youngest participant and first ever Caribbean racer to compete in this race known as ‘The Greatest Spectacle in Racing’.
With experience under his belt, Simpson returned to this prestigious racing event this year on 25 May, but was faced with unexpected adversity, not once, but twice this time around.
During the practice session, referred to as ‘Fast Friday’, leading up to race day, Simpson had a significant single-car crash that resulted in his No. 8 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda going airborne after hitting the wall in Turn 4.
Although the car sustained major damage, Simpson was thankfully able to walk away from the crash unharmed.
He then sustained a second crash on race day, with this one being a multi-car incident.
On lap 92, Kyle Larson lost control of his car, spun out and collided with Simpson and Sting Ray Robb, ending the race for all three drivers. Simpson was classified in 25th position out of 33 racers.
Simpson told the Compass that this year’s race was much easier from his side as he knew what to expect and felt a lot more prepared. However, the race-day crash was “a difficult situation”.
“I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Simpson said.
“Huge thanks to IndyCar for putting so much focus on driver safety because even though it was a fairly big hit, I was able to walk away unscathed.”
Racing with the hybrid system was a significantly new element added to this year’s Indy 500 and Simpson said, “It changed the racing quite a bit and it was something that took a while to figure out fully.”
Simpson achieves a career-best finish
One week after the Indianapolis 500, Simpson raced to a career-best placement of 5th of 27 racers at the 100-lap Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix on 1 June.
With a 19th-place position start that fell to 23rd by the second lap, Simpson did not have a strong start, but this did not stop him from climbing the ranks throughout the race.
After Simpson’s final pit stop on lap 65, a ‘full course yellow’ went into effect in lap 67 due to a crash by Callum Ilott.
A ‘full course yellow’ signifies a safety-related incident on the track and requires all cars to slow down to a predetermined speed and to maintain their positions without overtaking. It often leads to the deployment of a pace car and temporary closure of the pit lane to neutralise the race.
Because of this, most other leaders in the race were forced to pit under caution and this allowed Simpson to elevate to second place for the restart with Santino Ferrucci holding onto first position.
Simpson was unfortunately unable to hold onto second position and was eventually passed by winner Kyle Kirkwood, Colton Herta, who took third, and Will Power for fourth. Ferrucci, who led over Simpson after the restart, ended the race in second position.
“I think it’s great to get a solid result on the board after we’ve been so strong at other races and haven’t been able to capitalise on the pace, but now we have some good momentum that we will look to carry into the next races now that the season starts getting intense,” Simpson told the Compass.
For Simpson, he believes he and his team have really improved at qualifying this year, which is something he said they struggled with last year.
Next up for Simpson is the Bommarito Automotive Group 500, held at World Wide Technology Raceway for round 8 of the NTT IndyCar series on 15 June.
