Kyffin Simpson, the 20-year-old Caymanian-Barbadian driver, earned his first-ever NTT IndyCar Series podium finish at the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto on 20 July.
Driving the No. 8 Journie Rewards Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, Simpson navigated the challenging street circuit, climbing an impressive 10 positions from his 13th-place starting grid to claim third in the race.
Pato O’Ward placed first with Rinus VeeKay second.
After the race, Motorsport reported Simpson, Chip Ganassi Racing’s current youngest driver, as saying “It was a crazy race. So many ups and downs. At one point we thought we were in the worst position, then very quickly it turned to one of the best positions. All the glory to God. (My crew) did an incredible job on pit road today … Just incredible.”
This performance marks Simpson’s best result in 30 career starts and also earned him the coveted award for most positions gained in the race.
His Toronto triumph marks his fifth top-10 finish in his last 11 starts, with a particularly strong run of four top-10s in his five most recent events.
This includes 10th place at the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio on 7 July, a sixth place at the XPEL Grand Prix of Road America on 22 June, and a fifth place at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.
Kyffin told the Compass, “I’m very excited about getting my first podium in the books and it’s great to get it done at my sponsor Journie Rewards home race.”
He added, “This first podium helps [my] confidence quite a lot after [having] a couple of races where I feel like I messed up my chances. It’s great to finally get it done and now we can try to get some more before the end of the season.”
Simpson says the biggest takeaway from this podium finishing race for him and his team is knowing that they have a lot of speed.
“Now we are just focused on a couple more races to try and finish off the season strong,” he concluded.
Simpson’s next race is the Java House Grand Prix of Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in California scheduled for 27 July.
