Written by Archie O’Reilly
It has been an exhausting but simultaneously exhilarating year for 19-year-old Kyffin Simpson. In his late teenage years, he is already living his childhood dream in racing.
“It’s been incredible,” Simpson says, sitting inside Chip Ganassi Racing’s IndyCar race shop at the start of the second week of a four-week ‘break’ for the IndyCar circus. He is five races from the conclusion of his rookie year. And it has been a journey of learning and progress.
“It’s been an intense year, to be honest, with a lot of back-to-back races and not a whole lot of break in between to really digest everything. But in a way, I think that’s also been quite nice to just have consistency and lots of time in the car. So it’s been a tough year but I think we’ve been doing a good job on my development and progressing each race.”
Simpson has been using the time off post-Toronto, and ahead of the final stretch of the season, wisely as IndyCar takes a back seat during the Paris Olympics. He has been unwinding in Florida and has taken time to visit family back in his birthplace, Barbados.
But even a supposed brief hiatus for the series is sparing in allowing total relaxation. At the time he is speaking, Simpson is soon Gateway-bound for a test ahead of World Wide Technology Raceway hosting IndyCar’s next race. Then he will have a chance for more valuable family time in Florida before a sprint to season’s end.
It is all worth it though. And Simspon is relishing being an IndyCar driver.
“Just driving these incredible cars has to be my favourite part - such a fun car to drive and such a fun car to race,” he says. “‘Wow, crazy, the IndyCar driver likes driving.’ But that’s got to be the favourite part for me. [It is] an experience that I’m enjoying.”
Maloney-influenced racing roots
Simpson was born in Barbados but has lived in the Cayman Islands - the nation that he represents in racing - since he was 12 years old. Famed for its idyllic beaches and watersports, Cayman is hardly a haven for motorsport with only “a little bit of drag racing” and scarce else on that front.
But there is a track and more motorsport interest that allowed Simpson’s racing roots to grow back in Barbados.
It was only 10 years ago that nine-year-old Kyffin Simpson dabbled in go-karting for the first time. And it was largely owing to close friend Zane Maloney, who is presently racing in Formula 2, that Simpson started racing in the first place.
“My dad was good friends with the people that own the track - they’re huge motorsport people and we were always very friendly with them,” Simpson said. “Zane Maloney, I grew up with - he was always my good friend and he’s the one that got me into racing. Just kind of fell in love with it from there and continued with it into America, did a good job with it.”
Simpson is still in close contact with Maloney, who has been invited into the IndyCar paddock by Simpson in recent months.
“I still talk to him quite a bit,” Simpson said. “We’re still good friends. We still talk a lot. He came over to Road America earlier this year to hang out and experience IndyCar for the first time. And it was great to have him around. He was just hanging out on the timing stand with Chris [Wheeler, strategist]. It was great to have him over.”
Competing against Maloney in IndyCar would be a full-circle experience for Simpson, albeit he is not sure whether the Barbadian driver, affiliated with the Sauber Formula 1 team, is set to make the move. A maiden IndyCar test for Maloney suggests it could be possible.
“I don’t really know but it would be great to have him over here,” Simpson said. “Obviously we’re good friends but we’re also very competitive against each other, so that’d be good.”
The start of an American journey
Simpson did not compete in his first go-kart race until the age of 10 after first dabbling in karting the year prior. Though there was an existing interest in motorsport.
“I watched Formula 1 quite a lot - my dad was big into Formula 1,” he said. “Rally is a huge thing in Barbados and there’s always a big rally there every year. So we would always go watch the rally and [were] always around cars growing up. So I always loved cars and loved racing and just kind of grew into it.”
Simpson started racing in the United States when he was 12 years old. He would fly out to races from Cayman after moving to the island that same year. And it was these early years of racing in America that really turned Simpson’s attention to the IndyCar realm.
“I started off watching Formula 1 pretty much exclusively,” he said. “I didn’t really watch other forms of motorsport. Kind of just Formula 1 and being a Formula 1 driver is what I started off wanting to do. But eventually, racing in America more, I started watching IndyCar and met a lot of people that had previously worked in IndyCar or had some ties to IndyCar.
“So I just started watching it more, started getting into it more and realised: ‘Wow, this is a really incredible form of motorsport.’ I just loved how close it was and how close the racing was. So that’s what really drew me to IndyCar rather than Formula 1. From there, I decided I wanted to take the American route towards IndyCar.”
Within around five years of starting to compete in races, Simpson started racing in cars around the time of the global pandemic. He raced a part-season in the Formula 4 United States Championship before quickly moving onto Formula Regional Americas.
In 2021, Simpson dovetailed an Indy Pro 2000 campaign with a first complete season in the American Formula Regional championship. The latter saw his first car-racing success earned as he won the championship with seven race wins and 13 podiums in 18 races.
A rapid rise of sacrifices and versatility
Simpson started his championship-winning Formula Regional Americas season as a 16-year-old and has continued a major ascension up to IndyCar inside only 10 years of even racing for the first time. To make the quick level of progress that he has done takes sacrifices - from karting through to car racing.
“It’s tough, especially even in karting,” Simpson said. “When you’re in karting, you’re racing like 26 weekends out of the year. So it’s a lot to do both school and racing. So all of that makes it very tough to spend time with family and friends. When I moved to Cayman, obviously a new place, new environment and all that, it’s a big change.
“That makes it difficult when you’re not around all the time to make friends and all that. So little things like that are small sacrifices that you have to make to become an IndyCar driver and to really take it to the next level.”
An Indy Lights season ensued after his Formula Regional success and Simpson also ventured into sports car racing to assist his development further. He finished ninth in the standings as an Indy Lights rookie in 2022 and became a race-winner in the GTD category of the IMSA SportsCar Championship that same year at Road America.
An LMP2 IMSA endurance schedule followed in 2023, where Simpson raced alongside Scott McLaughlin to win in class - and take an overall podium - in the Sebring 12 Hours with Tower Motorsports. He also became a sports car championship winner in LMP2 cars with Algarve Pro Racing in the European Le Mans Series (ELMS) last year.
“I think the main reason we wanted to venture into sports car racing was to get some experience with pit stops and fuel saving and tyre management,” said Simpson, who won twice and only finished off the podium once in six rounds in ELMS last year. “And I think doing that was a big help, especially because Indy NXT doesn’t do pit stops.
“That’s one thing that you miss out on and something that is pretty important for IndyCar. And I think alongside that, we ended up getting a whole lot more out of it with being able to win the European Le Mans Series championship and just get a lot of good race experience under my belt as well.”
Simpson had a very busy 2023. Alongside his LMP2 commitments in IMSA and ELMS, he was a race-winner in the Asian Le Mans Series and ran a second year in the rebranded Indy NXT series.
But while he took two podiums and a first pole, and with absence from two rounds due to commitments elsewhere also being a factor, Simpson was not too happy with Indy NXT his performances and resultant 10th-place finish in the standings.
“To be honest, I don’t think I performed very well last year in Indy NXT,” he said. “I just felt like, in the year as a whole, I didn’t perform how I should have. I didn’t feel like I performed how I realistically could have if I had done this better, done that better, put a lap together in qualifying, whatever it is.
“I was really learning a lot in [ELMS] as well. I was able to perform well in that, which was good. But in Indy NXT I wasn’t happy with how I performed. Getting that pole at Road America was nice and the couple of podiums I had. But I definitely felt like I should have been in a place last year to win some races.”
The start of the Ganassi relationship
Simpson’s affiliation with Chip Ganassi Racing goes back over a year before he was announced to be joining the team’s IndyCar operation in a fifth entry for 2024. And it all started when Simpson met Chip Ganassi at Daytona International Speedway as he competed in his maiden Daytona 24 Hours race.
“We got to talk and talk about my future in racing and the relationship grew from there,” Simpson said of the meeting, which came after his Formula Regional Americas championship. “And by around May, we had signed the contract to join Ganassi as a development driver.
“That was a great thing for me because I was really able to learn a lot from everyone here at Ganassi and really tap into their resources, like Dario and all of their engineers as well, and got to learn a lot from all of them over the last couple of years.”
This period with the team was invaluable as Simpson grew accustomed to how one of IndyCar’s leading operations worked.
“For the most part, I kind of just hung around and just tried to listen in on as many engineering meetings and races and qualifying sessions as I could,” Simpson said. “Usually on a weekend, if I was racing at the race we were at, I would do my race and I would finish up my briefing with my team and then I would go over to one of the Ganassi pit stands.
“[I would] just listen in and learn from them over the race and learn how they approach race and how their strategy plays out and all of that. I think that was very helpful, especially coming into this year to know a little bit more what to expect from a ‘how the team works’ perspective but also how races play out.”
But despite having this close relationship with the team already, Simpson was caught by surprise when Ganassi’s managing director, Mike Hull, called him about stepping up to IndyCar in the team’s new No.4 Honda for 2024.
“It was kind of out of the blue,” Simpson said. “I think we were hoping to be moving up to IndyCar but you never really know. And then Mike Hull called me one day and said: ‘Yeah, you’re going to be in the car next year.’ So that was pretty incredible to hear and a big moment for me.”
Ultimately, the existing relationship with the team has made the step to IndyCar slightly more comfortable for Simpson.
“Getting to experience how they run things and what their procedures are for things and all that kind of stuff was a big help in me not really having so many surprises when I jumped in the car this year,” he said. “I think obviously you kind of learn something new every weekend, especially now that we’ve got the hybrid system.
“You kind of learn something new about it and how to use it and little things like that so sometimes you might get caught out by: ‘Oh you actually have to do this,’ when this happens or little procedural things. But nothing’s been crazy surprising.”
Gearing up for IndyCar’s challenges
Simpson’s pre-season preparations for IndyCar competition were somewhat unique, encompassing a trip to Spain to test an old GP2 car at Monteblanco.
“We wanted to go test that to try to get some more experience in higher downforce, higher horsepower cars, like the IndyCar,” he said. “And we also wanted to try to get some experience on some tyres that fall off a little bit quicker.
“With the Indy NXT tyres, they don’t really fall off much; throughout a race you’ll just kind of plateau the whole race because the tyre falls off a little bit but you also burn off fuel so it kind of evens out. You don’t really have that big fall-off that you see in IndyCar throughout a stint.
“So that was something that we wanted to get some experience on and that was really helpful. I think it was a good start to getting to learn these different aspects of IndyCar.”
The biggest adaptation he has had to undergo is “learning the tyre” despite Firestone supplying the rubber for both IndyCar and Indy NXT. The lack of pit stops in the junior series mean the tyres are more robust thus wear differently.
“Trying to figure out the peak of the tyre in qualifying and how the tyre fall-off is and how to warm the tyre properly and all of that is a little bit more important,” Simpson said.
Such is the tightness of the field, Simpson is aware that marginal gains can make a difference. And he is relishing the purity of the IndyCar experience.
“I’d say IndyCar is just very pure racing,” he said. “And I think because everyone’s got the same car and there’s only two different engine manufacturers, it makes it very even across the board. Everyone’s got very similar stuff and no one really has a huge advantage over someone else unless a team figures out how to make a car slightly better here.
“So I think it’s very pure racing, it’s very close racing. Everywhere we go, we’re very, very close. From first to last, it’s always very, very close. You’ll go to some tracks and the difference between the top 12 will be like two-tenths. It’s just insanely close and it’s tough… If you’re just a little bit off one weekend, it could be the difference between first and 15th.”
Evaluating his IndyCar rookie year
Coming into his rookie IndyCar season off a self-admitted disappointing second Indy NXT campaign, Simpson set his goals as 2024 simply being a learning year of trying to “maximise the car at every opportunity” he had. He is pleased with how he has fared.
“I think in the race situations, we’ve been doing that quite well,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been doing a good job in race situations, being on pace and being able to do whatever the team needs me to do, whether it’s save fuel, save tyres or push hard and close a gap or whatever. And I feel like we’ve done that well, whether it’s on ovals, street courses or road courses.”
Simpson finished inside the top 15 three times in his first four races. He hit a rougher spell after the Indianapolis 500 - being taken out by incidents out of his control through a three-race stretch of Detroit, Road America and Laguna Seca - but has since regrouped.
He made his only real rookie error in Toronto, when he crashed out the race at Turn 8 - a troublesome corner for many drivers more experienced.
Simpson has impressed in his ability to make his way through the field. But that is partly owing to his struggles in qualifying - an area where Simpson feels he has “been lacking” and is targeting improvement. He has only qualified inside the top 20 three times, including in Toronto, and has once made the Fast 12 in mixed conditions at Road America.
“As of right now, qualifying is definitely my weakest point and it’s something that I feel like I’ve been getting better at over these last couple of races,” Simpson said. “But I need to really put it all together, especially coming into only one road course left.”
Four of the final five races to come are on ovals, which offers more scope for Simpson to progress given he is a self-proclaimed “road course guy”.
“Goals remain the same,” he said of the run-in. “We’ve got a lot of ovals coming up, so just going to really need to focus on my oval racing. Oval racing hasn’t been one of my strongest suits in the last couple of years so trying to improve that and I feel like I’ve done a decent job at improving that over the last couple races.”
The Indy 500 and season highlights
Simpson had a very solid first Indy 500 campaign back in May. He securely made the field in 18th place and finished a creditable 21st place in his debut race at the Speedway.
“It was incredible,” he said. “I got to experience it the last two years just on the sidelines, watching everyone else race. Being at that track on the grid before the race is just an incredible feeling. You stand out there and there’s 350,000, 400,000 people all around the grandstands and it almost feels claustrophobic with how many people there are on the grid.
“But it’s just the coolest feeling to walk out through Gasoline Alley and see all those people on the grandstands. And then going into Turn 1 on the first lap and you see all the people in the grandstands… it’s just incredible.”
Simpson described driving at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the Month of May as a whole, as something “hard to comprehend without actually driving in it”.
“It’s insane,” he said. “When you turn up the boost for qualifying is really where you feel it because you’re just one car on track and you trim the car out as much as you can. All through practice, you’re going like 220 [miles per hour] by yourself.
“And then you show up for qualifying and you’ve trimmed the car out and you’ve turned up the boost. And as soon as you turn to that qualifying mixer, it just takes off and it’s the craziest feeling. It’s such a cool experience.”
While the Indy 500 has been the “big one” for Simpson, especially given the highlight of leading “a couple of laps” off-strategy, he also sees his debut performance in St. Petersburg as a particular highlight from the season.
“I was very happy with how I performed there,” he said. “We were able to move up from… I think we started like 23rd and we finished 12th. So it was a very good weekend for us. And so I think that was a big highlight for me and getting to experience my first IndyCar race.”
Bourdais help and teammate lessons
One perk of being in the fold at Chip Ganassi Racing is the vast amount of expertise and experience to tap into for rookies such as Simpson and teammate Linus Lundqvist. Being able to study data and onboards from six-time champion Scott Dixon and Alex Palou, champion in two of the last three seasons, has been hugely beneficial to Simpson.
“They’ve been a huge help,” he said. “It’s hard to really say exactly how much they’ve helped me. We get all the data from them so we’re able to compare. But even just being able to talk to them… in the engineering room, my seat is like two chairs away from Scott and then Alex is just across from him so I can talk to them both very easily.
“So it’s very collaborative and it’s easy to learn off each other. And also having Dario [Franchitti, four-time champion] in there and all the other engineers, and having Marcus [Armstrong] and Linus [Lundqvist] as well to learn from, it’s just been great to learn from everyone in that room.”
Five cars’ worth of data at Ganassi this year has certainly not been harmful.
“There’s not really a point where the engineers are like: ‘Too much data, too much data,’” Simpson said. “So having the extra data is just helpful for the whole team to figure out where the car is and figure out what the car needs.”
As well as his teammates and the mentorship of Dario Franchitti, Simpson has had specific help from four-time champion Sebastien Bourdais.
“Seb’s been a huge help this year being around for a lot of the races,” Simpson said. “He wasn’t really supposed to be around this year but then he was at the St. Pete race and we saw him I think it was on the Thursday and he was just kind of hanging around. And we were like: ‘Oh, well, you want to hang out this weekend?’
“He was saying how he didn’t really have anything else to do so he was around for that weekend and he was a huge help so started coming out to more races. He’s just been a huge help this whole year trying to put me on the right path and give me advice at different tracks and helping with the nuances of some of these new tracks that I’ve been on.”
A Le Mans debut via Instagram
A non-IndyCar highlight for Simpson in 2024 has been a debut 24 Hours of Le Mans appearance with Nielsen Racing in his familiar LMP2 class. And it materialised in a way that one imagines very few racing call-ups have come about.
“It was pretty random actually,” Simpson said. “They messaged me on Instagram asking if I would be interested in racing with them in Le Mans and I said: ‘Well, yeah, I’d be interested but I do have this conflict.’ That was, at the time, the Milwaukee test that I think was on the Wednesday, which was the same day as the drivers’ meeting.
“But we worked it out and we were able to get the exemption from the test and I was able to go over there and race at Le Mans for the first time, which was actually very funny because at the beginning of the year I said one of my goals was to race Le Mans. And that ended up happening this year, which was pretty incredible.
“So I’m very happy to get to do that for the first time. And I was a little bit sad that we couldn’t perform a bit better. But we were very quick and had a great time anyway. It was a lot of fun.”
Simpson’s car had some issues throughout the race, which led to a 20th-place finish in class. But he still enjoyed the experience, with sports car racing being something he finds “quite refreshing” as a break from single-seater driving.
“It’s a little bit sad that [Le Mans and Gateway are] clashing next year,” Simpson said of future Le Mans prospects. “It’s just unfortunate that we can’t be able to go over there and race because I feel like it’s not just fun for the drivers, but I feel like it’s a good promotion for the series as well, being able to go over there and kind of advertising IndyCar in Europe.
“So a little bit sad from that point of view but it is what it is. And we’ll try to just make the most of next year.”
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