Monday, January 21, 2013

What's a Santino Ferrucci?

A revvy Italian sports car? Nope. A velvety red with a floral nose and backnotes of sweet oak and nutmeg? Unh-unh.

It's a kid--a 13-year-old kid.

Which brings us to why we're here. Dario Franchitti retweeted this:

@SantinoFerrucci
First car race ever and won by 5 seconds. Stoked. Started P1 in 16 car field at Homestead.

When Dario speaks, I listen. I had never heard of Santino Ferrucci, but the retweet piqued my interest. I figured there was some sort of Scawtlund connection--perhaps one of his buddy's kids, or something, but not so.

A little investigative journalism (even this rooster [What up, Wade?!] can work the Internet) revealed Ferrucci shares the same management agency as Dario. And Allan McNish. And Pedro de la Rosa. And Sebastien Buemi. Huh. Fast company.

So, who is this kid? Well, we know he won his first car race, recently. And word on the street is he's a kick-ass karter. Well, let's not get carried away. McLaren signed him as a developent driver, but... Wait. WHA?! That's right. Like Lewis Hamilton, part deux.

And one other thing. He doesn't hail from Milan or Modena--Santino Ferrucci was born in...wait for it...Woodbury, Connecticut. And his parents' names are Mike and Val. Makes complete sense. 

BREAKING. Literally just discovered this while writing:

@SantinoFerrucci
Won SBWS homestead by 9 secs from last (14th) Had to start last cuz got taken out while in lead of prior race A great w/e winning 2 races

 
Let me get this straight. Modest, not, but Santino Ferrucci is a 13-year-old development driver for Mclaren who won a pair of races--going away--in his first weekend of car racing, and he lives in Connecticut? WINNING.

Get a load of this:



So, he hangs with Smoke, too? Redic...

Where's this kid been? He clearly has his eyes set on F1, which is cool, but maybe after he retires to NASCAR, he'll re-retire to IndyCar. Who knows.

All I do know is he's now solidly on our radar.

BTW: I would have titled this post, "The Great Santino," but GQ Magazine beat me to the punch. Read their take on the mighty Ferrucc, here.

--Chris