Verizon IndyCar Series veteran Tony Kanaan has stated that it is possible for his team, A.J. Foyt Enterprises, to end their win drought this season. The Brazilian stated that he was confident that the team could be in contention for race wins this season, but said that there was still a long way to go before they could think about championships.
Kanaan moved to A.J. Foyt for the 2018 Verizon IndyCar Series having spent the last four seasons beforehand with Chip Ganassi Racing. His team-mate is fellow Brazilian and rookie Matheus Leist.
Matheus seemed to have the better pace of the pair in the season-opening Grand Prix of St. Petersburg earlier this month, putting his #4 Chevrolet in 4th on the grid before sadly crashing out of the race.
Kanaan stated earlier this week that he believes that A.J. Foyt Enterprises can finally return to victory lane after an eighty-four race winless streak. The team’s last victory came nearly five years ago at the 2013 Grand Prix of Long Beach, the race where Takuma Sato took his first victory in the series.
Kanaan himself is also on a winless streak, having not won an IndyCar race since the 2014 MAVTV 500 at Fontana. This year, he is hoping to snap that streak:
“We have a lot of work to do, to try and rebuild the team with A.J.,” said Kanaan in an interview with Motorsport.com, “They had a rough year last year and I didn’t have a good year so we felt we should join forces to try and make something good happen.”
Kanaan went on to say that whilst the team may be capable of challenging for a race win at some point this season, there was a way to go before they could think about challenging for a championship. The last title victory for an A.J. Foyt driver was in 1998, with Kenny Brack taking that year’s championship in the #14 car.
“We’re not pretending that we’re going to come here and in the first year, try to win the championship.” said Kanaan, “But I think we can fight for a couple of race wins and I think the goal is to be in the top eight of the championship for this first year and try to build for next year.”
“We had a pretty decent qualifying in St. Pete, we are competitive and our expectations are pretty realistic.
The next round of the 2018 Verizon IndyCar Series, the Desert Diamond West Valley Casino Phoenix Grand Prix, will take place on April 7 at ISM Raceway.
