Written by Archie O’Reilly
Louis Foster, driving for Andretti Global, has been crowned the latest Indy NXT champion with one race to spare in the 2024 season. He is the first British winner at this level since Alex Lloyd in 2007.
Foster, the 2022 Indy Pro 2000 champion, finished fourth in the Indy NXT standings as a rookie last year. He has built on two maiden-season wins with seven victories in 13 races in 2024 - all coming within the last 10 rounds, during which Foster has finished no lower than second.
Here is how the recently-turned 21-year-old from Odiham in Hampshire, England became a champion for the second time in only three years on the IndyCar ladder…
St. Petersburg
The opening race in St. Petersburg appeared to lay out the trio of drivers that would contend for the title in 2024. Nolan Siegel, also returning for his second NXT campaign, started the season with a dominant win from pole. Foster had to settle for third behind Jacob Abel, who finished second for the third time in the series.
Starting fourth, Foster needed to pass debutant Myles Rowe in order to lift himself into the podium places. And then the long-run was already on Foster’s mind on late-race restarts as he neglected to take risks to get past Abel.
“My idea going into the race was to try to get past [Rowe] in a sneaky place as soon as possible, which we managed to do,” he said at the time. “From there on, it’s a qualifying track really for us Indy NXT boys. I was behind Jacob most of the race. Jacob had good pace. He was pretty practical on the push to pass…
“To start the year with a podium, strong, we know we got the pace, we’re not too concerned… Just focusing on the points. I think today was a good example of that. There was twice where I could have gone for a move on Jacob. It could have worked or it could have taken us both out, so I decided not to.”
Barber
Up until the race, the second weekend of the season - at Barber Motorsports Park - was quite disastrous for Foster. Electrical issues riddled his No.26 Andretti machine in practice and continued into qualifying, meaning he had to start dead last for the race in 21st.
But come Sunday’s main event, Foster clinically rampaged his way through the field with authority. And by the time the chequered flag flew, taken first by Abel for a maiden win with Siegel second, Foster had salvaged a remarkable fifth-place finish despite a scarce amount of laps all weekend.
“Was a bit hard done by with a bit of luck in Barber for sure, a little bit at St. Pete,” Foster said in reflection. “If I can’t do anything about it, I don’t get worried about it. So with the electrical issue, I’m not going to get all flustered and upset about it because I can’t change it.
“If I have a bad qualifying, it’s a different thing; I beat myself up over it. But I was just trying to help the team out as much as possible, helping out the Cosworth guys and the engine guys, giving them my feedback on what was happening with the car so they could better diagnose the issue.
“Quali would have been hard - I doubt we’d have been up near the sharp end with the limited amount of laps that we had. But we didn’t get to run in qualifying. Going into the race with barely any laps at all practice was quite tricky. But I’ve driven that track enough to know my way around it.
“Then it was just pressing forward, focusing forward, making sure we could get as many passes as possible. Made advantage of mistakes of other drivers further back in the field and got a pretty damn good onboard from it.
“Hopefully a few owners of IndyCar teams have been able to watch that and see what I can do there. It’s not great for championship but it’s not the worst race in the world in my books.”
IMS Road Course (Doubleheader)
Next up was a two-race weekend on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) road course. Foster had a smoother start to the event and qualified fourth for both races. But again things went awry early in the opening race of the doubleheader.
Foster suffered a broken front wing after contact with Caio Collet, and after having progressed up to second, he started to lose ground and was forced to pit shy of 10 laps into the race. But again, in part owing to the inevitable caution periods, Foster made impressive ground and progressed through the pack to salvage a seventh-place finish.
Abel again won the race after fending off a charge from Siegel.
“[It] was a bit of unfortunate contact between me and Caio,” Foster said. “A bit of a racing incident there really. I didn’t know there was a penalty coming his way for blocking previously. I took that one on the chin. Probably could have waited a bit longer there.”
But it was also at IMS that Foster’s championship really started to gain a head of steam. He was able to promptly place the disappointment of the day prior behind him of in the second event of the double bill with an expertly-managed race.
Foster passed Abel for second on Lap 9 before charging after Collet, who started on the front row for both races in only his third weekend in Indy NXT. Foster ultimately used his experience and managed his race in behind the Brazilian, patiently awaiting an opportunity before pouncing with a high-speed move at Turn 11 with 11 laps remaining.
Foster would go on to clinch his third Indy NXT win ahead of Abel in second.
“We came into [it] just knowing we needed to get some points because we’ve obviously had a few rough rounds,” Foster said. “We took what we were given and didn’t overextend ourselves today, so I think that says a lot.
“I think I managed tyres a lot better than the other drivers. I think that really helped me with Caio, getting past him. I was watching him burn up his while I was just looking after mine. And then that allowed me to use less push-to-pass than him and eventually get past him.”
Detroit
Detroit marked the 500th race for IndyCar’s premier developmental series. Continuing the form shown in Indianapolis, Foster took successive wins for the first time in his Indy NXT career, starting on pole and leading every lap despite having three caution restarts.
This elevated Foster to second in the standings with Siegel not having taken the start due to a car issue. The gap to leader Abel was reduced to 25 from 44 points as he finished fifth, with Collet second and first-time podium-sitter Callum Hedge third.
“It’s been a good two races, for sure,” Foster said. “Obviously a few unfortunate things with Nolan today. I think we’re definitely in a good point for the championship… I knew that Nolan hadn’t started or had issues with it. That doesn’t really change [anything] - we’re on the pole, we can still win the race pretty easily from pole. It didn’t change the way I drove.
“If Caio had gone for something, I would have been more inclined to let him go in a way because I was still going to get [points] on those two [Abel and Siegel].”
Road America
By the end of the Road America weekend, one of the key protagonists was out of the fight.
Siegel was called up by Juncos Hollinger Racing in place of Agustin Canapino in a last-minute deal for Road America, leading to him vacating his Indy NXT seat for the weekend. After essentially having lost out on Detroit too, entering the race laps down, Siegel decided to fast-track a step up to IndyCar and seized an opportunity with Arrow McLaren.
Foster went on to qualify and finish second behind first-time winner and teammate Jamie Chadwick. Abel finished third, meaning Foster narrowed the gap atop the standings to 19 points. He did have to recover places in the race, including re-passing Abel, after falling to sixth following an attempted first-corner pass for the lead.
“[Jamie] did an amazing job out there,” Foster said. “We just made a bit of an optimistic start. I had to burn tyres, push-to-pass to get back up to the front. At the end it was always trying to get to Jacob.
“I only had one opportunity [to pass Chadwick] really. It was hard to get to her and even harder to pass. I put my nose there… I’m never going to commit to that until they don’t commit to it. She just turned in - I would have done the same thing if I was her.”
Laguna Seca (Doubleheader)
After coming up short at Road America, Foster’s response in the following race at Laguna Seca was emphatic. He took double pole for the second doubleheader of the season and went on to command both races.
With only one brief early caution to halt his progress, Foster won the opening race by over eight seconds from Collet and only needed to burn two seconds of push-to-pass race-long. Abel was third but only one second shy of half-a-minute behind Foster, who tied his closest title rival with a first of what transpired to be a pair of wins across the weekend.
“It’s never easy,” Foster said. “We’ve worked really hard to get here. We’ve done the best we can and fortunately today that meant that we had a good amount of margin to the guys… I’m breaking a sweat in the car, I’m getting out tired. Is it the biggest margin I’ve won by? No, it’s not. We can still keep pushing and we can still keep trying to build more and more of a gap.”
Foster said after the first race that he expected a tight challenge between himself and Abel throughout the rest of the season. But his suggestion that “the worst he’s going to get realistically is third or fourth - it’s not like there’s a weekend where Jacob is 10th or 11th” was quashed by an 11th-place finish in the second Laguna Seca race.
There was only one lap of caution on Lap 16 and Foster managed that to lead every lap again, with Collet halving his Race One margin in second but third-place finisher Bryce Aron (on the podium for the first time) still 22 seconds back. Abel, meanwhile, was punished for avoidable contact with Reece Gold and handed a drive-through penalty in the latter stages.
“We used a lot of push-to-pass today to keep Caio at bay and give myself enough of a margin for if there’s any small mistakes I might make,” Foster said.
“We were able to win races last year but [not] able to be consistently up in the top three, where we should be. I wanted to try and move up, and I felt like I had the pace to, but I think it was the right decision to stay for another year. This is why I definitely feel like I’m much more competent and just an able driver to be able to go out there and win.”
Mid-Ohio
For the first time, Foster headed into a race weekend as the championship leader - by 35 points ahead of Abel - at Mid-Ohio. And it was a weekend that provided something that, based on performances and Foster’s own indications, had been a long time coming.
As at Laguna Seca, Foster shared the front row with Collet. But this time it was the Brazilian former Formula 3 driver and ex-Alpine Formula 1 reserve on pole for the first time in Indy NXT. And come the race, the rookie was a dominant force and ousted Foster by almost seven seconds for a maiden win.
Crucially for Foster though, despite issues with tyre degradation, he again outscored Abel, who finished third.
“I think with the resurface, candidly, we didn’t figure it out,” Foster said. “We struggled a lot this weekend. We turned up in FP1 with a car that I was definitely not happy with at all but worked really hard with the guys. And we got it into a spot where we could challenge for a podium. A second place feels like a win. We worked really, really hard to be up here.”
Iowa
The mid-July visit to Iowa Speedway - the final race before a month-long hiatus during the Olympics - was the first of four oval races. In only two oval races in Indy NXT last year, Foster finished seventh at Iowa before a second-place Gateway result.
He did have some prior oval success though, winning his first-ever oval race at Indianapolis Raceway Park in Indy Pro 2000. Come his second NXT Iowa visit, after starting second behind first-time pole-sitting teammate James Roe, Foster bided his time before a decisive Lap 50 pass on Roe to surge to a first NXT oval win.
It was a race shortened to 55 laps with a planned mid-race caution period due to tyre-life concerns. Foster ultimately led the six laps that mattered most.
“Near the end the car was super in the window,” he said. “They were as fresh as anything, my tyres. I knew I could go. I knew I had the pace on the outside, gave it a go. James gave me respectful room. It was a good overtake.”
Gateway
Returning from the break at World Wide Technology Raceway, Foster’s points lead sat at 77 points. Iowa had seen Collet crash out in his first oval race, while Abel finished 15th and three laps down after some contact.
Foster emphatically topped qualifying with a track-record two-lap average run, finishing over 0.6 mph clear of teammate Chadwick in second for a first oval pole.
And for the fourth time in 2024, Foster went on to lead every lap in the race. He soared away from Abel in second - after Collet collected Chadwick in a Lap 8 crash - and again built a comfortable margin after a later caution that ran until Lap 59.
Having just turned 21, a taste of champagne - and a bit more of a sting to his eyes than apple juice - on the podium was Foster’s reward.
“Unfortunately we weren’t able to see Jamie’s pace in the race,” he said, “I think she would have had a good race as well. But Andretti gave us a really, really good car today. I was just able to go out there, turn laps, look after the tyres, manage the gap behind me.”
Abel progressed from a sixth-place start and fairly routinely finished second. But Foster would head to Portland with the possibility of wrapping up the championship with two races remaining if things went his way.
Portland
By the time of Indy NXT’s visit to the Pacific Northwest, there was a sense of comfort given Foster’s 91-point lead over Abel. Foster knew limiting risks was key, while Abel saw race wins as a necessity after a rougher mid-season patch.
Foster started on pole for the fifth time in eight races, but courtesy of a grid penalty for Collet after qualifying second, it was Abel who shared the front row with Foster. And after a strong run down the main straight at the start, Abel was able to lead by Turn 1.
Foster followed in close pursuit race-long, but aside from an attempted move - resulting in contact - at the end of the backstretch, he was content to settle in behind Abel.
“Jacob got a really good start,” Foster said. “I felt like I defended enough but obviously a little bit extra there on the inside that Jacob was willing to take the risk and go there. It paid off for him. Once he was there, it was like ‘Yours. I don’t want any involvement in this.’ Once I got through Turn 1 cleanly, I was happy.”
“If we would have been out front, we would have had the car to pull away. Sometimes you have to come second.”
Milwaukee
The buffer between Foster and Abel sat at 77 points heading into the penultimate race of the season upon the return of the IndyCar circus to the Milwaukee Mile. A top-five result would guarantee Foster the championship regardless of where Abel was to finish.
After topping Friday’s practice session, Foster notched a sixth pole in nine races - a run during which every start has been on the front row. And his jump at the start was strong again.
Foster fell under some pressure from Salvador de Alba Jr amid only a single brief caution period. But despite fluctuations in the lead margin, Foster was able to pick up the pace when it mattered and decisively scythed through traffic.
Abel recovered from sixth after some start contact - following a second-place start - to finish second. But Foster’s margin to the car behind had increased from lows of around half-a-second to over four seconds by the chequered flag.
“I was trying to manage my pace to match the pace of the back markers,” Foster said. “I knew it was hard to pass. I was kind of backing up the drivers behind me. But it got to a certain stage with 35 laps to go I knew I would catch the back.
“I then started pushing just to give myself some room. The car was really good. I could see that the drivers that I was overtaking were struggling on tyres, where we had clean air all race, so we were in a pretty good place. It wasn’t too difficult but it’s never fun.”
Foster sealed the championship in a clinical manner befitting his season. It was a fifth win from pole while leading every lap and a seventh across a run of 10 successive top-two finishes. And often a cool customer, Foster let the emotions flow in victory lane.
“I think we’ll save the celebrations for Nashville,” he said. “Job’s not finished - one more race to go. Want to try to finish off with a bang. Go out for some drinks tonight and have a bit of fun but we’ll get the party started in Nashville, for sure.”
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