Written by Archie O’Reilly
It has been a non-stop few days for Louis Foster.
His schedule has been packed with shop tours, the meeting of fresh faces and the learning of new names aplenty. And emails too - the things they don’t tell you about being a racing driver.
But it is all worth it, for Foster can now call himself a professional racing driver.
As he has admitted, failing to win the 2024 Indy NXT championship would have put his single-seater racing career and life goal in serious jeopardy. But returning for a second year in IndyCar’s premier feeder series with Andretti Global, Foster was the class of the field as he secured the title by a resounding 122 points.
Ending the 14-race season with eight wins and 12 podiums - including 11 successive top-two results to end the year - Foster emphatically ensured his open-wheel career could continue. But more importantly, the campaign propelled him to the forefront of IndyCar teams’ thinking.
And courtesy of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) signing him for 2025 and beyond, Foster is now gearing up for an IndyCar future.
“It’s difficult to put into words,” he says. “How long have I been racing? A long time. A long time - more or less 15 years.
“To get it done and to be able to call myself finally a professional racing driver and to have made it to IndyCar, which has been my dream for a long time - as long as I can remember really… obviously super thankful to everyone that supported me, especially my family, especially sponsors who have been with me for many years, like Copart.
“It’s a dream come true.”
Even by winning the NXT title and gaining the associated scholarship, stepping up to IndyCar was never a certainty for Foster, who has always been acutely aware of the competition for comparatively few seats.
There is every chance his second NXT season really had to be that irresistibly dominant.
The wheels were in motion on Foster’s future months before he secured the championship, albeit nothing could be formalised as such until that was wrapped up. His conversations with RLL have not been a recently-founded thing.
Heading into the month-long Olympic break post-Iowa, Foster’s championship sat at a handsome 77 points with four races remaining. And it was in St. Louis - as NXT returned from its summer hiatus at World Wide Technology Raceway in mid-August - that Foster had a first meeting with RLL co-owner Bobby Rahal in an official face-to-face capacity.
“There was interest and then you get to a point where you’ve gone from… ‘Oh yeah, we’re interested,’ ‘I'm interested,’ to: ‘Alright, well, let’s go. Let’s get a deal sorted,’” Foster says. “And there’s always a bit of a stalemate there for a while.
“We kind of hit that point for about a month or so after we won the championship, where we’re kind of like: ‘We’re ready to sign. This is what we’ve got. All our cards are out.’ Just kind of waiting for someone to pick up the pieces, really.”
Not being a driver able to facilitate a full-season budget - with the scholarship only worth $850,000 - there were a few gaps left to plug for Foster.
“Two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago, is when it really came together,” Foster adds. “Obviously we could bring a certain amount of budget with the championship prize money and we were just waiting for a team to be able to fill in the rest for us.
“Bobby and the team have been great - grateful enough to come down to that number and allowed us to get a deal sorted.”
Rahal’s willingness to compromise does speak to the faith he has in his 21-year-old rookie driver - likely seen as a replacement for the outgoing Christian Lundgaard as the team looks to build a ‘young driver cadre’ of sorts.
The make-up of Foster’s deal also evidences how highly the team values its new driver. A multi-year deal was not something Foster had seen as a likely option, but securing a long-term agreement could prove extremely valuable.
“It wasn’t necessarily a must, to be honest,” he says. “At the end of the day, it was just getting into IndyCar in the first place.
“The fact that I’ve got multiple years to prove myself is nice. I don’t go into the first year… because if you’re on a one year deal, I think from my perspective, talks about next season start happening in kind of June, July.
“So as a rookie going in on a one-plus-one, for example, you’ve got maybe half the year where you’ve got to start performing pretty early on because you can quite easily find yourself out of a seat. And if you start performing by the end of the year, it might be a little bit too little, too late.
“So although you’ve got a full year technically, really you’ve got half a year to prove your worth. Whereas with a multi-year deal, which I’ve thankfully got from Rahal… I’m super, super happy about it. I wasn’t expecting it, but when they offered it, I was over the moon.
“It gives me just more time and more security. It allows me to have a full-on rookie year without that pressure and really learn as much as possible without making stupid mistakes from all the pressure mounting.”
Ultimately, especially considering the multi-year factor, Foster believes RLL was the best option on the table. But there was interest from elsewhere.
One team even inquired about Foster’s services on the day of his RLL announcement.
“About half an hour before we got announced, I got a text from a different team asking about things,” he says. “I was like: ‘Well, sorry buddy, you’re going to find out in obviously half-an-hour.’”
But Foster could not afford to wait given the amount of drivers waiting in the wings to pounce on any openings.
“I think there were other options - don’t know where they would have gone and what those deals would have looked like,” he says. “But at the end of the day, I wanted to be in IndyCar, I wanted to get it done as soon as possible.
“I think, from my perspective, Rahal was the best option that was available this year for me.”
A leading part of the talks was former Formula One and IndyCar driver Stefan Johansson, who manages Foster and also represents drivers such as Scott Dixon. He was brought onboard by Foster’s team in the last two years and his knowledge of the grid and experience of being involved in such deals has been invaluable.
Foster himself is a driver in the camp of wanting to stay out of the bulk of talks, particularly given his attention was focused on winning the NXT championship while negotiations were ongoing this year.
“That was my primary goal, winning on track and doing the best I can on track and then let [Johansson] sort the off-track stuff,” Foster says. “And I think for myself, it’s also important to separate. I think sometimes if you do a lot of the dealings yourself, you can get a bad taste in your mouth if there’s any arguments over contract stuff.
“I would rather myself not have to have that. So I haven’t really ever spoken directly, for example, to Bobby or even to Andretti when I did deal with them for Indy Lights - I never spoke directly to them about money or this or that or the other.”
It is hard for Foster to quite know what to expect from his rookie year. RLL is a team that has shown a lot of promise in recent years, with a win in Toronto from Lundgaard and a total of four road-or-street course poles for the team in 2023. But there are also hints that it is a team in transition.
The highlight of the 2024 season was a podium for Lundgaard on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, with a general slight downturn results-wise and inconsistency remaining on ovals. The return of two-time Indianapolis 500-winning engineer Todd Malloy in a lead race engineering role is an example of more personnel change this off-season.
However things may go in 2025, Foster knows it is likely unrealistic to expect to immediately enter the series as a front-running driver as a rookie.
“I need to take it as it comes, see what happens,” he says. “It’s a very tough championship and we’re going in definitely in a bit of an uphill battle for sure, especially myself being a rookie. It’s very difficult to set expectations.
“I’ve never been in this situation before in my career so far, where I’m going into a season knowing it’s unlikely that I’ll win a race more or less. I hate saying that, but if we win a race, it’ll be a surprise rather than an expectation - a very nice surprise albeit.
“Every other year we’ve always gone in with: ‘Oh, let’s win the championship,’ because we’ve always had the ability to do that.’ It’s so difficult for me to sit here and give expectations because I really don’t know.
“I think we’re going to have to start racing. I need to have more discussions with the team themselves and see what their expectations are of me. And that will give me a better understanding of what we’re working towards.”
While it is hard to set expectations, particularly before having tested for the team, Foster does have some goals in mind. Winning Rookie of the Year is his main target, while securing the team a Leaders’ Circle contract - with its financial perks - is also going to be important.
“Those are the bigger goals that I think should be pretty realistic in my mind,” he says. “Obviously see what shakes up and see what other rookies are on the grid in the end. But aside from that, I would love to say that I don’t think a podium would be too far out of the wings but just got to see what happens.”
Especially with the security of a multi-year deal, Foster knows the priority will be making progress through the year. Going into the St. Petersburg season opener anticipating a top-six finish, for instance, is not seen as particularly realistic.
“If I can qualify in the top 12 [in St. Pete], that sounds really good to me - happy with that,” he says. “I think that’s going to be very hard. So I think realistic expectations are just to learn. I think that’s the point of a rookie year - learn as much as possible and build on that progress to year two.”
Foster will have Graham Rahal - entering his 18th season of IndyCar competition - as a teammate to learn from, while he is also relishing the idea of learning from being on track with legendary veterans such as Dixon and Will Power.
“As a rookie, it’s about being a sponge and learning as much as possible,” Foster says. “I think the most career suicide you can do is go in egotistically. Although I am the Indy NXT champion, I’m kind of a nobody, almost, in IndyCar in a way.
“That’s the way I kind of see it. Obviously coming off as the feeder series champion is a big thing but it’s back to ground one, it’s back to square zero, it’s back to being a complete and utter novice in IndyCar.
“And that’s the mindset that I’m going to take because that’s what’s worked for me my entire career and got me here. So I’m not going to change it.
“There’s people in the industry that know tonnes more than I do and it’s all about learning from them and really applying myself to everyone and seeing what we can do at the end of the day.”
Pace-wise, Foster felt that he would have been equipped to make the move to IndyCar after his rookie Indy NXT season. But after putting together a supremely consistent sophomore year, he is now about as primed as possible.
“I think if I didn’t feel ready, then it would prove that Indy NXT isn’t a good stepping stone,” he says. “Indy NXT produces clearly good IndyCar drivers at the end of the day. You’ve just got to look back in the last kind of six, seven years.
“How many of those drivers are still on the grid? How many of them are competing at the front?”
Across Indy Pro 2000, which he won as a rookie in 2022, and Indy NXT, Foster has won on 11 of the 13 IndyCar tracks he has experience on.
“I’ve driven the tyre for the last two years, I’ve driven every [road and street] circuit bar Thermal and Long Beach,” he adds. “So I feel extremely prepared. I don’t think you can be more prepared for IndyCar than I currently am.
“There’s nowhere else that prepares you as well, even honestly Formula One. I think you’re more prepared as an Indy NXT driver than a Formula One driver to come to IndyCar, in my opinion. So I think I’m as ready as I can be.
“You’re never ready enough, I’m sure of it. There’s always going to be surprises. There’s always going to be things to learn. But with a great pre-season preparation, which thankfully I get a lot of test days being a rookie and also being an Indy NXT driver - IndyCar put on a great testing programme for us - come St. Petersburg, I would hope we’re good to go.”
Even after 30 hours of being officially an IndyCar driver as he sits down with DIVEBOMB, Foster is already ready to put any honeymoon phase aside.
“We’ve had our goldilocks period of being able to sit there and bask in it and be happy and that lot,” he says. “And obviously super happy to get it done. But the focus now is on preparations for the season.”
Things will not get quieter for Foster. The day after the conversation, he is off to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to observe the team’s Indy 500 hybrid outing. And there are still many more people to meet, names to learn and things to set up.
There has scarcely been time for Foster to give deep thought to what is ahead, including running his maiden Indy 500.
“I’m sure it will hit me closer the time I come to it, once I’ve done my rookie testing and the rookie orientation stuff,” he says. “It will start to sink in more. But obviously it’s the biggest race in the world so it’s going to be an insane experience as a driver. That’ll be definitely the highlight of the year.”
Simply being a “part of the big show” and running the likes of the Indy 500 and racing at Long Beach for the first time are particular things that Foster earmarks. But getting down to business and bonding with the team is what excites him just as much.
“Learning from the team and getting to know them; I take a lot of joy and pride in really gelling with teams and really getting close and getting everyone to work hard towards one goal,” he says. “That’s what I really enjoy doing as a person, and if we can really get it to work, I think that would be quite special for me and that would be a nice thing to do.”
Above anything, Foster is eager to get out on track for the first time as an RLL driver after only one prior IndyCar test with Andretti at Road America last September.
According to Rahal, that first test outing will come at the Thermal Club on November 19th, when former F1 driver Logan Sargeant tests with Meyer Shank Racing.
Once fully integrated with RLL, Foster plans to travel home to the United Kingdom for Christmas and go on holiday with his family. But even with the best part of five months still before the 2025 season gets underway, things are far from quiet.
“Busy... very busy,” Foster says of the period ahead. “Between content days - with FOX next year - and then sim time, testing, other stuff in general, it’s going to be a very busy four or five months. I’ve been signed for 20, 30 hours… not very long at all. So it’s still getting my email set up and getting the foundation set so that we can progress on from there.
“But I’m sure they’re going to put me to work, which is what I’m here for.”
Foster is aware that the hardest work remains ahead. Making it into IndyCar and becoming professional is a dream come true but, in many ways, the journey almost begins afresh.
“It’s definitely hard to get into IndyCar but it’s just as hard to stay,” Foster says. “I think it’s super important to be able to reset as a rookie again and be humble again and really understand that it’s going to take just as much work, if not more, to stay here and to be successful here as it took to get here in the first place.
“In my opinion, there’s a lot of good drivers on this grid that, if you put them on the Formula One grid, it would surprise a lot of people. These are extremely good drivers, extremely competent teams and you’ve got to give it your A-plus game otherwise you’re going to fall off. My mindset is already fully on being competent in IndyCar.
“I think getting to IndyCar is a dream but that’s not the dream. The dream is to win IndyCar.”
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