Written by Archie O’Reilly
Andretti Global’s Louis Foster took his sixth win in eight races in 2024 at World Wide Technology Raceway, extending his Indy NXT championship lead to 91 points ahead of Abel Motorsports’ Jacob Abel - the second-place finisher - with three races remaining.
Pole-sitter Foster led from start to finish at the 1.25-mile oval, better known as Gateway, marking successive oval victories for the Briton after success at Iowa Speedway. But behind Foster it was a frenzy of two-lane racing and overtaking.
The race got off to a disjointed beginning, with the initial start waved off and Jack William Miller left with a dislodged front wing and damage that saw him retire. HMD Motorsports’ Myles Rowe then suffered an incident in the second successive oval race, getting up high and, despite no wall contact, being forced to retire due to a mechanical issue.
The biggest incident of the race then came between HMD’s Caio Collet and Andretti’s second-place starter Jamie Chadwick. As he has since apologised for, Collet moved over on the pit straight before being clear of Chadwick, sending the duo into the outside wall; Chadwick’s race was ended and Collet limped to a 42-lap-down finish.
“I think unfortunately we weren’t able to see Jamie’s pace in the race,” Foster said of his teammate and fellow front-row starter. “I think she would have had a good race as well.”
After a 38-lap green flag run, Foster saw a comfortable gap to Abel extinguished by a Lap 53 caution for heavy wall contact for HMD’s Josh Pierson. Like with Chadwick, the young American driver was unharmed in his impact.
More intense jostling for third and the remaining top-five positions ensued on the restart but Foster was able to manage and extend a three-plus-second gap ahead of Abel again. Abel’s teammate Yuven Sundaramoorthy completed the podium with his first rostrum finish.
How Foster took another win
There was a new incentive for Foster to return to victory lane for IndyCar’s Gateway visit. During the Olympic break, he turned 21 years old, meaning he would be granted champagne for the first time on an Indy NXT podium.
“It was champagne for the first time ever, yes,” he said. “Stings [your eyes] a lot more than apple juice.”
But ridding the pain from his eyes was about as much trouble as Foster encountered aside from marshalling the odd restart. When running the high line became a topic of the post-race press conference, Foster couldn’t really give his view.
“I didn’t really do much apart from run the low line all day,” he said tellingly.
A gap of 3.3 seconds to Abel in second could well have been more if Foster had pushed harder or not had his lead pegged back with the Lap 53 caution for Pierson’s incident. But he had a quick enough car that he trusted he could manage his tyres and not take unnecessary risks while maintaining a comfortable gap.
“Andretti gave us a really, really good car today,” Foster said. “I was just able to go out there, turn laps, look after the tyres, manage the gap behind me.”
He continues to click more and more with ovals after his move over from the United Kingdom in recent years.
“It’s very much a team game, the ovals - much more than it is on road courses,” he said. “Team chemistry really has a massive effect on ovals. Andretti is a great group of guys - we work really hard together, we figure it out. Jamie was P2… we’ve been working really, really hard at it.
“I’ve been learning as much as possible. Compared to some of the American drivers who come up through the ladder, [I have] not a lot of experience on ovals. I feel like I’m on the stage now where I’m no longer a rookie, I kind of have my foot in the door as to say. I’m just getting more and more comfortable on them.”
Foster on the brink of the title
Foster, the 2022 Indy Pro 2000 champion on the rung below Indy NXT on the American ladder, can clinch a sophomore NXT championship at Portland if things fall his way.
But does this possibility of wrapping up a title early boost IndyCar chances for 2025?
“No,” Foster answered. “IndyCar is a very difficult championship to get into. There’s obviously a lot of drivers and not as many seats as drivers. It’s lovely to be able to… not rest but we have a very, very comfortable gap now.
“We’ll see what happens in Portland, the coming weeks. Obviously my goal is to be in IndyCar next year. That’s what we’ve been working to the past five years or so. We’ll see what happens. It’s such a competitive series to get into. Whatever opportunity I might get will be greatly appreciated.”
Foster took one of his two rookie wins in Portland last year so there is confidence heading into the final road course of the season.
“There’s no reason why we can’t win again,” he said. “We have a good idea of what we want to do car-wise for next weekend - we’ve already had discussions about it. I’m quite comfortable showing up there with a strong car.
“Again, aim will be to put it on pole at Portland and win that one. If we do that, I think we mathematically might be near a closing. I’d love for us to do that. At the end of the day, as any driver will tell you, it’s about driving for points. If the best we can get out of the next few rounds is third or fourth, we take it, we move on.”
How Abel’s season has panned out
After back-to-back wins at Barber and on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course after a second-place finish in St. Petersburg, Abel led the championship after three rounds. But after finishing second in the second race of the Indy doubleheader, he finished a high of third in the ensuing six rounds (on three occasions) up until Gateway.
Things have petered out in terms of a really meaningful prospect of a championship. But there are still positives for Abel, second in the standings and back on the second step of the podium at Gateway.
“It’s a super competitive series that we’re racing in,” he said. “Obviously Louis is at the front. Top to bottom, the field is super strong. I think anyone will tell you that if you’re not 100 percent on it, you’re not going to win races and you’re not going to extend the championship lead or keep a championship lead.
“We made a couple mistakes, had a little bit of bad luck. It just snowballs, especially in the centre part of season when it’s back-to-back-to-back-to back. It’s been really nice to have time to regroup and come back stronger for these last four races. Really just focusing on trying to win races and do the best result we can now for the rest of the year.”
It was a pleasant surprise to Abel that he was able to move from sixth and comfortably finish second behind Foster at Gateway.
“Racing is super, super tight,” he said. “It’s a game of millimetres. It’s really hard to nail it. We weren’t really expecting to be in second place on like Lap 4. We were expecting to run behind cars and have to work really hard to move forward all day.
“As a team, we decided to go in a little bit more of a direction where it’s a little bit more aggressive with balance and with setup to really focus on passing and being able to run different lines. We didn’t really have to do that and that made it a little bit hard on tyres, especially the rear tyres. Once you’re loose on an oval, it gets pretty dodgy.
“It’s a really close game. Louis and Andretti have been super strong lately. We’ve got to do what we can to go out there and do the best we can and win races down the stretch.”
Sundaramoorthy’s first podium
In the words of Abel: “Everybody always talks a big game about: ‘I’m going to go send it on the high side.’ I wanted to make sure I didn’t do that, then not do it. We definitely did it.”
And starting two places further back in eighth, Sundaramoorthy showed a similar ability to progress through the field to secure a maiden Indy NXT podium that was “a long time coming” for him. “The high line worked really well early” for the 21-year-old.
Sundaramoorthy could well have had his maiden podium at Laguna Seca in June but crashed in the final corner when attempting to overtake a backmarker. He made sure to approach his Gateway situation with extra caution.
“The whole time there I was in my mirrors looking at fourth place, remembering Laguna Seca,” he said. “It was definitely something that I just needed to do for myself. Got incredibly lucky with that yellow when that came out - gave me some time to kind of regroup, focus and figure out what I needed to do with my tools in the car, what I was doing wrong.
“Once I did that, we went out and put some good laps together, managed to hold them off and get a third place, which I think is well overdue.”
Sundaramoorthy said his “confidence has been building” with every race across the season to date. Qualifying has been his self-admitted biggest sticking point but starting inside the top 10 at Gateway offered a better position to race from.
“Abel Motorsports gave me an amazing car,” he said. “I just tried to do everything I could early and really burned the rear right off a little early. Hung in there. Salvador [de Alba] was on fire at the end. I had to do everything I could to hold him off. Managed to do that by a couple car lengths at the end.”
Hedge delivers save of the season
Of all of the action through the field at Gateway, New Zealander Callum Hedge - still a relative novice on ovals - may have delivered the greatest fireworks of all. The rookie was inside the top five when he ‘crashed’… only he did not hit anything. Not even a caution was needed.
“It felt calm in the car because it happens so quickly,” Hedge said. “I actually just pinned the throttle when I thought I was going around.”
Hedge looked bound for a rearwards impact with the barrier as he slid sideways. But remaining composed and collected in the cockpit, the biggest consequence was the loss of a few positions. Hedge remained inside the top 10 and raced his way back to a fifth-place finish.
“Still learning ovals,” he said. “Not so much the driving. But working on my feedback and making the correct decisions on car setup is something I am getting to grips with.”
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