Written by Archie O’Reilly
Andretti Global’s Louis Foster extended his Indy NXT championship lead to 77 points ahead of Abel Motorsports’ Jacob Abel with four races remaining after winning his first oval race in the series at Iowa Speedway. He bided his time behind pole-sitting teammate James Roe before swinging around the outside and breaking clear in the closing laps.
It was a fifth victory of the season for Foster, all coming in a recent seven-race period of finishes no lower than second place. It was a weekend of significant gain on his closest championship rivals as Abel suffered a tyre issue and Caio Collet an early-race crash on his oval debut.
With Salvador de Alba Jr achieving a maiden podium in third for the Andretti-partnered Cape Motorsports team, it was a podium sweep for the Andretti junior outfit…
Championship crucial for Foster’s future
While anything is possible, especially for a driver of Foster’s ever-increasing pedigree, there is a chance that winning the championship could be make-or-break for a possible IndyCar future. Not a driver blessed with abundant funding, the scholarship for winning the Indy NXT title may well prove crucial for Foster.
“Obviously for my situation, for me to move up to IndyCar next year, [it] will be very, very, very beneficial to win the championship,” Foster said. “Obviously never say never.”
But does this add any extra weight to the Briton at this stage?
“Not really, no,” he said. “I’m going to do the same thing I’ve always done. When we get to Nashville, maybe the last two rounds, seeing where it is, different decisions will be made. But we’re still going to try to put it on pole every weekend and win every race. The mentality is going to stay the same.
“Obviously it’s a big sum of money. It would be lovely to have, but we’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing.”
Foster has held discussions with IndyCar teams, though nothing will be a certainty until a potential championship crown is wrapped up.
“We’ve been in contact with quite a few teams about next year,” he said. “I need to win the championship. I need that money. So I’m not going to know anything until, I would expect, no earlier than September, October. Our full focus is just winning this championship. If I can, hopefully that will be enough.”
Roe’s rise to pole-sitter through injury
Roe, a third-year Indy NXT driver, has had a torrid time for the most part in 2024. Off the back of finishing seventh in the standings last year, he had finished outside the top 15 six times in nine races heading into Iowa; three top-five finishes, including a podium at Barber, showcased his potential.
“It’s been a hell of a run,” Roe said. “Obviously we had a good Barber and a good Indy GP [finishing fourth]. Then went to Detroit and was on a pole lap, hit the wall, banged wheels, found out four weeks later I broke my hand in that incident. So did Road America and Laguna with that, just managing things.”
Since sustaining the injury and powering through three further races, including the Laguna Seca doubleheader, Roe has had an operation on his broken hand but was recovered in time for Iowa.
“Kind of felt once you’re down, you’re always being kicked,” he added. “In fairness to these guys at Andretti… just never ever give up. From Michael [Andretti] to JF [Thormann] and the guys, who just say: ‘Keep digging, keep digging.’ We knew the pace we had - ace wasn’t necessarily an issue at most of the tracks we went to. It was just a matter of executing.”
Roe was ultimately five laps from taking a maiden Indy NXT victory. But taking his first pole position was a gratifying stride after a testing season to date.
“In practice we didn’t look that quick,” Roe said. “We were surprisingly very confident going into qualifying. For us, it’s just about executing. [We got a] great start and we got through things. As the run went down, front bar was stuck and didn’t have much range of adjustment on it. Got to a point, I said that this is the balance, hung on from there.
“Fairness to Louis, he had a mega run. We race each other as teammates, that’s first and foremost. Super happy. Pole, P2 and a lap record… we’ll take that.”
A race of management and timing
After concerns with tyre blistering in practice, owing to a recent test being rained out on the newly repaved Iowa circuit, the race was shortened from 75 to 55 laps. There was also a competition caution of around 10 laps planned after 15 laps in order to further preserve drivers’ tyres.
A collision between HMD Motorsports teammates Collet and Myles Rowe shortly before the planned caution period - after a spin for the former - ultimately neutralised the race for 25 laps. It ended a frenetic affair that had to be managed effectively until a penultimate lap yellow for a crash for Jack William Miller.
“Near the end the car was super in the window,” Foster 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. We had a great car.”
Roe detailed a team meeting at Andretti and said “there were some team orders early on” as Foster refrained from attacking. Foster ultimately used the high line, which proved tricky across the IndyCar weekend, to avail in order to pass Roe on Lap 50.
“I wasn’t planning on using it,” Foster said. “When I did the overtake, I didn’t know it was going to be grippy. I trusted the car to allow me to send it in from that high up. It was more ‘hope and pray’ than a ‘know’. Sometimes in our practice it was quite slippery but we knew [IndyCar] had run that practice on the high line to give us some grip. It was super helpful.”
Leading the podium trio at the chequered flag, Foster used his experience as a second-year driver and appeared to manage his race better than anyone.
“The first 15 laps, we could have easily been flat but we weren’t,” Foster said. “We were specifically saving our tyres. I think if there was anyone on the field who really struggled with their tyres, I would blame it on them not managing them well enough. We knew what it was going to be like. It wasn’t a surprise.”
It was a fifth career oval race for Foster, who won on debut at Indianapolis Raceway Park in Indy Pro 2000 in 2022. And he is relishing the American style of racing.
“It’s super cool,” Foster said. “Last night I watched back the quali laps from the TV broadcast on our qualifying... I was like: ‘Do we really go that fast? That’s quick.’ I love it here. I love the ovals.”
The task of adapting to oval tracks
Both Foster and Roe have come from a background in Europe where oval racing is a somewhat alien form of motorsport. To adapt to that after first moving over to the United States required a process.
“I think the procedure as a driver is the same,” Foster said. “You’re still driving the same car but it’s a different kind of way to drive it. I think the best thing to do is just go into ovals with a very open book, be a sponge in essence, learn as much as possible and try the hardest you can to learn all the tactics on ovals, the way to drive it properly, the way the car should feel.
“And work with your engineer - that’s the most important thing with the car on the oval, getting it right with the engineer. You can look like an absolute hero on oval or look like an idiot, depending on how your setup is. That’s super important.”
Roe sided with these sentiments.
“Louis is dead right,” Roe said. “I think the biggest thing is, albeit we sound like heroes saying, you’ve got to go flat and respect them as well. And they bite. We see that in IndyCar, Indy NXT - even today, in a shortened race, there were wrecks.
“Know where the limit is, drive to it. Really it’s trying to pull your feet back a bit so you can [be] really specific and finesse things, massage the car instead of throwing big changes at it. That’s probably the biggest thing we can adapt coming over here.”
Oval driving is a known risk that can often instil fear in drivers coming from the outside. But they have to put that to one side in the cockpit and embrace the thrill of the cars coming alive with the grip at oval speeds.
“I think if you’re ever scared as a driver, you’re in the wrong spot,” Foster said. “I don’t think you can be allowed to be scared. I think if you’re scared, you’re not ever going to win a race. You’ve just got to disconnect that part of your brain and get on with it.
“I love it. It’s great fun. Obviously there’s risk involved. No one is out there thinking: what if I hit the wall? You’re thinking: how do I pass the car in front or get a better lap time? That’s how I see it personally. Obviously it’s a risk but it’s what we sign up for.”
De Alba Jr podium confirms Andretti sweep
For De Alba Jr on the third step of the podium, ovals are much more familiar. He raced his way impressively from 10th up into the rostrum spots.
“Definitely the ovals are suited to me,” the Mexican driver said. “It showed. Qualifying wasn’t great. We knew the car was probably going to be better in the race. We tried and stuck going around the outside probably half of the race. That helped with the tyres and going around with cars. It was a very good race.”
While he does have experience on ovals, the open-wheel realm is newer to De Alba Jr. It was a big step forward to take his first Indy NXT podium.
“I do have experience on ovals but with stockcars,” he said. “It’s quite a different speed and aerodynamics to this. I’ve never been to a flat-out oval. In the fifth lap the car felt great to go flat. They took out a lot of downforce [to try and fix tyre blistering issues] and it was even flat. It’s super cool to have a lot of speed and race side-by-side.”
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