Nolan Siegel looked like a full-fledged IndyCar driver Saturday night at World Wide Technology Raceway.
The Arrow McLaren rookie, driving for his third team since March, competed in his eighth NTT IndyCar Series race and showed a new level of speed and aggressiveness behind the wheel of the No. 6 Chevrolet.
Siegel went on the attack from the start of the 260-lap race, and whether it was charging during his in and out laps or attempting and often completing daring passes, the 19-year-old used WWTR to demonstrate his skills and talent in a serious way. He crossed the finish line in seventh, a nice improvement over the pair of 12ths that previously stood as his best in IndyCar.
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“I’ve gotten more and more comfortable every weekend,” Siegel told RACER. “It just takes time, and it’s hard in IndyCar when I’m in a spot where I can’t afford to make a lot of mistakes, either. It’s hard to find a balance between being aggressive and finding the limit, but also not having any room for error. So I think that has translated to being a little bit more conservative than I should have been.
“This past weekend the car was the best that it’s been since I’ve been in it. I think that was our strongest weekend as a team, apart from qualifying. I’ve always been comfortable at Gateway (WWTR), so it was nice to be racing up front. And I think when you’re fighting for a podium rather than a few spots at the back, it is a boost. It’s a different feeling, right? So it was nice to be fighting up there, and it pushed me to be more aggressive.”
Siegel’s No. 6 entry also underwent a change of race engineer at WWTR with Robert Gue departing and Brian Campe joining the timing stand. Despite the latest shuffling within the program, Siegel found a solid foundation to build from at the 1.25-mile oval.
“I think that the whole team has been through a lot of changes, so I don’t think anyone’s really settled in until now,” he said. “So the focus has been on running every lap, finishing the races, and now I think the focus is shifting to producing results, which ultimately is the goal. Having Campe as well, the race strategy was aggressive. I was aggressive. We made a lot of passes. The whole thing shifted from ‘let’s survive this race and gather points’ to really attacking and trying to trying to win. And that was a lot of fun for me.”
Track familiarity was a big help for Siegel.
“I’m still learning so much, but at least Gateway was a place that I’ve been to before in Indy Pro 2000 and Indy NXT, and tested there,” he said. “It was the first time that I feel like I’ve showed up at an IndyCar weekend, and in Practice 1, immediately been comfortable rather than spending the start of the weekend learning. I spent the start of the weekend pushing hard, and I think that it just elevated our starting point a little bit and allowed us to get to a better spot for the start of the race.”
The next challenge for Siegel will be to hold onto the competitive gains he made at WWTR and demonstrate them this weekend on the road course in Portland, the weekend after at the Milwaukee Mile oval, and to close the season at Nashville Speedway.
“I really hope I can,” Siegel said. “I think there’s still going to be tough weekends; I haven’t been to Milwaukee or Nashville, and there will be a learning curve at Portland. But I spent the summer break in Indy and went to the sim, we tested at Gateway, and it was the first time that I’ve been able to take a step back from the racetrack and focus on some of the things that you can’t get done in the super busy part of the schedule.
“I’m more comfortable in the car because we’ve made some adjustments to the cockpit; just like little things like that. And then we spent quite a bit of time at Portland on the sim, which I think will be really helpful. So it’s the first time that we’re going into a stretch of races legitimately feeling prepared, which is a nice change. I think that Portland will be the strongest road course that we’ve had.
“It’s definitely the most prepared I’ve felt for a road course so far. And then Milwaukee and Nashville are unknowns because I haven’t been there. But at the same time, I think if the car is as strong as it has been, like it was really strong at Iowa, it was really strong at Gateway, I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t be that good at Milwaukee and Nashville, and having a good car makes everything quite a bit easier.”