Andretti Global’s Louis Foster was fastest during Friday afternoon’s dry running at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Indy NXT by Firestone Chris Griffis Memorial test on its road course, which shouldn’t come as a surprise for the Briton who’s expected to vie for the title next season along with Nolan Siegel and other sophomore drivers.
Foster’s lap of 1m14.8432s was 0.0769s faster than another standout from 2023, Abel Motorsports’ Jacob Abel, in second.
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“Hopefully, we can keep our form like last year into 2024,” Foster said. “Looking forward to the rest of the offseason and doing some more testing so we can improve on what we did today.”
The biggest impression from the test was reserved for 2023 USF Pro 2000 champion Myles Rowe, who made his NXT test debut with HMD Motorsports at the test and set the third-fastest lap of the day with a 1m14.9487s tour of the 14-turn circuit, which led all rookies and the nine-deep HMD team.
“Pretty impressive, especially for his first time in the car and working with the engineer,” HMD GM Mike Maurini told RACER. “We made a seat for him in June or July, but there’s work to do there to get him fitted to the car a bit better. There was a point where we had eight HMD drivers in the top 10, so as a team, we were very proud of that.
“And with Myles, there are some drivers who do what they’re told to do and go out and improve, but with him he listens, analyses, and makes improvements by really taking everything in and then adjusting. There’s more areas that need improvement, obviously, which we’ve seen with rookies in the past, and we’re excited to work with him and all of HMD’s drivers to get ready for the next season.”
Rowe’s HMD teammates followed in fourth with Siegel, rookie Caio Collet in fifth, Reece Gold in sixth, Christian Bogle in seventh, Kaylen Frederick in eighth, Michael d’Orlando in ninth, and Andretti rookie Bryce Aron completed the top 10.
A large field of 21 Indy NXT cars were assembled for the one-day test; the USF Championships takes over for the rest of the weekend with its three classes for the Fall Combine.
The 2024 Indy NXT by Firestone season starts Sunday, March 10 on the streets of St. Petersburg.