Photo: Joe Skibinski
Salvador de Alba is not rueing Indy Nxt’s qualifying at Iowa Speedway being cancelled after finishing the race on the podium, despite it consigning him to sixth on the grid.
The Andretti Global is an oval specialist, having started racing single-seaters in 2022 after winning the NASCAR Mexico title. He won on two ovals in USF Pro 2000, and the best results of his rookie Indy Nxt season last year came on them.
Iowa was the location of his maiden podium in 2024, and he qualified a career-best third for the first oval race of 2025 at Gateway. De Alba was fastest in practice at Iowa last weekend, and looked likely to contend for pole before a storm hit the circuit and qualifying was cancelled. The grid was set by entrant points rather than free practice laptimes.
In the race he ran fifth early on, gained a spot when team-mate Lochie Hughes was penalised, and nabbed third from HMD Motorsports’ Caio Collet a third of the way into the 75-lap encounter. Contact after a caution period meant he conceded the place, but reclaimed it two minutes from the end.
“Oh well, it’s, it’s easy to say [what if], right?” De Alba said to media including Formula Scout when asked if he had a car good enough for pole, and therefore if his race could have panned out differently.
“But yeah, we had a mega car, and as soon as we rolled out of the trailer. So thankful with the team, we showed speed. The first restart didn’t go as as we wanted it to, we lost some momentum there with the contact with a lapped car. So that wasn’t as planned, but we had a great car so I could come back and fight for third place again with Caio.
“And just [nailed] trying to work different lines and move through the field. I knew we had a good car, so we had to be patient.”
He added: “Happy with the podium, obviously we wanted more, but we didn’t have our quali, so this is what we ended up [with].”
De Alba noted being “aggressive and assertive” was as important as patience en route to his first podium of 2025.
“There were some conversations on the radio, and my spotter Dave was talking me through [the traffic]. So it helped a lot.”
With five races to go, de Alba is fifth in the standings and has a sizeable points deficit to make up on the top four. But the final two rounds are on ovals, where he will be considered one of the favourites due to his experience.