Photo: Chris Jones
Andretti Global’s Dennis Hauger earned his sixth Indy Nxt victory of 2025 at Portland last weekend by overtaking Myles Rowe and Caio Collet in the opening seconds of the race.
Collet (HMD Motorsports) covered the inside line on the run to the opening corner, with fellow front row starter Rowe (Abel Motorsports with Force Indy) looking to his outside as soon as they crossed the start line.
Once they went past the end of the pit wall, there was more room on the inside to utilise and Hauger put most of his car over the pit exit line. He was now level with Rowe, and moved past under braking for turn one where he took the tightest line.
By reaching his minimum speed for the corner earlier, Hauger was able to accelerate out if it earlier too and he could carry more speed through the direction switch of turn two. Room was left too by Collet riding the inside kerbs, and Hauger swept by on the outside.
“I was looking a lot at the start [beforehand],” Hauger told media including Formula Scout afterwards.
“It was just [about] trying to find different scenarios. And in the end it worked out pretty well. Caio was a bit focused on Myles, who got out on the outside and got a run. I just saw a little bit of room into the inside and took it.
“I saw that worked last year. It was a good move and happy we made it stick, no collision and we all came out clean. That’s not the easiest in turn one on lap one in Portland. So from there on it was just about keeping it clean, not doing too many mistakes, and be smart with the push-to-pass.”
Collet called it “very frustrating” how he lost the lead, and after finishing a close second behind Hauger now trails him in their title fight by a points tally exceeding what can be scored in one round. Only two remain this season.
“I did the mistake of looking at Myles, and I think we both overshoot a little bit turn one. And when I saw Dennis on the outside, he was already ahead, so it was just too late to react.
“But fair play to him. He found a really good gap, made a great move, and I didn’t even see it coming,” he added.
“So a mistake from my side, but I think after that the race was quite okay. I kept pressuring to the end, but he did a really good job again on not doing any mistakes.”
A caution period was triggered on lap one by cars clashing behind at the opening chicane, and for the lap four restart Collet thought “the chance of having a collision there if I went on the outside was huge”.
Rowe had targeted at least maintaining position in the race, but “Dennis made a stellar move on the inside though, so nothing too much we could do about that”.