Rowe wins from back of grid in Gateway Indy Nxt race

Photo: James Black

Myles Rowe climbed from the back of the grid to take his first Indy Nxt win of 2026 on the Gateway oval.

Rowe was fastest in qualifying but completed one too many laps of the oval circuit and was forced to start from the back of the grid. It didn’t take long before he was inside the top 15 and the charge didn’t stop until he hit the front of the field.

From there, Rowe controlled the race, managing two caution period restarts on his way to the win. 

A battle for second allowed Rowe to extend the gap at the front of the order and he finished the race 2.2081 seconds clear of the rest of the field.

Polesitter Lochie Hughes made a good initial start, holding onto the race lead while Josh Pierson passed Alessandro de Tullio for second. Before a fight for the lead could start, Alexander Koreiba ran into trouble, spinning and hitting the wall with the rear of his car. The incident prompted the first of three caution periods.

At the front of the order, Pierson was able to stick with Hughes on the restart. After multiple laps side by side, Pierson managed to find a way past and into the race lead. 

From 15th on the restart, Rowe had climbed up to fourth by the time the race lead changed hands, sitting in the middle of a three-car battle for third. He quickly found a way past Max Taylor ahead and closed the gap to Hughes.

Rowe made quick work of Hughes and soon swept past Pierson for the race lead.

Not long after taking the lead, debris on track brought out the second caution. Racing resumed with 17 laps remaining. Before much change could happen before a crash further back resulted in another caution. Yuven Sundaramoorthy had been attempting to go around the outside of Saldador de Alba when he was squeezed into the wall. Sundaramoorthy went into the back of de Alba’s car, leaving both with heavy damage. Sundaramoorthy limped back to the pits, while de Alba stopped on track after making contact with the inside wall.

Only eight laps remained when racing resumed. Pierson briefly challenged for the lead but quickly found himself under attack from Taylor behind. Rowe was able to pull away and was untroubled through the remainder of the race.

Pierson shook off Taylor, only for de Tullio to pick up the fight. The pair went side by side for multiple laps, while Taylor and Niels Koolen were also side by side for fourth. De Tullio managed to get his nose ahead and held onto the position, finishing just 0.3896s clear.

Pierson was a further 0.3080s clear of Koolen, who took fourth from Taylor. Hughes dropped to sixth, just ahead of Nikita Johnson, who regained the points lead.

Max Garcia climbed up from 16th to finish eighth, ahead of Tymek Kucharczyk and Jordan Missig.

Leading the championship coming into the race, Enzo Fittipaldi could not mimic Rowe’s charge through the order. Fittipaldi started from the pit lane after a fuel cell leak, a similar problem to that which took him out of qualifying. The team was able to get the car moving and he made some progress, but stalled in the midfield. He eventually finished 13th, behind Seb Murray

Race results (75 laps)