Photo: Joe Skibinski
Caio Collet has made the podium four times in the last five Indy Nxt races, but his run of form is not setting up a title challenge in his mind.
One reason behind that is the HMD Motorsports driver is already 84 points adrift of Andretti Global’s championship leader Louis Foster, and the other is that Collet is yet to win.
He was runner-up to Foster in both races at Laguna Seca last weekend, finishing 8.2445 seconds behind on Saturday and 4.3962s back on Sunday.
“I think from my side it was pretty good, but then you look ahead and you are eight seconds off the lead,” Collet reflected after race one. “We couldn’t really challenge today, but quite happy overall, but still I think close, but yet a bit too far.”
After almost having his gap to the victor in race two, Collet felt “a little bit better than yesterday” and noted that “we made him [Foster] use push-to-pass”.
“Also I think he pushed a little bit more today. So big thanks to HMD,” added Collet. “We worked hard during the night to try and reduce the gap and we did it. But overall, I think he did a really good job, since the start of the weekend he’s been a step ahead and, yeah, fair play and we will keep pushing to see what we can do two weeks from now in Mid-Ohio.”
Indy Nxt sophomore Foster has won four of the last five races to overturn the points lead of third-year driver Jacob Abel, while Collet is not only a championship rookie but also a total newcomer to American racing.
“Every race weekend I think I start a little bit behind in the backfoot comparing to Louis. And then I play catch-up the whole weekend,” he said.
“So maybe I think we can work a little bit more to try and adapt quicker, but it’s just a learning curve for me. I think towards the end of the season, I’m trying to just reduce a bit the gap. And it’s what we did here. But I mean, we are still a little bit far from him.”
On the prospect of challenging Foster and Abel for the title, Collet’s initial reaction was “you never know”. But after giving it further thought, he picked a firmer perspective on the matter.
“We’ve just got to keep pushing, but right now all I can think of is just to get a race win. So my next goal, I think my main goal for the season is towards the end of the season to get a win. And hopefully we can challenge for the championship. But I’m not thinking really of that. I think these two guys, they are quite quick, they’ve been strong from the start of the year, so right now all I want is just to get a race win.”