Collet fastest in delayed first oval practice session of Indy Nxt season

Photo: Matt Fraver

HMD Motorsport’s Caio Collet topped a Indy Nxt’s delayed practice at Gateway, which marked the first competitive session on an oval this season.

Rain in the morning led to Saturday’s track action being moved back by several hours, but there was no compression of Indy Nxt’s track time in the updated schedule.

Andretti Global’s Dennis Hauger topped the order in the first few minutes of practice, but it was not long before the more experienced Collet took the top spot with an average speed of 161.012mph. 

Laptimes gradually improved throughout the session, but Collet held on to first place firmly until the final minutes.

It was a late personal best from Hauger that knocked Collet off top spot, but as others improved Hauger then found himself moving down the timesheet.

Collet ended practice with his fastest lap, a 27.3341s effort with an average speed of 164.630mph, putting him just ahead of Abel Motorsports with Force Indy’s Myles Rowe and Andretti’s Lochie Hughes. Also within 0.2s of Collet was Abel’s Callum Hedge.

There were three brief interruptions to practice. On two occasions, yellow flags were waved due to Andretti’s James Roe Jr lapping at a dangerously slow pace with an apparent technical issue. He will miss qualifying as a penalty for rule violations after being lapped in the most recent race in Detroit.

After the second of the Roe-induced yellow flag periods, there was less than five minutes left on the clock. But that would not all run green as an Abel’s Jordan Missig ran into problems at turn two and the session was stopped.

There were one-and-a-half minutes remaining when green flags waved again, giving the field one last opportunity to improve. This was when Hedge put in his lap to demote Hauger to fifth, while Andretti Cape’s Seb Murray rose to sixth ahead of fellow oval debutant and HMD driver Juan Manuel Correa.

Hailie Deagan, a former stock car racer, had one of her most competitive showings yet as she was 10th fastest and 0.7173 seconds off the pace of team-mate Collet.

Free practice results