Photo: Paul Hurley
Andretti Global’s Louis Foster picked up pole position for both of Indy Nxt races at Leguna Seca in the sole qualifying session.
Foster topped the second group with a 1m12.1760s lap, going 0.4515 seconds faster than the benchmark laptime from the first group set by Caio Collet.
The HMD Motorsports driver set the pace early in his group, and had a number of wide moments as he tried to improve. He succeeded in doing so, lowered the fastest lap to 1m12.6275 when the chequered flag waved after 12 minutes of track action.
It took a while once the second group was on track for Foster to get near and then beat Collet’s pace to claim race one pole. His plentiful improvements during qualifying also meant he clinched pole for race two, where the grid is set from drivers’ second-best laptimes.
HMD’s Reece Gold was second quickest in group two, meaning he will start third in race one alongside Abel Motorsports’ points leader Jacob Abel.
Drivers in both groups were caught out exiting the final corner. HMD’s Nolan Allear spun there at the end of the first group’s session, briefly stopping on track but managing to get going again. Andretti Cape’s Salvador de Alba suffered the same problem in the second group, and his front wing made slight progress with the pit wall which hindered his progress thereon.
Christian Bogle (HMD) and Bryce Aron (Andretti) will start fifth for races one and two respectively, while the debuting Christian Brooks was 13th fastest overall and will start his first two Indy Nxt races with HMD from 13th and ninth.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Louis Foster Andretti Global 1m12.1760s
2 Caio Collet HMD Motorsports +0.4515s
3 Reece Gold HMD Motorsports +0.8123s
4 Jacob Abel Abel Motorsports +0.5457s
5 Christian Bogle HMD Motorsports +1.1667s
6 Yuven Sundaramoorthy Abel Motorsports +0.8790s
7 James Roe Jr Andretti Global +1.2092s
8 Myles Rowe HMD Motorsports +1.2063s
9 Bryce Aron Andretti Global +1.2230s
10 Jack William Miller Miller Vinatieri Racing +1.2637s
Race 2 grid
1 Foster 1m12.4444s
2 Collet +0.2373s
3 Gold +0.6046s
4 Abel +0.4981s
5 Aron +1.0782s
6 Sundaramoorthy +0.6446s
7 Roe +1.1241s
8 Miller +0.9984s
9 Christian Brooks HMD Motorsports +1.1368s
10 Rowe +1.0434s