Foster sets the pace in Indy Nxt’s heavily disrupted Chris Griffis test

Photo: John Cote

Andretti Global’s Louis Foster pipped Abel Motorsports’ Jacob Abel to the fastest lap in Indy Nxt post-season testing.

The one-day Chris Griffis Memorial Test on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course was split into two sessions, and frequently disrupted by red flags.

Through the first 30 minutes of the morning session’s two-and-a-half hours only HMD Motorsports’ Nolan Siegel actually used the track, and he had set 15 laps and a best time of 1m28.3887s when Abel joined him and shortly after red flags waved.

Once action resumed Siegel improved to 1m27.7417s, and his team-mates Josh Pierson and Christian Bogle headed out to set laps too.

Going into the second hour Abel usurped Siegel with a 1m27.48s lap, then a few minutes later Pierson set a 1m26.5567s with Siegel just 0.1765 seconds off the new benchmark pace.

Pierson improved to 1m26.1617s before red flags waved again. Action resumed in the final hour long enough for Cape Motorsports’ Jace Denmark to complete an outlap, and then the track returned to red flag conditions.

The next restart came with 43 minutes to go and Denmark headed back out. It took another 25 minutes for others to finally leave the pits, but none had set representative laptimes before the session was stopped again with eight-and-a-half minutes remaining.

It did restart, and HMD’s Caio Collet snuck in three laps and managed to go fifth fastest but 2.3995s off the pace. Cape’s Callum Hedge slotted into sixth place, 5.6894s slower than Pierson, and Denmark ended up seventh. Five drivers spent the whole of the session in the pits.

The afternoon session lasted three-and-a-half hours, and after 10 minutes five drivers headed out. Andretti’s Bryce Aron, HMD’s Kaylen Frederick and Bogle immediately beat Pierson’s morning benchmark, and after 35 minutes the pace had been brought down to 1m15.8442s by Siegel.

Abel was 0.4122s behind in second place, and six other drivers were within a second of Siegel’s pace. Foster reduced his gap at the top to 0.1659s, then towards the end of the first hour went fastest with a 1m14.9610s.

Yuven Sundaramoorthy initially got closest, albeit 0.8129s slower than Foster and then 0.8606s as Foster improved. The 1m14.8432s would go unbeaten for the rest of the day.

HMD’s Myles Rowe moved into second place, then with just over two hours to go Siegel joined Foster in lapping sub-1m15s.

Rowe was next to manage the feat with 50 minutes to go and he returned to second place, 0.1055s off Foster. Red flags waved with 34 minutes left on the clock, and after the restart Abel got within 0.0769s of Foster’s benchmark.

The session was ended eight minutes early by red flags, locking in the order and a top 16 covered by 0.9019s.

Test results