Photo: Chris Jones
Dennis Hauger secured the 2025 Indy Nxt championship with a second place finish at the Milwaukee Mile behind Andretti team-mate Salvador de Alba.
De Alba led from start to finish to take his first victory in Indy Nxt, while Caio Collet – who needed to beat Hauger to stop him winning the title – could only manage seventh after a difficult qualifying.
Starting from second on the grid, de Alba quickly passed Hauger for the race lead in the opening laps. Hauger tried to fight back, but it didn’t take de Alba long to pull out of reach. Meanwhile, Lochie Hughes had taken third from Callum Hedge but was around a second back from Hauger.
Hughes did manage to close the gap to Hauger, but there was little battle for position before the yellow flag was thrown on lap 45 at the race’s mid-point after Jack William Miller had lost the rear of his car, making contact with the wall.
It didn’t take long to clear the incident and Hauger was now back on de Alba’s tail. However, he didn’t put up a challenge to his team-mate, allowing de Alba to finish 1.4693 seconds ahead and secure his maiden victory. Hughes finished 1.1225s back as Andretti locked out the podium.
Miller wasn’t the only non-finisher. Just a few laps before his incident, Tommy Smith had a moment at Turn 2. As he got back on the throttle, he found it stuck in sixth gear and had to come into the pits to retire. Problems late in the race for Davey Hamilton Jr and Seb Murray also caused retirements.
There was little movement inside the top 10 in the latter half of the race. Bryce Aron was one of the biggest movers. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver got a poor start to drop to eighth from sixth on the grid, but soon recovered to climb up to fifth by the chequered flag, behind Hedge and ahead of Myles Rowe. Rowe had come under pressure from Collet early in the race, but the HMD Motorsport driver would finish 3.7524s behind in seventh.
Michael d’Orlando dropped backwards after a strong start to finish eighth, just holding off a hard charing James Roe and Max Taylor.
Race result (90 laps)
| Pos | Driver | Team | Gap |
| 1 | Salvador de Alba | Andretti Global | |
| 2 | Dennis Hauger | Andretti Global | +1.4693s |
| 3 | Lochie Hughes | Andretti Global | +2.5918s |
| 4 | Callum Hedge | HMD Motorsports | +4.5397s |
| 5 | Bryce Aron | Chip Ganassi Racing | +5.9508s |
| 6 | Myles Rowe | Abel w/ Force Indy | +8.5821s |
| 7 | Caio Collet | HMD Motorsports | +12.3345s |
| 8 | Michael D’Orlando | Andretti Cape | +24.5632s |
| 9 | James Roe | Andretti Global | +24.5913s |
| 10 | Max Taylor | HMD Motorsports | +24.9704s |
| 11 | Josh Pierson | HMD Motorsports | +25.0801s |
| 12 | Niels Koolen | Chip Ganassi Racing | +1 lap |
| 13 | Jordan Missig | Abel Motorsports | +1 lap |
| 14 | Hailie Deegan | HMD Motorsports | +1 lap |
| Ret | Davey Hamilton Jr | HMD Motorsports | |
| Ret | Seb Murray | Andretti Cape | |
| Ret | Jack William Miller | Abel w/ MVM | |
| Ret | Tommy Smith | HMD Motorsports | |
| Fastest lap: de Alba, 24.7975s
Championship standings |
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