Photo: Chris Jones
Niels Koolen will make the bold move of stepping up to Indy Nxt in 2024 for his second full year in single-seaters.
The 22-year-old Dutchman is a newly signed member of Fernando Alonso’s A14 Management stable and started his car racing career last year in Formula 4 with Monlau Motorsport. He did two Italian F4 rounds with a best finish of 17th, and also entered a Spanish F4 round.
Monlau is a partner team of Van Amersfoort Racing, who Koolen continued with in 2023. At the start of this year he raced for Pinnacle VAR in Formula Regional Middle East, coming 31st in the standings with his best result being a 12th place.
He then raced in FRegional Europe with VAR, and two 19th places left him 37th in the standings. Koolen did better in his Eurocup-3 outing with the Global Racing Service team, finishing 12th on his debut.
In October he missed the FREC finale to do an Indy Nxt test with HMD Motorsports, who he has now signed with. After his first experience of a second-tier single-seater, Koolen joined Jay Howard Driver Development for two USF Pro 2000 tests to get more experience of cars from the third tier of the single-seater ladder since he will be stepping up from Europe’s fourth tier.
So how prepared does Koolen feel for taking on a series which sits just below IndyCar?
“Last year I practiced and tested a lot at various circuits with different cars,” said Koolen.
“Starting in the Indy Nxt series in March will be an exciting experience as racing in the United States will be different than racing in Europe where we don’t have ovals. The entire HMD Motorsports programme is very knowledgeable and experienced, and the team has a lot of drivers so we can compare a lot of data which will help me with unfamiliar circuits.”
HMD’s general manager Mike Maurini added: “Niels is taking a different approach than many drivers. He has tested in a lot of cars at a variety of different courses this past year to build his experience. We look forward to working with Niels and A-14 Management in 2024.”