Photo: Ttravis Hinkle
Caio Collet was relieved to claim his first Indy Nxt win of 2025 at Road America, after a competitive season that had not reaped the rewards he sought until then.
The HMD Motorsports driver qualified second for the third time in seven attempts this year, and after four appearances on the podium’s lower steps in earlier races he was victorious for the first time since Mid-Ohio last July.
Andretti Global’s Dennis Hauger led Collet for the first 15 laps, the pair continually lowering their pace, until the single opportunity Collet needed to move ahead.
“At the start I tried [passing], it didn’t happen, but after that I kept the pressure and I was praying for a mistake,” Collet told media including Formula Scout.
“For 14 laps he didn’t put a wheel off. And at one point in turn 14 he had a little slide and I got a run. In my mind I was like ‘it’s now or never’. I’m glad it worked and here I am.”
Experience from his rookie season helped Collet manage running in Hauger’s wake for so long.
“I knew what not to do because [last year] I did a big flatspot and I was struggling with my front-left the whole race. So I had the experience of last year in mind, and at the beginning of the race when I tried in the start and it didn’t work, I said ‘okay, let’s take a step down, keep the pressure up, and save in the corners that I needed to and push the corners that I had to push to keep the pressure up’. And that we did very well.”
Hauger’s mistake-free driving until lap 15 “was quite frustrating” for Collet, and overtaking was harder as push-to-pass was disabled for anyone.
“It was quite weird. When I exited the last corner [on lap one], I pressed the button and nothing came up,” Collet explained.
“I’m like ‘it’s only my car!’. But I saw that I was catching Dennis on the straight, so I’m like ‘well, maybe he didn’t use, maybe it’s not working’. Then I went on the radio and they said the push-to-pass wasn’t working and I had to make the move. If I wanted to go for the win, I had to make the move on track.
“I just [took] the push-to-pass out of my mind and focused really on the race and what I had to do on track.”
Collet set the fastest lap by a sizeable 0.3953 seconds on lap 15, and Formula Scout asked where that extra pace came from.
“When I was closer out of the Carousel, I was trying to push a little bit more the brakes out of [turn] 12, and the last corner. I was maybe seeing the distance and trying to match that with my laptime. But I did the best lap [then] because he did a mistake and I got a massive slipstream to the line. That for sure helped me with the laptime.”