Nolan Siegel claims his first Indy Nxt pole in St. Petersburg

Photo: James Black

Nolan Siegel topped qualifying for the first round of the Indy Nxt season in St. Petersburg.

New for this season, qualifying was split into two groups. Siegel opted for the first group, while practice pacesetter Louis Foster ran in group two.

Siegel was fastest at the start of Q1 ahead of Caio Collet and Myles Rowe. Rowe briefly took first place before Siegel improved to 1m04.5759s to return to the top.

Collet was unable to answer to that pace, as contact with the wall left him with a damaged car. He managed to get back to the pits, leaving the track green for the rest of the field. 

Rowe took second in the group ahead of last-minute grid adition Michael d’Orlando, who went down the run-off at turn 10 during one of his late runs. Josh Pierson wa fourth fatsest, knocking Collet down to the fifth row of the grid. 

The session ended with Siegel on provisional pole, but with the possibility of being knocked down to second if the second qualifying group was faster. 

Foster set the pace ahead of Jacob Abel at first in that group, only for Abel to jump to the top with a 1m04.5825s, less than a hundreth of a second slower than Siegel’s benchmark. 

Abel could not improve before an incident for Josh Mason brought out red flags. Mason had come to a stop sideways across the track in the closing stages of qualifying.

Running resumed with a minute-and-a-half left on the clock. Foster managed to improve his pace, but failed to beat Abel. Before the field could complete their final runs, Callum Hedge hit the barriers and red flags appeared again that ended the session. 

The result meant Abel will start on the front row of the grid, alongside Siegel, with Rowe third ahead of Foster. 

Reece Gold was third quickest in the second session, putting him sixth on the grid. Fourth and fifth place in group two for Bryce Aron and Jamie Chadwick places them eighth and 10th on the grid respectively. 

Qualifying results