Siegel fastest in Indy Nxt’s first session on downtown Detroit track

Photo: Penske Entertainment / James Black

HMD Motorsports’ Nolan Siegel went fastest in practice for Indy Nxt’s first visit to the revived downtown Detroit street circuit. 

The field spent 50 minutes learning the track, which in a different configuration was used by Formula 1 in the 1980s and IndyCar in the early 1990s, with drivers managing to complete up to 35 laps of the narrow street circuit. 

Turn one was an issue for most of the drivers, with almost everybody finding their way into the run-off area at the end of the finish straight at least once during the session. Turn four was also a sticking point for a few drivers, but all were able to get their cars turned around without making contact, and the session ran green throughout. 

Toby Sowery topped the order early on before Louis Foster put in a flying lap to go fastest with a time of 1m08.5591s. That would keep him at the top of the order until after the halfway point of the 50-minute session, when Danial Frost lowered the pace. 

Frost, Siegel and Sowery swapped places at the top of the order, lowering the benchmark to beneath 1m08s ahead of IndyCar’s first practice session. When the chequered flag arrived, Siegel sat fastest with a 1m07.0420s laptime.

A final flying lap from Hunter McElrea allowed him to jump up to second, 0.1405 seconds off Seigel’s pace, with Frost third and Kyffin Simpson fourth. 

Foster was shuffled back to fifth after the late improvements, ahead of Sowery, Josh Green and Colin Kaminsky. Jamie Chadwick and Jagger Jones completed the top 10. 

While most of the field were getting used to the circuit, championship leader Christian Rasmussen spent the majority of the session in the pits. The team at first thought there was a problem with the wastegate on his car and sent him out with 22 minutes remaining. After one lap, Rasmussen returned to the pits with the issue still occurring. 

HMD got to work on the car again and was able to send Rasmussen out with three minutes to go. He managed a set a best laptime that was three seconds off the pace. 

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