Andretti Global’s Louis Foster has officially been crowned the 2024 Indy NXT champion after a flag-to-flag victory from pole at The Milwaukee Mile.
The 21-year-old Briton managed the gap to the field from the top spot, leading all 90 laps en route to beating his only remaining championship threat, Jacob Abel, by 4.3602s at the historic 1-mile oval.
“It’s amazing,” Foster said. “I’m just speechless. I’ve got to thank the team; they’ve been behind me the last two years. Massive thank you to everyone on the No. 26 crew, and my sponsors… It’s just been a crazy two years and I’m super happy to come out with the win.”
The performance was Foster’s seventh victory on the season, which moves him into a tie for fourth-most all-time alongside the likes of Bryan Herta, Mark Taylor, Oliver Askew and David Malukas. He has a chance to move into third alongside Alex Lloyd in the season finale at Nashville Superspeedway in two weeks. Greg Moore and Kyle Kirkwood share the top spot with 10 wins in a season, while Paul Tracy and Pato O’Ward are tied for second-most with nine.
Behind Foster and Abel was Salvador de Alba Jr in third.
Rookie Bryce Aron and Jamie Chadwick rounded out the rest of the top five.
The Race
Foster was able to accelerate away from the field cleanly at the start. However, the same couldn’t be said for Foster’s front row mate and title rival Abel, who was hit from behind by HMD Motorsports rookie Christian Brooks. The contact nearly sent the No. 51 Abel Motorsports entry into a spin before fading down to sixth as the field charged into Turn 1.
Abel managed to quickly fight back to fifth and put pressure on the rear wing of Brooks, but failed to get by.
Meanwhile, Foster’s lead was 0.7726s over Chadwick by lap 10. That lead grew to 1.0905s by lap 16.
The field began to settle into a rhythm but the caution came out on lap 30 after the No. 99 HMD Motorsports with Force Indy entry of Myles Rowe spun in Turn 2. Fortunately, he didn’t hit anything, which set up a quick reset for the field.
A restart on lap 33 saw Foster get a strong jump out front, while Chadwick lost the runner-up position to de Alba. Abel, meanwhile, progressed to fourth over Brooks.
On lap 39, Abel pulled off a stout pass to the outside of Chadwick in Turns 1 and 2 to secure third.
Foster’s lead stood at 0.5282s over de Alba at the halfway point. Two laps later saw de Alba close to within a couple of car lengths before Foster widened out the gap once more.
As the field began to spread out once more coming to lap 52, the biggest battle on track was for sixth between Brooks and Abel Motorsports rookie Yuven Sundaramoorthy, who remained within 0.2s of each other in a tense bout. On lap 57, Sundaramoorthy attempted an outside pass on Brooks into Turn 1, but was given little room and got loose, losing ground out of Turn 2 and eventually, the seventh spot to Andretti Global’s James Roe.
By lap 61, Abel caught the rear wing of de Alba’s Andretti Cape machine. The pace was temporary, though, as Abel quickly fell to 0.8s back just three laps later and remained in third.
The battle for sixth was once again contested, this time with Roe unable to get around Brooks on lap 66 and fell into the clutches of Sundaramoorthy. The two ran side-by-side and touched, which nearly sent Sundaramoorthy into the wall. The two regained composure and chased down Brooks once more, with Roe completing the pass on Brooks to take sixth on lap 69 as Sundaramoorthy’s move to also go by was stalled.
Meanwhile, the front of the field saw the battle for the lead heat up as Foster’s big lead over de Alba shrunk to 0.4171s by lap 70, with Abel only 1.4847s back in third.
The lead widened back to 1.0598s for Foster just five laps later.
With 12 laps to go, Foster began catching traffic to put backmarkers a lap down, first getting by 13th-place runner Ricardo Escotto for Juncos Hollinger Racing.
Foster was able to work cleanly through traffic, quickly extending his lead to 5.4082s over de Alba by lap 85.
Abel surged past de Alba with another outside pass in Turns 1 and 2 with three laps to go.
In the end, Foster coasted to the win and the title.
