Foster takes first win at the Oval and extends series lead with Iowa

Louis Foster couldn’t have asked for a better ending to the Firestone INDY NXT on Saturday at Iowa Speedway.

After patiently conserving his Firestone tires early in the 55-lap race, the series leader took the lead from Andretti Global teammate James Roe with six laps to go and comfortably took another win in the No. 26 Copart/Novara Technologies car.

SEE: Race results

Foster won for the fifth time in the last seven races and his other two results in this phase were second places. At the end of Saturday, the 20-year-old English driver extended his lead in the series to 77 points when his two closest rivals – Jacob Abel and Caio Collet – collided.

Abel was lucky that his No. 51 Abel Construction machine was out of further danger, but he lost three laps due to pit stops for repairs. Early in the race, Collet spun his No. 18 HMD Motorsports car in front of fellow rookie Myles Rowe, and their contact with the wall ended both races. Abel finished 15th, Rowe 18th.

In the meantime, Foster continued driving without any problems.

“We discussed before the race that we would save tires the whole time, so I didn’t try to challenge James – I left him a gap so I could save my tires,” said Foster. “There were enough laps left towards the end that I knew if I ruined my tires it wouldn’t be a big deal.”

“I just kept the car on the outside and he let off the accelerator so I got through. He really gave me a lot of room to run.”

It was Foster’s first victory on an oval track. It was his seventh win in the series in the last two seasons.

The race was shortened by 20 laps to allow drivers to better conserve their tires on a hot afternoon on a track whose corners were recently repaved. Nearly the entire field beat the series’ two-lap record in qualifying, and the pole was nearly 7 mph faster than the mark set by Colton Herta in 2017.

Roe, who earned his first pole in the series, led the first 49 laps of the race in the No. 29 Topcon car and tied his personal best result with a second-place finish. Salvador de Alba Jr. finished third in the No. 2 Grupo Indi of Andretti Cape INDY NXT to give the Michael Andretti organization squad a one-two-three finish.

“Cool, awesome,” Foster said of the Andretti win. “Obviously a really good car, a really good day for Andretti and really good for the championship. Super happy.”

Rowe’s car was hit twice in the first 13 laps of the race. As the race began under the green flag, his No. 99 HMD Motorsports with Force Indy car was hit from behind by Jack William Miller’s No. 40 Patterson Dental Haven Go by SAAM car. Rowe spun to the inside without another collision occurring.

Rowe launched a hard attack, moving from the back of the 18-car field to secure 10th place. But then, following Collet, he ran out of room to maneuver past Collet’s spinning car at Turn 1 and the ensuing collision resulted in both cars hitting the outside wall. The damage to both machines was so extensive that it spelled the end for them, although neither driver was injured.

With two laps to go, Miller lost control of his bike in turn 3 and crashed into the outside wall, forcing the race to be ended under caution. He too was uninjured.

Two rookie drivers from HMD Motorsports completed the top five. Callum Hedge finished fourth and Christian Brooks fifth.

There are four races left this season, with the next race being August 17 at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/frd7Wl_NUC8