Photo: Penske Entertainment / Travis Hinkle

Salvador de Alba will remain in Indy Nxt for a third season this year, ending his association with Andretti to join HMD Motorsports’ line-up.

The 26-year-old Mexican contested his rookie campaign with the joint Andretti Cape operation, then he moved into Andretti Global’s main line-up for 2025.

Although he came fifth in the standings in each of the last two seasons, de Alba’s sophomore campaign featured 87 more points as he followed up consistent top-five results in the first half of the year with a podium, a maiden victory at the Milwaukee Mile and then pole position for the final race at Nashville Superspeedway which he finished second in.

“The past two seasons in Indy Nxt have been a tremendous learning experience, and I’m excited to begin a new chapter with HMD Motorsports,” said de Alba.

“I gained strong momentum toward the end of last season, and I’m eager to carry that into 2026. The team has already shown incredible dedication to my success, and I’m grateful for all the support that’s helped me get here. Together, we’ll keep pushing towards IndyCar.”

Prior to Indy Nxt, de Alba was a NASCAR Mexico champion and then did two seasons in USF Pro 2000 to adapt to open-wheel cars. He won two oval races there, and in 2025 was the fastest driver in all of junior single-seaters around ovals.

“Salvador is an outstanding addition to our lineup and exactly what we were looking for heading into 2026,” HMD’s team president Mike Maurini said. “He brings valuable experience, a strong work ethic and a clear determination to succeed. We’re excited to support his continued development and help him reach the next level.”

There are now four drivers in HMD’s 2026 line-up, with de Alba the only non-rookie.

The post Salvador de Alba switches to HMD for his third Indy Nxt season appeared first on Formula Scout.

50. Jan Przyrowski

New entry • Raised his game to feature in two F4 title fights

Photo: Campos Racing

Photo: Campos Racing

Spanish Formula 4 sophomore Przyrowski made big strides in 2025, boosted by the continuity of remaining in Campos Racing’s line-up, having strong team-mates and a winter series to gain extra mileage in.

Last year he came 10th in Spanish F4, with two podiums and three fastest laps, and he was able to double his points and podium tally in a campaign by this March as he went on a roll in the inaugural Spanish F4 Winter Championship.

Przyrowski took both poles in round one, converting each into a win, and also won in rounds two and three to be runner-up in the standings. He was beaten to the title by team-mate Thomas Strauven, and their friendly on-track rivalry helped both to raise their game.

That continued into the main championship, where Przyrowski won three of the first four races. He was on the podium at all but one track, his run of seven successive poles incorporated three rounds, and he scored over 200 points in a field which was very competitive at the front. In every race he showed major improvements on the level he had performed at in 2024.

49. Salim Hanna

New entry • Top rookie in Europe’s most competitive F4 field

Photo: ACI Sport

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

The seven-race Formula Trophy season in the United Arab Emirates a year ago was Hanna’s sole single-seater experience before embarking on a four-pronged Formula 4 attack in 2025.

F4 Middle East was the first championship he raced in, driving a Mumbai Falcons-branded car run by Prema, and he took a maiden podium en route to sixth in the standings. He remained with Prema for Italian F4 and its sister championship E4, and Hanna – under the guidance of countrymen Juan Pablo and Sebastian Montoya – continued to grow as a driver.

The Italian F4 season begin with Hanna starting on pole, and he converted it into a second place finish. There were five further podiums across the campaign, putting him fourth in the standings and topping the rookie classification.

In E4 he was seventh, adding one podium to his 2025 tally, and his busy schedule was completed by joining Virtuosi Racing in British F4 for two weekends. His first time in the paddock at Thruxton delivered his first victory, then in the Formula 1-supporting non-championship round at Silverstone he won both races.

48. Pepe Marti

Re-entry • Earned FE seat after matching F1-bound team-mate

Photo: Red Bull

Photo: Red Bull

Marti came 10th in Formula Scout’s end-of-year ranking in 2023 after winning three races en route to fifth in the FIA Formula 3 Championship. That was his sophomore F3 season and his third year with Campos.

This year was his fifth as a Campos driver, his second racing in Formula 2, and also featured three victories.

Missing the last two rounds, having began pre-season preparations for his recent step up to Formula E, meant Marti came eighth in the standings. But at the point when he dropped off the grid, he was ahead of F1-bound team-mate Arvid Lindblad.

Marti was only 15th fastest in the F2 field for single-lap pace, but across the season he was fourth best on race pace and he finished higher than where he started in 13 out of 23 races. There were four occasions where he gained nine or more places, the first being the Bahrain sprint race where he climbed from 11th place to victory.

He also won the sprint races at the Red Bull Ring and Hungaroring, and his sole feature race podium was at Monza.

47. Liam McNeilly

New entry • Visa issues prevented a likely USF2000 title

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

The 2024 USF Juniors runner-up began 2025 by winning both races and coming 0.0566 seconds shy of a double pole in USF2000’s St. Petersburg season opener. Next time out at NOLA Motorsports Park it was three poles and three victories, then McNeilly headed home to England.

Following that, US state officials deemed his visa invalid. It prevented him from re-entering the country and continuing his season. They did not believe he was a racing driver, despite proof of that fact as multiple parties sought to get his visa approved again, and McNeilly sank to 14th in the standings after missing almost three quarters of the campaign.

There was an opportunity to contest the Canadian event in Toronto a few months later, yet with little to gain now from returning to USF2000, he instead stepped up to USF Pro 2000 for the weekend. He started and finished fifth on his debut, and qualified fourth for race two. That position was kept through the race, and his points-per-race average was the sixth best in the 2025 field.

Even later in the year he made his GB3 debut at Donington Park, with his cameo resulting in a podium.

46. Salvador de Alba

New entry • The fastest junior single-seater driver on ovals in 2025

Photo: Joe Skibinski

Photo: Penske Entertainment / Travis Hinkle

The switch from NASCAR Mexico, where he was champion, to open-wheel racing in 2022 has proven fruitful for Mexican de Alba who has maximised his oval experience in USF Pro 2000 and now Indy Nxt.

His rookie campaign in IndyCar’s primary feeder series last year featured two podiums, both on ovals, and he finished in each of the top four places across this year’s four oval races. There was also pole for the season finale at Nashville Superspeedway, a different kind of challenge compared to other ovals, and it was a result that he came close to achieving earlier in the year.

De Alba was the quickest on absolute pace around ovals, and fourth on race pace, with one victory at the Milwaukee Mile. On road and street courses, he had five top-five finishes and that put him fifth in the standings for a second season in a row.

The 26-year-old was more competitive at every track compared to 2024, showing he’s not stagnated yet in his fourth year of single-seater racing.

45. Roman Bilinski

New entry • Led Rodin to its best ever year in FIA F3

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

The FIA F3 Championship has three-car teams, yet Bilinski scored over half of Rodin Motorsport’s points in 2025.

After three years in Formula Regional, which included a title in New Zealand but only two podiums in Europe and never coming higher than 15th in the championship, Bilinski stepped up to F3 with a point to prove.

Making the podium on his debut and also scoring in the feature race in Melbourne was a strong start, and two rounds later at Imola he netted two top-eight finishes. In the following round in Monaco he topped his qualifying group, which translated into starting and finishing second in the feature race.

At Silverstone he also claimed a double points finish, from row eight of the grid both times. In the feature race he was an impressive fourth, having climbed nine spots on lap one.

Bilinski’s season ended at Monza with a maiden victory in the sprint race, and further points the next day that contributed to 2025 being Rodin’s best ever in FIA F3. It was the most impressive year of his own career, in the first season after a serious injury had threatened to derail it.

44. Alessandro Giusti

Down 17 • Williams junior’s lengthy scoring run was unmatched in F3

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Giusti’s second place finish in the FIA F3 sprint race at the Red Bull Ring was not only the best result of his rookie season, but marked the end of a remarkable nine-race scoring run. It was a feat nobody else achieved this year.

That podium in Austria followed his third place in the Barcelona feature race, which he started from sixth and marked his best Friday and Sunday results by some margin. But on Saturdays, only three drivers scored more sprint race points in 2025 than Giusti.

When MP had top-10 potential, Giusti tended to do a good job of ensuring that translated into results and when he struggled for pace it mirrored what was happening to more experienced team-mate Tim Tramnitz. The team became less competitive over the course of the year, and in the season’s second half he fell from fifth to 10th in the standings.

43. Ariel Elkin

New entry • Made big leap up ladder and with his performances

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Elkin was buried in Italian F4’s midfield two years ago, then made a sideways step to USF Juniors in 2024 and was fourth in the standings with three wins. He moved two rungs higher on the road to Indy for 2025, racing in USF Pro 2000.

His debut weekend started well by qualifying seventh in St. Petersburg, but he retired in race one after finding a wall and then missed race two.

Following that he was routinely one of the most competitive drivers, winning twice on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course and then on his oval racing debut in assured style in the Freedom 90 around Lucas Oil Raceway.

Although there were only two podiums in the second half of Elkin’s maiden campaign in the third tier of single-seaters, he finished six of those nine races in the top five and that consistency was enough to make him championship runner-up while rivals had more retirements and finishes outside of the top 10.

Later in the year he did two Eurocup-3 rounds, and then made a winning cameo in SMP F4’s winter series in Russia.

42. Jack Jeffers

New entry • Third title from four years on the US single-seater scene

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

There were four drivers with the potential to win the USF2000 title this year, and after McNeilly’s enforced early exit it was sophomore Thomas Schrage who then became the leading driver after taking seven podiums in a row.

After that, rookie Jeffers went on an even more impressive run of eight successive podiums in the last three rounds. That included five victories and three poles, and sent him to what ended up being a comfortably claimed title. He was crowned with a race to spare at Portland, and in the first race there got to have a straight fight with Schrage.

Jeffers finished second in the first three races of the season in St. Petersburg and at NOLA, and took his first win and a third place on IMS’s road course. His sole non-finish was in race one at Road America, which marked the first time he started from pole. The incident that ended his race involved his car going airborne and then into a wall.

Race two the next day was also a low point full of learning, as he started from pole again but lost out in battles, had a wide moment and finished seventh. His only other bad result was on his oval racing debut, as he came ninth in the Freedom 75.

41. Tuukka Taponen

Down 27 • Ferrari junior was ART GP’s top scorer in FIA F3

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

ART Grand Prix’s highest-scoring driver in FIA F3 this year navigated his rookie season well while his team wasn’t always on the pace, and made the top 10 in the standings as a result.

He finished fourth in two of the first three feature races of 2025, and netted a maiden podium in a sprint race during that time, then in Monaco he took his best result of the season by finishing second in the sprint race.

Only one point followed in the next four rounds, meaning Taponen fell from fifth to ninth in the points table, but he bounced back at the Hungaroring with his first feature race podium.

Having qualified 24th then finished 14th and 20th in the season-opening races in Melbourne, Taponen felt ART made a “good step up” for round two at Bahrain where he had his highest-scoring weekend. There were eight races in total which he scored in, fewer than sophomore team-mate Laurens van Hoepen but leading to a greater haul of points.

His results were also far better than his pace metrics for the season, indicating he maximised what he had, having been the 16th best for single-lap pace and 12th best for race pace across the year but with a 46-point feature race haul that was the seventh best in the field.

Written by Ida Wood

The post Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2025: 50-41 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Penske Entertainment / Travis Hinkle

Salvador de Alba took pole position for the final Indy Nxt race of the season at Nashville Superspeedway.

The Andretti Global driver lapped at an average speed of 184.471mph, more than 0.3mph quicker than HMD Motorsports’ Caio Collet in second place. It was de Alba’s first pole in the category, one week after his maiden victory.

Andretti stablemate Michael d’Orlando topped the times early on with an average speed of 182.582mph, the field heading out one by one for their runs of two flying laps.

He was second in the running order, which is the championship standings reversed, due to being a part-timer who has only done the last two rounds.

Even after half the field had completed their laps of the oval, the Andretti Cape driver was still on top ahead of Andretti Global’s James Roe Jr and HMD’s Hellie Deegan. As the usual frontrunners put in their two flying laps, Deegan began to slip down the order, but d’Orlando and Roe remained the provisional front row starts until de Alba began his run.

Among those that struggled in the closing stages of qualifying were HMD’s Josh Pierson and Abel’s Callum Hedge, the two drivers to hit the track just before de Alba. Pierson could only go 13th fastest and Hedge qualified 15th, with Davey Hamilton Jr (the first driver on track) splitting the two.

De Alba’s average speed was 1.781mph quicker than d’Orlando’s, and he was the first to exceed 184mph on both laps.

Abel with Force Indy’s Myles Rowe was next on track after him, but only managed an average speed of 182.231mph and qualified ninth. He ended the session just ahead of Deegan, who matched her best result of the season in 10th.

The final three drivers were all able to better d’Orlando on a grippier track surface, but none could come close to de Alba.

Collet slotted into second, ahead of Andretti’s champion Dennis Hauger and his team-mate Lochie Hughes. 

Qualifying results

The post Salvaor de Alba breaks Indy Nxt pole duck at Nashville Superspeedway appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Chris Jones

Dennis Hauger secured the 2025 Indy Nxt championship with a second place finish at the Milwaukee Mile behind Andretti team-mate Salvador de Alba.

De Alba led from start to finish to take his first victory in Indy Nxt, while Caio Collet – who needed to beat Hauger to stop him winning the title – could only manage seventh after a difficult qualifying.

Starting from second on the grid, de Alba quickly passed Hauger for the race lead in the opening laps. Hauger tried to fight back, but it didn’t take de Alba long to pull out of reach. Meanwhile, Lochie Hughes had taken third from Callum Hedge but was around a second back from Hauger.

Hughes did manage to close the gap to Hauger, but there was little battle for position before the yellow flag was thrown on lap 45 at the race’s mid-point after Jack William Miller had lost the rear of his car, making contact with the wall.

It didn’t take long to clear the incident and Hauger was now back on de Alba’s tail. However, he didn’t put up a challenge to his team-mate, allowing de Alba to finish 1.4693 seconds ahead and secure his maiden victory. Hughes finished 1.1225s back as Andretti locked out the podium.

Miller wasn’t the only non-finisher. Just a few laps before his incident, Tommy Smith had a moment at Turn 2. As he got back on the throttle, he found it stuck in sixth gear and had to come into the pits to retire. Problems late in the race for Davey Hamilton Jr and Seb Murray also caused retirements.

There was little movement inside the top 10 in the latter half of the race. Bryce Aron was one of the biggest movers. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver got a poor start to drop to eighth from sixth on the grid, but soon recovered to climb up to fifth by the chequered flag, behind Hedge and ahead of Myles Rowe. Rowe had come under pressure from Collet early in the race, but the HMD Motorsport driver would finish 3.7524s behind in seventh.

Michael d’Orlando dropped backwards after a strong start to finish eighth, just holding off a hard charing James Roe and Max Taylor.

Race result (90 laps)

The post Hauger crowned Indy Nxt champion as de Alba leads Andretti 1-2-3 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Joe Skibinski

Salvador de Alba is not rueing Indy Nxt’s qualifying at Iowa Speedway being cancelled after finishing the race on the podium, despite it consigning him to sixth on the grid.

The Andretti Global is an oval specialist, having started racing single-seaters in 2022 after winning the NASCAR Mexico title. He won on two ovals in USF Pro 2000, and the best results of his rookie Indy Nxt season last year came on them.

Iowa was the location of his maiden podium in 2024, and he qualified a career-best third for the first oval race of 2025 at Gateway. De Alba was fastest in practice at Iowa last weekend, and looked likely to contend for pole before a storm hit the circuit and qualifying was cancelled. The grid was set by entrant points rather than free practice laptimes.

In the race he ran fifth early on, gained a spot when team-mate Lochie Hughes was penalised, and nabbed third from HMD Motorsports’ Caio Collet a third of the way into the 75-lap encounter. Contact after a caution period meant he conceded the place, but reclaimed it two minutes from the end.

“Oh well, it’s, it’s easy to say [what if], right?” De Alba said to media including Formula Scout when asked if he had a car good enough for pole, and therefore if his race could have panned out differently.

“But yeah, we had a mega car, and as soon as we rolled out of the trailer. So thankful with the team, we showed speed. The first restart didn’t go as as we wanted it to, we lost some momentum there with the contact with a lapped car. So that wasn’t as planned, but we had a great car so I could come back and fight for third place again with Caio.

“And just [nailed] trying to work different lines and move through the field. I knew we had a good car, so we had to be patient.”

He added: “Happy with the podium, obviously we wanted more, but we didn’t have our quali, so this is what we ended up [with].”

De Alba noted being “aggressive and assertive” was as important as patience en route to his first podium of 2025.

“There were some conversations on the radio, and my spotter Dave was talking me through [the traffic]. So it helped a lot.”

With five races to go, de Alba is fifth in the standings and has a sizeable points deficit to make up on the top four. But the final two rounds are on ovals, where he will be considered one of the favourites due to his experience.

The post De Alba not rueing Iowa qualifying cancellation after podium return appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Aaron Skillman

Andretti Global’s Salvador de Alba topped Indy Nxt’s truncated practice session at Iowa Speedway on Friday.

There was due to be 45 minutes of running, but the chequered flag was waved five minutes early during the second yellow flag period of the day.

De Alba jumped to the top of the order in the second half of practice by lapping in 19.4445 seconds at an average speed of 165.517mph. That was 10mph slower than what Indy Nxt drivers were achieving around Iowa a month ago, due to a decision by IndyCar to reduce engine power for this weekend.

The cause of the second yellow flag period was rain hitting the circuit with 13 minutes left on the clock. Once the shower had passed, there was not enough time for the track to dry and enable any further running to take place.

De Alba had also been the first driver to hit the top of the times, before points-leading team-mate Dennis Hauger moved ahead. Hauger lowered the benchmark in the first 20 minutes, improving to 19.4969s.

A brief yellow flag period caused by Abel Motorsports’ Jordan Missig spinning, and once green flags waved again his Abel stablemate Myles Rowe jumped up the order. He first rose to second place, just behind Hauger, before setting a lap 0.04s quicker than him.

Rowe remained at the top until just before the wet weather came, when de Alba went quickest by 0.0114s. He ended the session second, ahead of Hauger and Andretti Cape’s Ricardo Escotto.

Hauger’s title rivals Lochie Hughes (Andretti Global) and Caio Collet (HMD Motorsports) were fifth and sixth, both within 0.2s of de Alba, and completing a top 10 spread out by less than a third of a second was Neils Koolen (Chip Ganassi Racing), James Roe Jr (Andretti Global), test pacesetter Josh Pierson (HMD) and Callum Hedge (Abel).

Andretti Cape only had one car on track, as Seb Murray was not cleared by IndyCar’s medical team to return to the cockpit.

Murray and Escotto collided in last weekend’s race at Mid-Ohio and it was initially believed that Murray was uninjured. However he actually picked up a concussion, and after heading to Iowa and then being screened by IndyCar’s medical team he was not cleared for a return to the cockpit. The decision was made a few hours before practice began.

Cape Motorsports provided further detail, saying Murray’s symptoms had “worsened throughout the week”.

Free practice results

The post De Alba tops Indy Nxt’s Iowa practice, Murray absent through injury appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Andretti Global

Andretti Global has announced its first two Indy Nxt signings for 2025, recruiting USF Pro 2000 champion Lochie Hughes and promoting Salvador de Alba.

Hughes, from Australia’s Gold Coast, won this year’s USF Pro 2000 title at the first attempt with Turn 3 Motorsport.

Now 22, he was Australian F4 runner-up in 2019 before a two-year hiatus from racing. He returned to win the United States F4 title in 2022 with Jay Howard Driver Development, with which he then finished third in USF2000 last year.

“It’s a dream to be a part of this historic team, and one that I’ve wanted to race for since moving to the US,” Hughes said. “This year was great for me winning the USF Pro 2000 Championship and for Andretti winning the Indy Nxt championship, so, I hope that I can help be a part of adding another championship title to Andretti’s record.”

Mexican driver de Alba was signed by Andretti on a two-year deal at the beginning of this year and made his Indy Nxt debut under the Andretti Cape banner, a tie-up with Cape Motorsports. He finished fifth in the points, as the third-best rookie, and scored two podiums in the last five races.

Approaching his 25th birthday in December, de Alba raced for seven seasons in NASCAR in his native Mexico, where he won the championship in both 2021 and 2023. In 2022 he also moved into USF Pro 2000, where he went on to finish third in the points last year.

“The 2024 season with Andretti Cape was super positive for me,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot from my time with the Cape’s, and I am grateful for getting to spend my rookie year with them.

“I would like to start next season with similar results to how we ended this year, and I’ll work as hard as I can to achieve that.”

The post Andretti signs Hughes and de Alba to first Indy Nxt seats for 2025 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: James Black

Andretti Cape’s Salvador de Alba claimed his second Indy Nxt podium in the Milwaukee 100, despite breaking his car by hitting the wall on lap one.

It was a good and bad opening lap for de Alba around the Milwaukee Mile oval, as on the rolling start he headed for the outside line before turn one but found Abel Motorsport’s Jacob Abel and HMD Motorsports’ Christian Brooks doing the same ahead.

Abel’s rear-right caught Brooks’ front-left, which sent him sliding sideways into de Alba who ended up slamming againt the wall. The driver who suffered most was Abel, dropping from second to sixth, while de Alba gained one place then another two on lap two.

“The start was what put us up there, but also what bent the car. So, tough, tough situation, tow link bent the whole race. For sure a bit frustrating. [But] of course, celebrating a lot the podium,” said de Alba post-race.

“Making up spots felt pretty good and [I was] very competitive. At the end we just lost the tyres and that’s it. But very happy with the third place.”

He ran in third until after a mid-race caution period, when he passed Andretti Global’s Jamie Chadwick for second. Victory then seemed a possibility as “definitely the car was in a pretty good window”, but on lap 59 of 90 the gap to leader Louis Foster grew to over a second and de Alba could not claw him back in.

Just over three laps from the finish he then lost out to Abel, but the podium still lifted him from seventh to fifth in the standings with a race to go.

De Alba credited his increased understanding of Indy Nxt’s car at the end of his rookie season for his recent form, having finished fourth and third in the preceding two oval races.

“The team is helping me a lot in between races to work on my downsides, and that’s what has helped me more. And I’ll keep it like this in the off-season, working a lot on my struggles. Just one more race to go, trying to be as competitive as today.”

The first oval race of the season at Iowa Speedway, three races ago, marked de Alba’s first top-10 result in qualifying from 10 attempts. He has followed that up with two ninths and a sixth, and feels in qualifying “I’ve improved a lot but it’s still the toughest to me”. But “a good thing is that I know that and I’m very keen on working that in the off-season, in between the races and whatever it takes, I’ll do it to be up there”.

Therefore a second season in Indy Nxt looks very much on the cards for the 24-year-old two-time NASCAR Mexico champion and USF Pro 2000 race-winner, whose career is backed by ex-IndyCar racer Michel Jourdain. At Milwaukee he also had the support of Oriol Servia, who finished second to Jourdain in Champ Car’s “super cool” race there in 2003.

The post De Alba gets second Indy Nxt podium despite breaking car on lap one appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Chris Owens

There had been some fears that Indy Nxt’s trip to Iowa Speedway would end with a single-lane race, but an IndyCar practice session helped ensure wheel-to-wheel action took place.

The circuit had been repaved in various areas since 2023, with differing grip levels between the areas of old and new asphalt around the short 0.88-mile lap. Indy Nxt points leader Louis Foster called it “frustrating for us drivers because it makes it single-lane”, predicting a “boring” race.

But the shortening of the race from 75 to 55 laps (and the majority of it running behind the pace car) meant drivers could push harder during green flag laps than they had anticipated, and IndyCar’s drivers had also helped grip up the repaved sections when they had a half-hour practice session added to their schedule specifically to rubber in the high line and trial a new tyre compound.

Foster went on to win the race by using the high line to pass Andretti Global team-mate James Roe Jr late on, while Andretti Cape’s Salvador de Alba spent plenty of time on it as he charged from 10th to third. Formula Scout asked the podium trio how confident they felt about the grippiness of the high line, and the impact of IndyCar’s extra running.

“Well for me, it was just the way to get up front. So I didn’t know exactly how much grip it was going to be, but I just go for it, and it figured out it worked very well,” replied de Alba. “It was definitely a lot of grip up there. And especially the first couple of laps that we were not up to speed. That’s when it worked a lot.”

Foster added: “I was just following James at the start of the race so I didn’t really get to use it a lot and I wasn’t planning on using it. But when I did the overtake, I didn’t really know it was going to be grippy. I just kind of trusted the car to allow me to send it in from that high up. So it was more of a hope and a prayer, than a know.

“Because sometimes in our practice it was quite slippery. But we knew that they had run that practice session in the high line to give us some grip. It’s super helpful when they do that, actually.”

Since Roe led the way most of the race, he did not run the high line. But he shared his thoughts on the repaving.

“You have it at turn one and two, it’s repaved two lines, so you don’t really – you can be on the new pavement on both sides. And it’s the difference between old pavement and new pavement that we found is a difference. So it’s more so three and four, when you’re coming in to three you switch over pavement. And it’s easy to get a little high there, and I think that’s even in IndyCar where you saw the incidents happening.”

The post How IndyCar practice helped set up Indy Nxt’s side-by-side Iowa action appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Salvador de Alba will step up to Indy Nxt this year with Andretti Cape, a tie-up between the Andretti Global and Cape Motorsports teams.

Prior to 2022, de Alba was a stock racing star and spent five seasons racing in his home country in NASCAR Mexico. He won a race as a series sophomore in 2018, was second in the 2019 standings then two years later took the title with four race wins.

He then moved across to USF Pro 2000, a third-tier single-seater series on IndyCar’s support bill, and won two races as a rookie en route to eighth in the standings. Last year he won the Freedom 90 oval race and improved to third in the standings despite his season being light on podium finishes.

The 24-year-old now moves up to the next rung on the single-seater ladder, and is the first signing for the Andretti Cape alliance which was announced earlier this week.

“Joining Andretti Cape is the biggest step in my career so far, and I’m excited to be part of this team,” said de Alba.

“Last year was great for me across NASCAR, Super Copa and USFP2000, so I’m eager to start competing in Indy Nxt for the first time. With the help of my sponsors, [former IndyCar racer] Michel Jourdain and the Andretti Cape team, we’re pleased to make the jump to Indy Nxt, and I plan to work hard to make the most out of this season.”

Andretti’s president J-F Thormann added: “Bringing Salvador onto the Andretti Cape Indy Nxt roster this year is an excellent move for us. He has a strong resume in a variety of series and recently walked out of 2023 with two driver’s championships, which is an impressive feat that hasn’t gone unnoticed. We think that Salvador’s experience and eagerness will make him a great asset to the team, and we’re looking forward to helping to develop his career and watching him grow.”

The post New Andretti Cape alliance signs Salvador de Alba for Indy Nxt appeared first on Formula Scout.