Exclusive: Inside Hauger’s road to the Indy NXT title

Credit: Travis Hinkle

Dennis Hauger is fresh off three flights back home from Nashville as he sits down with DIVEBOMB three days on from the Indy NXT season finale. The trip culminated in a leg from Amsterdam back to his native Norway, where he is racing again in a matter of days.

He would go on to sweep the pair of races in the Porsche Carrera Cup Scandinavia that weekend. Very much in keeping with the last six-and-a-bit months.

Hauger joins the call with a laugh and a smile spanning from ear to ear, beaming and unable to contain his excitement after the season he has had. A nice keepsake from a stellar 2025, he is sporting a black and white Indianapolis Motor Speedway-branded cap.

“Most of the year I’ve just worn the last cap I got on the podium,” he says with pride. “They’re pretty cool. I like them.”

He is spoiled for choice, such has been the incredible success of his season. And that success was not a given, by any means. 

Hauger took the decision - and maybe you could call it ‘risk’ - to change paths in his career and pivot away from what was familiar after three seasons in FIA Formula 2. The former Red Bull Racing junior sensed that the runway towards his goal of a drive in Formula One had run its course and his career in Europe had turned somewhat stagnant.

A four-time race winner with a best championship finish of eighth, Hauger had good offers on the table to continue in F2 for a fourth season. But the highly-touted 2021 FIA Formula 3 champion wanted to give himself the best shot at reaching the top level of motorsport.

If that was not to be F1, he was keen to explore the IndyCar world. And he did not take much convincing.

The purity of IndyCar’s racing and vast realm of opportunity caught his eye. And while a direct switch from F2 to IndyCar - an increasingly-trodden path - never materialised with budget a sticking point, the opportunity to spend a year in IndyCar’s premier feeder series with the Andretti Global team appealed to Hauger.

Credit: Matt Fraver

The decision was quickly made to take on a new life stateside. And over the coming months, 14 races, 11 podiums, six victories and an Indy NXT champion’s ring later, that choice to open up a new chapter in his career was emphatically vindicated.

Hauger has quickly risen to a man of the moment in the IndyCar paddock. His ascension into the mainstream attention has been stark, so much so that he spent Monday still in Music City fulfilling media commitments aplenty after the Nashville finale. 

Of course, there was intrigue when he made the switch to the North American open-wheel ladder given his pedigree in Europe. But to many across the Atlantic, he was an unknown quantity as few as 11 months ago, when he was announced to be joining Andretti’s four-driver Indy NXT squad for the 2025 season on 18th October.

He made an immediate mark at the annual Indy NXT Chris Griffis Memorial Test on the Indianapolis road course later that day, jumping into an unfamiliar car and, at the first time of asking, topping the opening session by 0.1745s. A sign of things to come.

“When I got over there, I had in my mindset already like: ‘Okay, I have one year to do this and try to get the best possible results so I just have to go out there and try and impress everyone in the first outing,’” Hauger recalls. “That was the goal. 

“I was talking with my manager Harald [Huysman] and we were like: ‘Okay, just send it on the first run and try to do the best possible job.’ And for sure, I think I did a good job. I was P1 after that first run and showed everyone I can get into this pretty quickly.”

It was certainly a good start. But for the time being, Hauger knew it was nothing more than that. Compared to what he was used to as part of the F1 billing, racing as a feature of the IndyCar package was a different ballgame. 

Credit: Matt Fraver

Not only was it a new car to get to grips with, but Hauger had no real-world experience on any of the tracks, oval racing was an alien concept, the style of racing was unlike that he was accustomed to and many procedural intricacies were unknown quantities.

Nonetheless, his comfort in the car from the outset was a cause for encouragement. It was a pleasant feeling after multiple years grappling with the opposite in F2.

“The cars are so different, the tracks are so different… there is literally almost nothing that’s the same,” Hauger says. “Really feeling good with the car from that first run helped me a lot because it’s a pretty light car and it’s a lot of movement; you can really just push through the limits, which I really enjoy and that’s a style that suits me.

“Looking back, especially with the old F2 car, you could really not do that. I was always struggling to find that natural feeling with the F2 car. And just coming over here and getting into it pretty easily felt like such a nice feeling again. 

“From then on, we just kept building that confidence and trying to understand the car as well as possible.”

The first race weekend came on the streets of St. Petersburg - quite the technical challenge for his maiden race in Indy NXT. It was a different, more raw iteration of street racing than that of Monaco or Baku or Jeddah - at all of which Hauger had stood on the rostrum in F2.

But again, Hauger was quick to adapt. At a track of only 1.8 miles, he was over half-a-second clear of the field in his first-ever practice session.

He dropped to second in Practice 2 and was not quite as pleased heading into his first qualifying session. But to be displeased at only being a fraction over one-tenth of a second shy of the field-topping lap time was a promising sign.

And that promise was delivered upon come go-fast time.

Credit: Travis Hinkle

“That first weekend was a bit of nerves, not really knowing what to expect,” Hauger remembers. “Testing was going well but it’s always a bit different on a race weekend. 

“Practice 1 was good. Practice 2, it wasn’t going really smoothly for us. And we just put everything together in qualifying and nailed it. We got the pole position and it was such a nice feeling.”

Hauger was over half-a-second clear of any other driver in his qualifying group, with his quickest lap enough to claim him the P1 Award on debut, despite running with the less favourable track conditions in Group 1.

Come Sunday, Hauger was in command of his first rolling start in recent memory. 

“I haven’t done that since karting,” he claims. “Those small things made me a bit nervous. But once we got going, I knew what I had to do and I just had to stay calm and do my thing. We executed pretty well. And from then on, we could just get into the rhythm more.”

Hauger went on to control his way to victory, overcoming three caution restarts to hold off fellow Andretti rookie Lochie Hughes, who was the reigning USF Pro 2000 champion. 

And so the tone was set. Come the next round at Barber Motorsports Park, another dominant pole-win sweep was executed - almost 0.6s clear of his group in qualifying and with a race-winning margin of 11 seconds. In the three races that followed, Hauger won twice more for four victories in his first five races in the championship. 

The Indy road course doubleheader provided his sternest test in the early rounds, losing both poles to Hughes before being hit in Turn 1 of the opening race, forcing a laudable rear-to-eighth recovery drive. He bounced back the following day though, snatching the lead from Hughes on an early restart and expertly managing his way to another controlled win. 

A three-week May hiatus followed, but on Detroit’s violently bumpy 1.645-mile street course came the fourth win of a rampant start. Hauger finished atop his qualifying group by almost an entire second before weathering the chaos behind to lead all 45 laps on Sunday.

Credit: Dominic Loyer

Such an impressive adaptation was no coincidence. Yes, it was a reminder of the talents that took Hauger to the F3 title and multiple wins in F2. But it was also a product of relentless work ethic and a commitment to leaving no stone unturned ahead of the season.

“Watching a lot of videos - knowing every track to the detail before even starting the season - helped me get my mind to understand the tracks very quickly,” Hauger explains. “And the simulator stuff I’ve done with my engineer and with the team, just really trying to prepare. 

“Every time we go to a track, I want to really know that I worked on this track more than everyone else before I get there. And I feel like I can say pretty confidently that we were one of those guys who worked the hardest before getting on track to be prepared. 

“That’s probably one of the things that stood out this year, that we just really were on it from that Lap 1. We knew what we had to do and what we had to achieve and I think that helped us on every new track for me this year.”

After five rounds, a 38-point lead over Hughes put Hauger in control but not in a position of comfort with such a distance to go in the season. He was not resting on his laurels.

“The first five races I think suited my style pretty well: street courses, quite technical tracks like Barber. And then in the second half of the season, there were things that I was not as used to.”

That hiked-up unfamiliarity started at World Wide Technology Raceway (better known as Gateway) in Round 6: Hauger’s oval debut. His only previous oval experience was a test at Nashville Superspeedway, where he impressively led the way in his maiden oval outing.

Heading to Gateway, he proved that performance was no outlier, seizing pole position by over 0.4 mph in his first oval qualifying session. The race was a different beast with the factor of running in traffic on an oval and Hauger did gradually fade, losing the lead to Caio Collet and finishing fifth - still a solid outcome for his debut oval race.

Credit: James Black

But it was not only on the ovals where others clawed back some ground. Road America followed Gateway and, after a winless start to the season - Hauger and Hughes sharing victory in the first six races - Collet took his first victory of the season. 

It was the first time Hauger had felt truly on the back foot - not topping a practice session on a road or street course weekend. But for second place to be considered backpedalling spoke to the level at which he had been operating. He still resoundingly snatched pole from the unfavoured group but eventually lost his race lead to Collet with five laps remaining.

“I had never tested [at Road America], where there are pretty long straights,” he explains. “And it was a bit of a weird weekend for us balance-wise as well - we struggled a bit more than usual. We still did a pretty good job getting that pole position. 

“I got everything out of the car; Collet was just quicker than us that weekend.”

Hauger rebounded at Mid-Ohio, again not topping either practice session but this time taking pole and leading the race from start to finish, beating Collet by over three seconds. With six races remaining, his lead over Hughes stood at 47 points.

But three of those final six rounds were on ovals. Next up: Iowa Speedway.

“Most guys coming from European racing, watching Indy 500 or ovals, you’re like: ‘How hard can it actually be? How is it that hard to just turn left?’” Hauger acknowledges. 

“And it’s just crazy how much more it is into oval racing than you think - with the air, with the lines, with how the lines grip up or lose grip and how you need to be in the right rhythm to catch someone or not lose the position. 

“There are so many factors. And especially in IndyCar, there’s so many things they have to do while driving as well with the tools. That really caught me by surprise in that first test.”

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Hauger experienced the Indianapolis 500 in May on the sidelines with Andretti - before he had made his oval racing debut at Gateway the following month. He was immediately absorbed in the intensity of the month, in awe and appreciation of the teams’ energy and meticulous preparation. He was taken aback by the splendour of the crowds on race day too.

It only further fueled his desire to be a part of the spectacle in the future. He was instantly eager to get his shot.

“[May] was something I’ll remember forever and it would be crazy to be on that grid,” he asserts. “I’ve never really been scared of speed - I don’t think you should be as a racing driver either. But people have different emotions and different first impressions when they get on track. Qualifying modes at the Indy 500 just look sick so I’m looking forward to it.”

As he headed to Iowa for the second oval round of the Indy NXT season, Hauger had valuable lessons banked from Gateway. Fifth place may have been his second-worst finish of the season to that point but it was a crucial education.

He watched countless videos of oval races before the season, trying to understand the discipline. But Hauger sees great value in learning by doing.

“I had absolutely zero experience with that when I came into the season,” he affirms. “I feel like the thing with ovals as well is you don’t really get to prepare it on the simulator; you don’t really get to learn as much as you do on the road courses by just watching. You really need to go out there and experience it, do different things, experiment a bit and see how it works. 

“When you’re fighting for a championship as well, that’s not the easiest thing to do because you want to have the risk versus reward. It’s been pretty natural, just working with the team. And they’ve got the most out of me every weekend.”

Credit: Travis Hinkle

Iowa was a marked step forward. By virtue of a weather-induced qualifying cancellation, Hauger started from the front of the field due to his lead in the championship. And for 61 laps, he held his own at the front of the field.

Ultimately, experience paid for Abel Motorsports’ Myles Rowe, who stole the lead from the championship leader on Lap 62 having dealt more efficiently with backmarker traffic. But Hauger held onto second place ahead of teammate Salvador de Alba, who has vast oval experience and success dating back to his pair of NASCAR Mexico Series titles.

Heading into the most critical weekend on the run-in of the season - a doubleheader weekend at Laguna Seca - Hauger’s lead over Hughes had grown to 76 points, owing to an early-race drive-through penalty for Hughes at Gateway for blocking. 

The Monterey weekend belonged to Collet. The Brazilian sophomore swept the poles after a scruffy start to the weekend for Hauger, which featured a Practice 2 crash - a rare incident. Hauger recovered for a pair of front-row starts but Collet orchestrated a masterful sweep of what turned into a disastrous weekend for Andretti.

Race 1 saw Hauger place Collet under immense pressure, falling just two-tenths of a second shy in a drag to the finish line. But the following day, catastrophe struck as Hauger and Hughes tangled at the Turn 2 hairpin with eight laps remaining.

Chasing his teammate for third - Hauger having lost second to Josh Pierson at the start - ahead of a late-race restart, Hughes made a move at the final corner. Illegally so, it was determined, given they were not yet in the designated restart zone.

Nevertheless ahead of his teammate, Hughes ran deep at Turn 2 and an opportunity arose for Hauger. But in trying to pass his stablemate down the inside, Hauger in turn ran deep and the pair made contact, locking wheels and both ending in the gravel. Hughes continued to a lowly 15th - three laps down - and Hauger suffered his first retirement in 16th.

Credit: Paul Hurley

Hughes had already dropped behind Collet in the standings after the opening race, but with a weekend sweep for the HMD driver, Collet was now comfortably second in the standings. 

Hughes’ slim hopes of the title were slashed, falling 89 points behind Hauger with only three races to run after the pair’s collision. But having fostered a strong bond through the season, despite their battles on track, a conversation that evening settled any friction.

“It was pretty quickly sorted out,” Hauger recalls of the aftermath of the incident. “We were both annoyed; we both lost a lot of points. He probably lost the chance of getting a P2 in the championship that weekend as well. 

“We both knew that’s not how it should be and we really took that into consideration for the next three races. That’s what you’ve got to do. You’re going to do mistakes in your life and the most important thing is to learn from them. We did that and moved forward from there.”

The dynamic between teammates in the junior series is a fascinating one. There is a tightrope to be walked.

One one hand, it is in the interest of the drivers to work together for the gain of the team and thus their own performance. But at the same time, there is the overarching knowledge that they are battling one another for the greater goal of reaching the pinnacle. 

And seats at the top are scarce. 

“It’s not easy because everyone’s fighting for their own career,” Hauger admits. “Everyone’s bringing their own budget to try to get to that top step. You’ve got to get that balance of being teammates, really working with each other to be the best as a team, but also you want to beat your teammates more than anything because that shows you maximise the car. 

“For sure, some drivers you get along with more than others. That’s just how it is. But as teammates, you just have to work together professionally, trying to find that balance. That’s not always as easy as it sounds. But we’ve done a really good job in the Andretti team. 

Credit: Joe Skibinski

“We’ve had a few incidents with teammates this year, which is obviously unfortunate. But we’ve still just talked about it as professionals and really taking the team to the next race together. That’s been an important part of it.”

The championship was still very much in Hauger’s hands heading to Portland International Raceway, then a final pair of ovals to end the season. But suffering his first result outside of the top 10 after the clash with Hughes, some nerves started to creep in.

With his lead at 42 points ahead of Collet, Hauger could ill afford another incident.

“That’s probably the most stressful moment,” he says. “We were like: ‘Okay, we’ve got to take a step back here and just focus on the next race.’ And that’s what we did. We won in Portland and that was a pretty crucial race for the championship.”

Portland was an impressive rebound indeed. Collet qualified on pole, confining Hauger to his worst start of the season in third place. But at the very start of the race, into the treacherous Turn 1-2 complex, Hauger made a committed inside move on front-row-starting Rowe before swinging around the outside of Collet to take the lead.

Collet continued to place him under duress for the 35 laps but Hauger never succumbed. With a 53-point haul to boot, his lead of 54 points - equivalent to the maximum points able to be scored in a weekend - heading into the penultimate race of the year at the Milwaukee Mile meant Hauger simply had to beat Collet to clinch the title with a race to spare.

And really, it started to feel over before it began a fortnight late on the famed mile-long oval, as Hauger qualified on pole in strikingly dominant fashion - exactly 0.9 mph clear of the field - and HMD and Collet struggled to seventh. 

De Alba took the lead from Hauger at the race start and never looked back, but with Collet confined to the rear half of the top 10, the name of the game for Hauger was bringing it home. And with a second successive oval runner-up finish, he confirmed a title which had long felt inevitable - and on a dream day for Andretti as they came home 1-2-3.

Credit: Paul Hurley

The oval win never quite came. He ended the year with a third-place finish at Nashville Superspeedway - where his oval journey all began - on a weekend of invaluable learning for the future on the longest, highest-speed oval on which he had competed.

“I didn’t have a championship to worry about - I could just go out there, try a few different lines and just really play with it a bit more,” he says. “So I feel like that’s the race I probably learned the most this year about oval racing. 

“Honestly, I really enjoyed ovals and I feel like I’ve learned more and more every race. Probably one of the coolest experiences I’ve had in a car is on an oval. There’s something unique about it for sure.”

Hauger ended the season a dominant 72 points ahead of Collet and 133 clear of long-time closest challenger and teammate Hughes. Aside from the Laguna Seca anomaly, his worst result all season and only other finish outside of the top five was eighth.

Championship challenges are often defined by the worst weekends. And for Hauger this year, with a tally of six wins, four runner-up results and a sole third-place finish, even the events which felt more of a struggle seemed to end with a podium.

“There’s a few places in the second half of the year where we probably didn’t have everything we needed to win but we were still P2 or P3,” Hauger assesses. “That’s what we needed to get the championship. There’s been a lot of moments but overall a pretty controlled year for us.

“The season has just been unreal with Andretti, coming over here to the States for the first year, not really knowing the paddock and not really knowing what to expect about myself going into the Indy NXT rookie season. It’s felt like home since the first couple of weeks.”

The year has been a roaring success - everything Hauger had hoped for when he made the move. He has had the results and has amassed the perfect experience to build towards his ultimate goal of IndyCar; he now knows the tracks, has had his oval education and is accustomed to Firestone tyres too.

Credit: Travis Hinkle

“For me getting up to IndyCar, I feel as prepared as possible,” he says. “There’s things from different parts of my career which I can take into it and I hope I can obviously extract the most of it if I get the opportunity.”

Hauger knew from the outset that it was vital that he won the championship and the associated scholarship. In doing so, particularly as a rookie, he has put the wider paddock on notice.

As it stands, he is working hard to secure an IndyCar seat for 2026 as he looks to take the next step in his still-budding career. After the season he has had, tackling so many unknowns with such triumph, there is little doubt that he is ready.

For Hauger himself, moving stateside has offered a new lease of life for his career. He may have been an F3 champion and F2 front-runner on the precipice of F1, but he has found his true happy place across the pond. And this is the best version of Dennis Hauger yet.

“I feel like I’ve learned a lot going up the ladder and getting older, getting more experience. When I won the F3 championship, I had just turned 18 - so obviously a young guy. Still not too old - 22, it’s not too bad. 

“But obviously getting that championship was really important for me and a big step in my career. And then when I got to the F2, I was hoping for more; I was hoping for a championship. And it was just really hard to get it in the end. It didn’t feel super natural. 

“Coming over here to the US - with Andretti as well - it felt super natural again. And that’s a feeling I’ve been chasing for a while in the car. So it was just so nice and such a relief and so much fresher to come over here and reset my mind and get into it. 

“It’s been a really good year and I’m more motivated than ever.”