NXT Gen Notebook: Andretti’s dream clinching day in Milwaukee
- Archie O’Reilly
- Aug 28
- 10 min read
Updated: Aug 30
Heading to the penultimate round of the Indy NXT season at the Milwaukee Mile last weekend, Andretti Global rookie Dennis Hauger’s task was clear: beat HMD Motorsports rival Caio Collet and the championship was his with a race spare.
DIVEBOMB brings you the key stories from Round 13 of the season…
How the weekend unfolded
Hauger could not have kicked his weekend off in better fashion, clinching a seventh pole of the season by exactly 0.9 mph ahead of front-row-starting teammate Salvador de Alba across his two-lap average. He gained almost an entire mile per hour between his two laps to become the only driver to rise into the 153 mph range, securing a 152.639 mph average.
With Lochie Hughes starting fourth - on the row behind Hauger and De Alba - it was a 1-2-4 start for Andretti. And the message from team manager Don Lambert was clear.
“Donnie gave us a big talk,” Hughes recalled. “‘Don’t hit each other, bring home a 1-2-3, get that championship.’”
There was a heart-in-mouth situation for the Andretti faithful on Lap 1 as De Alba took the challenge to Hauger, the pair running side-by-side for the entire first lap. By the end of that opening lap, the Mexican had seized on the outside and taken the lead.
“The track wasn’t as grippy as in qualifying yesterday,” Hauger said. “I wasn’t confident going into that first lap because of that. I think Salvador really sensed it.”
It was the first time in his two-year Indy NXT career that De Alba had led a lap. And with Hughes edging ahead of Abel Motorsports’ Callum Hedge, who had continued a late-season flourish by qualifying third, Andretti had the podium on lock from the early exchanges.
With the championship in focus, Collet was unable to make meaningful progress on a tough weekend for HMD having started down in seventh. The Brazilian briefly fell to eighth before fighting back to sixth, but his pressure on Abel’s Myles Rowe in fifth was short-lived.
An early caution was avoided as Abel’s Jordan Missig suffered a half-spin on Lap 3. In fact, the race was clean until Abel with Miller Vinatieri Motorsports’ Jack William Miller lost his No.40 machine entering the backstretch just past midway in the race on Lap 48.
Miller’s car slid down the track before hitting the inside tyre barrier with his front then rear wings. The clean-up lasted only six laps, after which De Alba held on expertly to maintain his lead over Hauger and Hughes, the trio having sporadically placed one another under pressure in the first half of the race but never mounting a meaningful challenge.
Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR)’s Bryce Aron found his way past former teammate Collet to drop the driver second in points down to seventh on the restart. The CGR man’s charge continued with a textbook low pass on Rowe to edge into the top five with two passes in as many laps on the restart.
Still leading the way in the HMD battle, Collet failed to make any impressions on the top six. The barely-in-doubt championship crown became a formality for Hauger, though he was still pushing to break his oval winning duck in a rookie season of six victories elsewhere.
But out front, De Alba controlled affairs, maintaining a lead of around one second until lapped traffic again became a factor late on. But like with Rowe in his duel for the win with Hauger at Iowa Speedway, De Alba showed his superior oval experience over Hauger and Hughes to pull out over 2.5s of an advantage inside the final 10 laps.
De Alba did catch a big group of traffic in the very closing laps but again clinically dispatched them before he could fall under duress from Hauger. At the drop of the chequered flag, he secured his maiden victory in the series by 1.4693s.
“It’s a hell of a job,” De Alba said. “We’ve been very happy with the car. Just tuning it for quali, then for the race. We missed the [pole] but we knew we had the car, especially in the high line, to try. We cleared it.
“It was all about pace in the race, just trying to conserve those tyres and push when you need it. Clean air helped a lot. Last couple laps with the lapped cars, it was a little bit of a give-and-take. We knew Andretti cars were fast at this track.
“Now it’s time to celebrate and take the monkey out of the back.”
Hauger in turn was over one second clear of Hughes at the finish, securing a second successive runner-up finish on an oval. Collet coming home seventh meant he clinched the championship in comfortable fashion with one race to spare, even if not coming in tandem with an elusive oval victory.
“To get that first oval was the goal,” Hauger said. “But we knew the big picture was the priority - and that was the championship. Salvador didn’t have much to lose. We made a mistake.
“Congrats to him for that. I wish him nothing but the best. He’s a really nice guy. He does a good job on the ovals. I was hoping it would come but we’ve still got one more round to go. We’ll try to get it next week.”
Coming home 1-2-3 with a new race winner and a champion in their ranks for the second year in succession, it was a dream day for Andretti.
Hauger’s “incredible” title sealed
Hauger’s arrival to the IndyCar ladder has been emphatic. The 2021 Formula 3 champion and multiple Formula 2 race winner came out of the blocks with authority, winning his first two races and in four of the opening five rounds.
With one race to spare in this rookie season, his lead over Collet is an insurmountable 69 points. It is 128 points back to Hauger’s rookie teammate Hughes in third, 157 points to Rowe in fourth and 190 to De Alba in fifth.
“It’s incredible obviously,” Hauger said. “As a rookie this year, I didn’t really know what to expect. I had a great team, Andretti, behind me, pushing me, making me build up the confidence throughout the pre-season.
“From the first round, we’ve been on it, winning a lot of races - we could have won more. The season’s just been incredible. I’m super happy and proud to be a part of Andretti, to get the championship for us.
“Being a part of Andretti, that’s always going to be the goal. But obviously unbelievable. The goal became clearer and clearer throughout the season; we just kept working hard as a team, going into every race weekend with the same mindset.
“It’s been a great year. I’m really happy about it.”
Hauger defends Louis Foster’s dominant crown for Andretti from last year and joins the likes of Pato O’Ward, Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood as some of the best to have driven for the team in recent years in IndyCar’s premier feeder series.
“They all have the same drive,” Lambert said of Andretti’s standout Indy NXT drivers over the years. “When Kyle first got in, he was just fast. I look back at [testing at] Mid-Ohio, a pretty tough course, and Dennis was P1 the first time he went there in 14 laps.
“You just kind of think he’s special. From then on, every test, almost every race, he is P1, P2, P3. As a team, if we can just keep him going and give him the tools, he’s going to do what he did.”
In winning the Indy NXT title, Hauger receives a scholarship worth $850,000. The purpose is for the sum to be applied to a rookie IndyCar oval test, the Indianapolis 500 open test and Rookie Orientation Programme, an Indy 500 entry and further IndyCar entry.
The ultimate aim is for the scholarship to allow a full-season graduation to IndyCar.
“Obviously it’s vital to get to the next step,” Hauger said of the scholarship. “Clinching the championship was an important part of that. We’ll see how we get on in the off-season now. All I can do now is focus on Nashville, try to get a good result for the team again.
“But obviously it helps. I hope it will help going forward.”
The oval factor for Hauger
The most unfamiliar element of stateside racing for Hauger was always bound to be ovals. His record reads fifth, second and second across his first three oval rounds - not at all a bad return for a rookie - but he enters the season finale keen to notch a first victory.
With Nashville Superspeedway measuring at 1.33 miles, it is the longest oval that Indy NXT visits - and one at which Hauger has tested. Even if he does not win, he sees the final round as more valuable oval experience before hopefully stepping up to IndyCar in 2026.
“We can go into that weekend with a bit more relaxed shoulders but we’ll still fight for the win,” Hauger said. “[Ovals have] been a really cool experience this year. In the pre-season, watching ovals, just seeing how it looks, you never know really what to expect
“I remember the first time I went out in Nashville in the first test day, it’s like: ‘Woah, I feel like a superhero driving in a circle.’ It can be the coolest thing, craziest thing and the most scary thing as well. It’s been really cool part of the year to go to so many different type of tracks. Great learning curve and something completely new.”
A thriving culture at Andretti
A big part of Andretti’s current success in Indy NXT is the culture within the team. There is awareness at feeder series level that drivers have a certain level of self-interest. But within the Andretti camp, there is also a keenness between drivers for it to be an open book internally, helping to maximise their own level in enforcing that.
“It’s a team affair,” Lambert said. “I try to pound that in for all of them. Obviously they’re out for themselves but we are all in this together. We debrief as a group. Everybody can listen to each other. They all will help each other during the season.
“Helping each other, that’s going to make you prosper. So [Dennis] has learned a few things from the other drivers. Honestly, they probably learned a few things from him, which is good. That’s going to propel him. Being a good teammate [is the biggest lesson Andretti imparts].”
Hauger himself acknowledges the importance of having strong teammates in the interest of the team’s competitiveness and his own development. With two wins in his rookie season, Hughes started the year as Hauger’s biggest challenger in the field. And as shown by Milwaukee, De Alba has also brought the fight to the champion.
“To be successful, you need to have good teammates pushing you through, helping each other to maximise the car, maximise the team, motivate everyone together,” Hauger said. “Also the team, the work we put in in the pre-season, especially with my engineer, he’s working harder, he’s on it all the time.
“We’re just trying to get to every weekend as prepared as possible as a team. That’s one of the biggest strengths we’ve had this year. We get there and we’re on straight away. That puts us a step ahead of someone most of the weekends.
“That’s been a big part of it. All of that leads down to teamwork.”
A big part of the work that Andretti’s development squad does, as well as honing drivers’ skills, is nurture a mindset that sets them up for success.
“We do not have any team orders and never have since I’ve been here,” Lambert said. “So all you can do is ask them to look at the big picture. Sometimes young kids don’t see a big picture; they only see the one directly ahead of them.
“This series starts to mature these drivers. As they mature, they start to think about the big picture. By the end of the season, I think they all start to understand. But you never want to slow a driver down.
“They all want to win a race. We want them all to win races. We just try to do that every single event. I don’t ever say: ‘Don’t do that!’”
A special first win for De Alba
De Alba is no stranger to the winners’ circle. Before diverting his attention wholly to the open-wheel realm and stepping up to Indy NXT last, he was a two-time NASCAR Mexico Series champion.
He also won three times in USF Pro 2000 - including twice on ovals - across two years in the series, finishing third in points as a sophomore in 2023. He achieved his first two Indy NXT podiums on ovals last year at Iowa and Milwaukee, repeating the feat at Iowa this year.
Finally on his second visit to Milwaukee - the same track at which countryman and manager Michel Jourdain Jr. won for the first time in Champ Car in 2003 - he edged himself into Victory Lane for the first time last weekend. Jourdain Jr. has acted as a mentor to De Alba and was in attendance at Milwaukee on Sunday.
“We’re looking for those wins for a while,” said De Alba, who maintains a seven-from-seven top-five-finishing record on ovals in Indy NXT. “It came at the right place, at the right time.
“Very special to have my first win in the same track that Michel did. He’s here celebrating with me. Last year it was a podium here so it’s a good track for us. It’s time to celebrate and do it again next week.”
Hughes ends “nightmare” run
Astonishingly, after podiums in his first four races and in seven of the first eight, a third-place finish was Hughes’ first rostrum visit and first top-five result since Round 8 at Mid-Ohio.
“It almost feels like a win after the last few rounds have been kind of a nightmare,” he said. “Congrats to Dennis - great for him to win the championship. It hurts a little because we were fighting for a while. But happy to finally get a result after the last few weeks.
“I feel like in the race [at Milwaukee], we were real quick. It’s just very hard to follow. I do like these ovals. Very different type of driving.”
Hughes remains third in the standings at 29 points clear of Rowe with one round remaining.
Odds and ends from the weekend
Miller aside, the only other driver to have their race ended by contact with the wall was HMD’s Davey Hamilton Jr., whose incident inside the final 15 laps did not cause a caution but ended his day prematurely.
HMD’s Tommy Smith also failed to finish due to a gearbox issue, while Andretti Cape’s Sebastian Murray was pulled into the pits by race control, telling the FOX broadcast: “I lost all control of the car from Lap 3 onwards.”
Behind the podium, Hedge came home fourth with his fourth successive top-five result, eighth successive top-seven finish and 11th top 10 of the season. He still sits seventh in points - three places lower than his rookie finish last year - but is only 10 points adrift of HMD’s Josh Pierson, who finished a quiet Milwaukee weekend in 11th.
Fifth for Aron was his best result of the year, followed in the order by Rowe - fourth in the standings at 33 points ahead of De Alba - and Collet. Andretti Cape’s Michael d’Orlando continued an impressive return to the series in eighth, out-dragging Andretti’s James Roe at the finish.
The day’s biggest mover, HMD rookie Max Taylor, was up eight positions and rounded out the top 10. Pierson was the final driver on the lead lap, with CGR’s Niels Koolen, Missig and HMD’s Hailie Deegan all one lap down to round out the finishers.
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