NXT Gen Notebook: Fittipaldi sweeps Mid-Ohio on historic HMD weekend
- Archie O’Reilly
- Jul 10
- 11 min read
HMD Motorsports stole the headlines in Indy NXT’s latest doubleheader at Mid-Ohio last weekend, achieving a historic, series-first 1-2-3-4 finish on Saturday and backing up that showing with a lockout of the top two steps of the podium again on Sunday.
Enzo Fittipaldi was the starring driver, retaking the standings lead - though with only 20 points still splitting the top three - as he swept the pair of race wins for his third and fourth victories of his rookie season in the championship. His teammate Jack Beeton also had his best weekend to date in his maiden campaign, achieving podiums in both races.
DIVEBOMB presents the story of Rounds 11 and 12 of the NXT season…
Fittipaldi doubles up for first NXT poles
HMD’s stellar weekend commenced in qualifying on Saturday morning, when Fittipaldi set a track-record 01:09.3690 lap as he swept the pole positions - his first two P1 Awards in Indy NXT. This snapped a seven-race run of qualifying no better than sixth for a driver who had only once been on the front row in the first 10 rounds (at Arlington in March).
Much of that lack of top-two qualifying results for Fittipaldi owed to AJ Foyt Racing’s Alessandro de Tullio having qualifying on lock, with nine successive front-row starts following the St. Petersburg opener. But for Race 1 at Mid-Ohio, de Tullio finished third in Group 1 and started only sixth after HMD’s Salvador de Alba led the group to secure a shock front-row start.
De Alba had endured a tough start to 2026, without a qualifying result better than sixth all season. But with his second-place start, HMD remarkably locked out the front two rows for the opening race - based on the drivers’ fastest laps in qualifying - as Fittipaldi and de Alba led Beeton and Tymek Kucharczyk.
Pre-weekend championship leader Nikita Johnson qualified fifth for Cape Motorsports powered by Ed Carpenter Racing, followed by seven-time pole-sitter de Tullio and an All-Andretti Global row of Lochie Hughes and Josh Pierson. Abel Motorsports’ Max Garcia and Andretti’s Max Taylor - fourth in the standings - completed the top 10.
Some more ordinary service was resumed for de Tullio in the Race 2 order - set by drivers’ second-quickest times - as the Argentine driver achieved his 10th front-row start of the season. Behind, the second row of Beeton and Kucharczyk remained unchanged.
Johnson was directly behind title rival Kucharczyk in fifth again, though this time alongside Pierson, who led Garcia and Race 1 front-row-starter de Alba. Cusick Morgan Motorsports’ JM Correa and Taylor completed the top-10 starters, with Hughes only 11th.
Of note, Abel’s Myles Rowe was only 23rd for both races after slowing on track with an issue in qualifying, causing a local yellow flag and losing his best lap as a penalty.
Rampant HMD make series history
Race 1 commenced in the heat of the day on Saturday, as Fittipaldi kept his lead and Beeton manoeuvred his way past de Alba for second at the start. Behind, in the battle for fourth, Kucharczyk fended off Hughes, who had made his way to fifth as Johnson dropped to seventh, to maintain HMD’s lock on the top four positions.
Significantly, on Lap 2, outside title contender Taylor misjudged his braking trying to pass Johnson into Turn 2, finding the gravel and tumbling to last place. A caution was avoided for this, though the race only ran without stoppage until Lap 5, when Cusick Morgan’s Nicholas Stati came to a halt with a mechanical issue.
While he ultimately fell five laps down as remedies were enacted, Stati was initially able to get rolling, meaning the caution was not overly lengthy. And on the restart on Lap 8, Kucharczyk was on the move in the HMD train, getting a run on de Alba out of Turn 2 and, as the Australian driver checked up behind Fittipaldi, delivering a textbook outside move on Beeton into Turn 4.
“We’re friends off track and on the track we’re all racing for ourselves,” Beeton said. “Obviously we all have massive respect for each other. And you can see that; the racing between all of us was really clean. It’s a really positive environment in HMD, always.”
There was a further caution on Lap 12 for another mechanical issue, as Nolan Allaer’s Juncos Hollinger Racing (JHR) machine stopped on track. The American driver had replaced Ricardo Escotto, who was instead competing in FIA Formula 3 at Silverstone, and was running on the brink of the top 10, having qualified 12th for his first NXT race since last season’s finale.
On the restart on Lap 15, Fittipaldi again extended his lead as HMD’s top four held fort. It was frenetic further back in the pack, with Foyt’s Nicolas Monteiro tagging and spinning Chip Ganassi Racing’s James Roe in Turn 2, albeit with both continuing.
The race continued without interruption until Lap 22, when Correa - running inside the top 10 - suffered an incident in Turn 12. He was able to continue after the team determined there was no great damage to his car, though he finished as the only driver one lap down in 22nd.
Fittipaldi once again got a strong jump on Kucharczyk on the subsequent Lap 25 restart. With overtaking proving tough, particularly in a rhythm of green-flag running, there was little more shuffling in the meaningful order. At the head of the field, Fittipaldi managed to avoid any great pressure from his teammate, taking the chequered flag 1.9003s ahead of Kucharczyk.
“I’m not going to say [it was] quite easy to stay out in front, but it was a smooth ride the whole race,” Fittipaldi said. “We had good pace and the restarts were all really good. I feel like I managed really well the push-to-pass. I didn’t really feel like I needed to use it at all throughout the whole race, which is a good sign. Our pace is just very strong.”
Fittipaldi and Kucharczyk even had some fun trading fastest laps in the closing exchanges, which was a battle also won by the race winner.
“It was just a fun way of showing: ‘Okay, if I want to, I can be quicker,’” Kucharczyk said. “Then I see Enzo pulling away a bit so I was like: ‘Okay, next lap I need to push a bit harder.’ I was kind of bored, to be fair, at that point. I was just like: ‘Okay, let’s push it. Why not?’ It’s like five laps left; we had over 30 seconds of push-to-pass. Tyres were in a good condition.”
Beeton held on for his first NXT podium in third, 6.6995s off the race lead and a little over half-a-second clear of de Alba, who in hand had a two-second buffer to the rest of the pack. Considering they once ran as many as 10 cars, for HMD to secure the series’ first-ever 1-2-3-4 result as a four-car operation is an extra special achievement.
In the title picture, Johnson could only come home seventh - trailing Hughes and de Tullio, ahead of Garcia - meaning Kucharczyk took the lead of the championship overnight, temporarily seven points ahead of Fittipaldi and eight clear of Johnson ahead of Race 2.
Rounding out the top 10 were two excellent recovery drives, with Rowe gaining 14 positions to ninth from starting 23rd and Taylor matching that progress to finish 10th after his early-race excursion. Such shows of racecraft are always valued by onlooking teams at the IndyCar level.
Fittipaldi delivers Race 2 beatdown
The main drama in Race 2 came right at the beginning, with Fittipaldi holding onto the lead ahead of de Tullio at the drop of the green flag but falling under threat on Lap 2. As they duelled wheel-to-wheel for the race lead through Turn 4, de Tullio ran out of room on the outside, running off-track, half-spinning and falling from second to eighth.
De Tullio was dismayed in his post-race reaction, animated in his immediate debrief with his timing stand having not made any more progress from eighth, but the move was certainly audacious.
“He was on my outside but I think I was half a car length ahead of him,” Fittipaldi said. “I did leave him some room but we braked pretty late. By the time I was mid-corner, I said: ‘Oh, he’s for sure going off.’ I think he out-braked himself and was on the dirty part of the track. There’s a lot of marbles out of the racing line.
“It’s unfortunate but it is what it is. It’s racing. We race hard here.”
As a result, Beeton was promoted to second, while Johnson jumped to third having passed Kucharczyk on the start. Correa was another driver on the move, making his way past Kucharczyk for fourth by Lap 8, having started ninth.
All the while, Fittipaldi had been afforded a handy early gap to those behind, which was steadily and methodically increased lap-by-lap. And frankly, in what was quite a non-event of a race from the early stages - as it ran uninterrupted for the first time in six races and passing proved tough - Fittipaldi came under no pressure and delivered an utter beatdown on the field.
“At the end, I knew I had a big gap. I was just competing with myself, trying to get better lap time. It was fun,” Fittipaldi said. “When the car is in the window and you feel really good in the car, it’s nice and you really enjoy doing the push laps. It’s good seat time, as well, [to] work on my skills. I’m not going to just back off at the end.”
In what has been an extremely competitive NXT season, the biggest win margin of the campaign had been Rowe’s success by 2.2081s at World Wide Technology Raceway (WWTR). Fittipaldi emphatically eclipsed this with victory by 12.7469s on Sunday.
Beeton came home second to better Saturday’s personal-best third-place result, ahead of Johnson - on the podium for a sixth time this season. Correa and Kucharczyk completed the top five, followed by Pierson, Garcia, de Tullio, Taylor and Hughes. After his fourth-place finish on Saturday, a scruffier race for de Alba confined him to only 11th.
On this occasion, without any restarts, Rowe could only rebound to 16th. Every driver other than JHR’s Alexander Koreiba, who suffered a mechanical problem on the penultimate tour of the race, finished on the lead lap.
Fittipaldi’s emphatic bounce-back weekend
It had not been a straightforward ride for Fittipaldi of late. After leading the championship out of Round 7 in Detroit, he suffered the woe of being denied a qualifying attempt at WWTR due to a mechanical issue - recovering to only 13th in the race - and then was struck by a mechanical problem in Race 1 at Road America.
In the midst of a title fight, it took mental fortitude to rebound from those deflating back-to-back races and not become desperate in a chase to make up points. That steeliness came to a head with such a measured yet ruthless weekend at Mid-Ohio.
“My grandfather always said: ‘You lose a lot more than you win,’” Fittipaldi said of advice from the legendary Emerson Fittipaldi. “So after you get a win, you have to be happy. But obviously when you get a difficult weekend like I had at Gateway, I wasn’t extremely sad or frustrated after the race. I always try and keep the same energy for a win and defeat.
“It’s very mental. When you are doing a championship and you’re fighting for a championship, it’s important to be competitive and mentally strong. So having this approach has helped me quite a lot in my career.
“Racing is a very difficult sport. It’s 24 cars and there’s only one winner; it’s not like you’re playing basketball or soccer and it’s a 50/50 chance of winning. You need to know how to manage that as a driver, especially throughout a championship and just staying consistent. We’ve had the pace to win races but need to be a bit more consistent.”
Indeed, Fittipaldi has finished nine of the 12 races this season inside the top four - including two wins and a total seven podiums - but also has three results of 13th or worse and has tended to qualify well but not excellently. But since topping the Milwaukee Mile oval test ahead of the Mid-Ohio weekend, he feels as though something may have clicked for good.
“We’ve been at the top since Milwaukee test. Came here [to Mid-Ohio], practice: P1. Then quali: double pole. And then double wins,” Fittipaldi said. “We’re really with some strong momentum here and I feel really good with the car.
“A very nice bounce-back after what we had at Gateway with the car issues and then Road America - a bit didn’t put everything together. Super happy to bounce back like this. I feel great. We’re in great form going into the last part of the season.”
Beeton delivering on his potential
The start to Beeton’s rookie season was challenging. Through the first eight rounds, his only pair of top-10 finishes were ninth-place results. But at the past two doubleheader events, things have started to click and the upwards trajectory has been stark.
“It’s definitely been a hard start to the season - harder than we would have liked. A few mistakes,” he said. “The pace has been good. We just haven’t put it together. We’ve had potential the whole year - we’ve known that - and now finally we’re starting to deliver.”
The Road America doubleheader saw him start sixth and third - a marked step forward from where his qualifying form had tended to be - and record his two best results of fourth and sixth. The sixth place in Race 2, while a regression from his starting position, was particularly impressive after finding himself at the back following an incident on Lap 1.
“We’ve been able to overtake. There’s been plenty of races where I’ve been last on track and had to come through,” he said, with his overtaking ability shown again in Race 1 at Mid-Ohio as he passed de Alba for third. “Luckily [the de Alba pass was] actually for the positions at the front. That move was super crucial, [otherwise] I would have finished fourth.”
He credits the main reason behind his upturn in form as being his newfound ability to qualify at the front, which comes hand in hand with his growing comfort in the car.
“The biggest thing in racing is qualifying. If you’re going to start at the front, there’s a lot less people you have to overtake - and that’s where I struggled at the start of the year,” he said after his pair of third places at Mid-Ohio. “I was never really putting it together in qualifying.
“When you are starting outside even the top 15 some races, it’s a lot harder to get up the front. This weekend we had a good qualifying - also Road America. You see when you start at the front, it’s a lot easier to stay there. That’s definitely been the biggest thing. We’ve worked hard as a team to maximise qualifying and we’re finally starting to get there.”
Three title protagonists cut clear
With Mid-Ohio in the rearview mirror and five rounds remaining, Fittipaldi has opened up a 17-point lead over Kucharczyk in the standings - slender but an advance on the leader often having a sub-10-point advantage after many of the recent rounds.
Johnson is still only 20 points behind Fittipaldi in third, having still not recorded a finish worse than seventh this season. Each of his six top-five results have been podiums.
“Consistency is where it’s at,” Johnson said. “That’s what wins championships. That’s what I learned from USF Pro, where ultimately we should have won that championship in ’24 but a few crashes here and there and then a few penalties took me out of it. I learned from that.
“If the car is P5, I’m going to go put it P5. If the car is P1, I’m going to try to go for first. I always try to get the max out of the car but I’m not going to try to overachieve and throw off a good points day. We take it race by race and try to maximise the results and the points.
“I don’t really mind the points lead [at this point]. It all comes down to the final race of the season anyway; you can win for second or third of the points coming in the last round. I’m not really worried about that.”
Taylor is now 100 points back in fourth, as a clear trio of contenders have emerged up front. Hughes is 12 points further back again in fifth, with de Tullio sixth at 129 points behind Fittipaldi and Rowe two points adrift of that in seventh. Beyond the 150-point-deficit mark, Beeton has climbed to eighth, ahead of Correa and Pierson.
Indy NXT returns with a single-race weekend at Nashville Superspeedway on 19th July.
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