NXT Gen Notebook: Hughes heroics headline Gateway

Credit: Karl Zemlin

Andretti Global’s Lochie Hughes secured a second victory in his first six Indy NXT races with a stunning late surge at World Wide Technology Raceway - better known as Gateway - last Sunday. 

The reigning USF Pro 2000 champion has closed teammate and fellow rookie Dennis Hauger’s advantage atop the standings to only 19 points as the former Formula 3 champion finished fifth on his oval debut. 

DIVEBOMB presents the story of the Indy NXT Gateway weekend…

How the first oval of 2025 played out 

The start of his first oval weekend could hardly have been better for Hauger. Winner of four of his first five races in the series this season, the Norwegian youngster was the only driver to register a two-lap average in the 166 mph range in qualifying, securing pole ahead of HMD Motorsports’ Caio Collet by over 0.4 mph.

But side-by-side with the Brazilian sophomore throughout the opening laps of the race, Hauger found himself passed by Collet on Lap 4. Abel Motorsports’ Myles Rowe had also passed Andretti oval specialist Salvador de Alba in the early exchanges to jump to third.

The lead pair had a comfortable buffer to Rowe behind, even when lapped traffic became a factor as early as Lap 15. This obstacle led to ebbs and flows in Collet’s lead to Hauger, who would drop away but claw back ground after navigating traffic. 

The majority of the race was routine - the leaders decisively dealing with traffic. But that changed in the final 20 laps as Collet found himself behind a large train of cars and unable to make inroads, packing together the lead group.

This was where Hughes, who spent the majority of the race in sixth place until passing HMD’s Josh Pierson on Lap 46, came alive and started to make serious inroads. Inside the final 20 laps of the 75-lap race, he found himself around De Alba to leap to fourth. 

Then came an astonishing flurry.

Credit: Matt Fraver

Within a three-lap period, Hughes had dispatched of the entire top three to take the lead of the race on Lap 62, working the high line of the race track in remarkable fashion. He carried that momentum and checked out from there. 

While Collet and company remained stuck, Hughes was clinical in traffic. By the chequered flag, his advantage was over four seconds.

“I got Myles and we actually made a little bit of contact through Turn 3 I think,” Hughes recalled. “Rolled around the outside of a lapped car through Turn 3… Dennis was right there, really closing in on Dennis. ‘Oh, we’re about to pass the pole-sitter.’ 

“All of a sudden Caio was there. We just had great momentum. It’s like an Eminem song: Around the Outside.”

Collet and Hauger both fell off considerably late in the race, with Rowe dispatching of the former lead pair to elevate himself into second, where he remained for a career-best result and third podium of his two-year Indy NXT career - all coming in the last four races.

This left Hauger off the podium for only the second time this season after an incident in the opening Indianapolis road course race forced a recovery drive to eighth. He was ultimately also passed by De Alba, dropping him to a fifth-place result, with which he remained content on debut on an oval.

The race remained green from start to finish and was without any major incident.

How Hughes produced high-line heroics

For much of the race, Hughes was hardly a factor as he bided his time in the middle of the top 10. He qualified a solid fifth but was unable to make ground early in the race. 

But for a driver making his debut on an oval in the series, his late-race heroics made for an all-time great Indy NXT performance.

Credit: Matt Fraver

“I don’t really know what to say,” he reacted. “Still kind of in shock. Really just so far behind in the beginning; the car balance wasn’t feeling great. It wasn’t until we got to traffic and I started: ‘I don’t really care anymore,’ because I was in sixth. 

“Just started running the high line. ‘Oh, there’s some grip out here.’ Kept the foot into it. Got a little bit better with how I was using it. You don’t know unless you try. As soon as I put the car there, it stays. I just committed to it.”

Hughes had only previously raced on an oval at Indianapolis Raceway Park (IRP), which is different in its characteristics to the ovals on the IndyCar schedule. There was a certain fear of the unknown coming into the Gateway weekend for Hughes.

“This is the first real oval race I’ve had,” he said. “[IRP] is a great oval but it’s super hard to pass. It’s very different the way you race. It’s like you’re just running the high line the whole time. This type of oval racing is kind of scary. 

“You’ve got to throw it on the dash a little bit and just hold on. I didn’t really know what to expect. I loved it. I thought it was awesome. If that’s what every oval race is like, bring it on.”

With two victories and podiums in every race bar Detroit, where he managed to salvage fifth place after a front wing replacement, Hughes is very much in the championship picture despite Hauger’s stellar start to the year. 

“It’s been a big jump to this car from what I was in,” he explained. “I feel like Detroit, we had a good chance of winning. We were really quick in the middle there, had front wing damage… it got worse and fell off. 

“Indy Race 2 [finishing second from pole after winning Race 1], I threw that away a little bit. I’m always there. I’ve just got to put it all together, be faster out of the box at the beginning of the weekend. That stuff is just the experience.”

Credit: Karl Zemlin

Race “tough to lose” for Collet

Collet led 58 laps after passing Hauger on Lap 4, which is 44 more laps than the next-best tally, race winner Hughes’ 14 laps led. For Collet, it was a missed opportunity to win for the second time in Indy NXT and the first time in 2025.

“We had a great car the whole weekend,” he said. “We definitely missed out on the win. The race, after leading 58 laps, was tough to lose.”

Collet was in a settled position for the vast majority of the race, navigating traffic given his pace advantage and keeping Hauger at bay. But his race came undone in the closing 20 laps as he suddenly was unable to deal with the traffic and his pace dissipated.

“I started to really lose the balance,” he said. “We took a gamble with downforce before the start of the race. By Lap 25-30, I said: ‘Okay, it’s a little bit tough to drive but let’s see if we can make it to the end. 

“Finally when we hit traffic, I was really stuck and I couldn’t really move on. It’s where Lochie came by fine. I didn’t even see him. After the last 15 laps, I was just trying to survive and finish the race. Really tough.”

Collet sits third in the standings - nine points ahead of Rowe in fourth - but still 78 points adrift of Hauger’s lead.

Rowe continues upwards trajectory

After finishing 11th in the championship as a rookie with HMD last year, Rowe’s renaissance with Abel continued on to Gateway. He was cruelly caught up in the early accident in Detroit as an innocent party but has otherwise finished no worse than fourth.

He has been on the podium three times in fourth races, bettering his two third-place results at Indy with second place last weekend.

“I think we could have done a little bit more,” he suggested. “But Lochie came on quite surprisingly in the end, could make the high line work, especially in Turn 3-4, which was the hardest part of the track to make that high line work. 

“We were struggling with that. Looked like Lochie could do a bit better so deservedly had the win.”

Credit: Karl Zemlin

Rowe felt his car, as with former teammate Collet, ended up being too loose as the race progressed, which made it tougher to use the high line. This meant passes on lapped traffic had to be perfectly calculated throughout, which Rowe successfully managed.

“It was really a timing game,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t really know what the guys in front are going to do, whether they're going to wash up into you, have whatever balance effect on your car. Definitely had to have your thinking cap on.”

Odds and ends from the results sheets

Elsewhere in the field, 19-year-old Pierson continued a strong start to the season, maintaining his 100 percent record of finishing in the top 10 in 2025 and achieving a fourth top-six result in six races. He sits sixth in points, behind De Alba.

After finishing fourth in the standings last year, Abel’s Callum Hedge sits seventh having ended the Gateway weekend seventh - where he also qualified. Behind him in the order was first-time podium-sitter from Detroit and oval debutant Juan Manuel Correa, who both qualified and finished a respectable eighth in his first experience of the discipline.

HMD’s Nolan Allaer kept his nose clean and brought home a first top-10 finish of the season in ninth having finished no better than 15th in the opening six races. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Niels Koolen rounded out the top 10 - a third successive top-10 result having entered his sophomore season with only a solitary top 10.

Hailie Deegan had her most competitive weekend yet, with ovals more familiar territory for the HMD driver with a stock car background. She failed to better her 14th-place result from an attritional St. Petersburg season opener in 16th but qualified a resounding season-best 10th.

Jack William Miller was the only retirement for Miller Vinatieri with Abel Motorsports with an apparent technical issue before the midway mark.