NXT Gen Notebook: Newbies shine as hometown hero rises
- Archie O’Reilly
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
Rookie Nikita Johnson kicked off the 2026 Indy NXT season with a maiden victory, scoring Cape Motorsports’ first-ever win at this level on his hometown streets in St. Petersburg.
The 17-year-old, driving for the team now partnered with Ed Carpenter Racing (ECR), was making only his fourth NXT start and ousted a fellow teenager, 18-year-old Max Taylor, who won pole position and finished second on debut with Andretti Global in his first full campaign.
DIVEBOMB unpacks the key events and stories from the opening weekend of 2026.
Taylor dominant in qualifying
Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session commenced with a contender in strife as HMD Motorsports debutant Enzo Fittipaldi struck the wall on the exit of Turn 3. He limped back to the pits with damage and was confined to a last-place start; the latest Formula 2 export was unable to repeat the heroics of eventual champion Dennis Hauger’s debut pole in 2025.
Johnson headed Group 1 to guarantee a front-row start, leading the Andretti pair of Lochie Hughes and new addition Josh Pierson. Another rookie, AJ Foyt Racing’s Alessandro de Tullio, was fourth in the group, ahead of new HMD acquisition Salvador de Alba. Reigning USF Pro 2000 champion Max Garcia was sixth in the group for Abel Motorsports.
Group 2 most notably featured Taylor, who had led both practices, including by a near-half-second margin on Friday. Already with over five minutes remaining, he had eclipsed Johnson’s best time to ensure the pole-sitter emerged from the second group.
A heavy incident for Cape-ECR’s Matteo Nannini - returning to NXT after a two-year hiatus - brought out another red flag with little over three minutes remaining. He first struck the inside wall in Turn 2 and suffered significant damage to all four corners of his machine. He emerged without assistance and was able to start Sunday’s race.
After the restart, Taylor held on to top spot in the group, extending to a lead of over half-a-second to teammate Sebastian Murray, who secured a career-best third-place start. It was a maiden pole position for Taylor for only his eighth start in the series.
Following in the Group 2 order, HMD debutant Tymek Kucharczyk, expected title-challenger Myles Rowe for Abel, Cusick Morgan Motorsports’ Juan Manual Correa - in his first full year - and Foyt debutant Nicholas Monteiro completed the odd positions on the first six rows.
Incidents galore as Johnson reigns
Come the race start on Sunday morning, it was Johnson who seized the initiative at the outset, swinging to the outside of Taylor in Turn 1 and sweeping into the race lead. All the while behind, Kucharczyk was on the move from fifth to third.
“I knew I just wanted to get to the front,” Johnson said. “That’s the biggest thing; just wanted to control the race. I know that I’m pretty good at that. So I knew I was going to do it as fast as I could. I saw there was an opportunity coming into Turn 1 so I went for it and stuck it. After that, I don’t want to say [it was] smooth sailing but I had it pretty controlled.”
It took only four corners for the first caution, with HMD debutant Jack Beeton, starting 13th, spinning in Turn 4, compounding a crash already suffered in opening practice. The Australian was ultimately able to rejoin the race and recovered admirably to finish 11th.
Up front, it was status quo on the restart before another caution period after only three more laps of racing. On Lap 6, it was CGR’s Carson Etter, another debutant, in the barriers - this time in Turn 8 after finding his front wing stuck beneath his car.
There were eight laps of racing before the next stoppage, with the leading pair of Johnson and Taylor checking out from the rest of the field after a piece of expert defence from the race leader on the second restart. But the race was interrupted again on Lap 17 for Monteiro, also in his maiden race, ending up stricken in Turn 9 after clipping the inside wall.
Johnson restarted excellently but was again left to see the race neutralised immediately on Lap 21 after a heavy collision between teammates on the restart. CGR’s disappointing weekend was compounded as Niels Koolen and James Roe came together through the high-speed Turn 2, with a particularly heavy impact for the latter into the outside wall.
Both Roe and Koolen had to retire, meaning three of CGR’s four-car stable failed to finish. Their sole finisher, Bryce Aron, only made one place up during the race to finish a lowly 18th.
Johnson was again assured on what proved to be a fourth and final restart, fending off Taylor as the race was moved under a time restriction. As he had done race-long, Taylor continued to probe within a second of Johnson, with a reasonable margin back to third. But overtaking proved challenging throughout the field.
Johnson remained flawlessly composed to take a first NXT win by 0.6990 seconds ahead of a pair of first-time podium-sitters in Taylor and, almost five seconds back, Kucharczyk.
Murray achieved a career-best fourth-place finish, ahead of Hughes and Rowe, last year’s third- and fourth-place drivers in the standings. The top 10 was completed by Pierson, de Alba, Correa and de Tullio, who sits third in the rookie standings after the season-opening race, having fended off Beeton and Garcia in 11th and 12th.
While his seven positions gained made him the race’s biggest mover, Fittipaldi struggled to make headway from the rear and could only finish 17th, fourth-last of the finishers.
Hometown heroics from Johnson
Johnson is no stranger to success on the St. Pete streets. And no stranger to the St. Pete streets full stop, given he lives within a 10-odd-minute drive of the track. After wins on the track in USF2000 and USF Pro 2000, he completed a trilogy of victories on Sunday.
“I’ve had pretty good success on low-grip tracks where you really have to drive the car on the limit and pretty close to the wall,” he said of what suits his style around his home track. “Street courses are my favorite types of tracks. To come back and win at St. Pete again, is just amazing and all the support from my hometown fans is just crazy.
“It feels amazing. It’s also great that I can drive over only 10 minutes in the morning, sleep in my own bed, see all my friends and family at night, have a nice, easy dinner. Then everybody comes out, it gives you that little extra push. Always when you have fans and friends and family out there, they give you that little more motivation.”
This time around, in such an incident-interferred race, the key was managing the four restarts he had to orchestrate, which he did expertly.
“The restarts were pretty difficult,” he said. “But a long time ago, I raced Legends Cars and I had a really good coach named Ron Hornaday. He helped me with my restarts and got it pretty locked down. I took that experience to this.
“I knew that the track was going to be pretty greasy in the last turn so I changed it up multiple times and it was only once that I really had a lot of pressure coming into Turn 1. Max did a good job applying the pressure but we had really good restarts.”
At the end of it was the reward of a first victory for the Cape organisation in Indy NXT - in their first race partnered with ECR after three years allied with Andretti.
“It’s pretty amazing, especially to do it with my first time racing with Cape,” Johnson said. “The Cape boys are extremely happy. I’m extremely happy. I’m super thankful for everything that they do. They’ve been working super hard. I wouldn’t rather be any other place.
“Everything that ECR does for us and all the Cape boys, they made this car so fast. We’ve been working together great. We were sometimes a little bit behind on practice but we knew just where we were. It’s pretty nice to come in as an underdog and come out of nowhere and qualify and go win in the race. It’s a great team effort. I can’t thank them enough.”
Mixed emotions for Taylor
After taking pole and leading the field for the entire weekend up until the race, coming home for a career-best second-place finish but losing out on victory was bittersweet for Taylor.
“Good points result,” he said. “Been dominant basically all weekend: P1 in the practices and then pole position. I knew the start was going to be important. Just messed it up. But I kept on the pressure, doing the right things on the restarts, getting them right a few times.
“Probably had one opportunity where I should have gone to the inside when I went to the outside. But it’s just difficult to pass, difficult to follow, especially with the low grip on the track. I was trying to keep the pressure on Nikita but he did a really good job.”
Still, there are many positives to take from the authority with which he took pole position and the ability with which himself and Johnson checked out from the rest of the field on Sunday.
“It’s all thanks to Andretti. They have an amazing programme and all the boys and girls there work so hard. Our heads are down. We’re going to keep on pushing.”
Kucharczyk forging his own path
Finishing third on debut, ousting multiple experienced and successful campaigners in the process, Kucharczyk is off to an excellent start to his NXT career. And it was his decisiveness to pull off a double overtake at the start that got the job done.
“We’ve done a pretty decent job, executed well,” he said. “The weekend was not the easiest one for my debut but I did my maximum. I knew the start would be the only opportunity pretty much to make up some places so I just sent it. It turned out pretty good. Then the rest of the race I was trying to manage the tyres, trying to do good restarts and hold my position.
“I don’t have much experience in quicker cars than Indy NXT. This year, it’s a learning process. I’m really glad we’re starting [with] P3 but there’s still a lot of things we can improve on because the two guys next to me were a bit quicker in the race.
“I don’t want that to happen ever again.”
The key for Kucharczyk and his HMD team was building up gradually through the weekend, given the baptism of fire St. Pete provides for debutants as a street course to start the season.
“The team behind me did an amazing job this weekend,” said the reigning Euroformula Open champion. “They gave me a really happy place, safe zone where I can just develop myself and evolve and work on myself. And every session was better, better, better.
“The first practice session I was really safe; I was nowhere near the limit. And at the end of the race, I was feeling more and more comfortable. It shows the potential is much bigger because I’m not on that limit where I want to be. But there was no point risking it and trying to be a hero. It’s all in experience. It will come by time.”
Nonetheless, the first Polish driver to race in the series has given his loyal contingent of supporters something to cheer about from the outset.
“This trophy is a great feeling and then obviously being the first Pole and jumping straight to the podium is a nice feeling for me. I’m really just going my path. I’m not looking who I want to follow; I just want to be myself. I’m doing my best just to become the first Tymek Kucharczyk, not second Robert Kubica.”
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