Rapid-rising Seb Murray aiming high after leading Indy NXT test
- Archie O’Reilly
- 4 hours ago
- 7 min read
The entry list for last week’s annual Indy NXT Chris Griffis Memorial Test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was not short of budding starpower.
Among the 24 participants in a notably deep field, headlines were grabbed by appearances from Formula 2 race winners Enzo Fittipaldi and Victor Martins. But while facing experience and pitted directly against 2025 third-place finisher in NXT, teammate Lochie Hughes, it was a somewhat unexpected name atop the time sheets.
That driver was Sebastian Murray of Aberdeen, Scotland. A driver who first raced single-seaters on a full-time basis less than three years ago, fresh off finishing 13th in the standings as a rookie in NXT for Andretti Cape in 2025.
“The test was awesome,” said Murray, who has stepped up to the four-car Andretti Global squad for next season, on the DIVEBOMB IndyCar Podcast. “Andretti do everything really, really well; they make it their priority to make sure that we’re ready and prepared for even a test, nevermind a race weekend.
“We’ve done a lot of work to help out all the things I needed to improve from last year. Me and my engineer, we wanted to purely fix the driving side of things. I had a lot of things I needed to work on from last season.
“We went into that test not worrying about where we were on the timing sheets but we went out and I fixed the things we needed to do and the car was there all day and was really, really quick. The whole team was quick all day.”
Murray led an Andretti 1-2-3 by the end of the day-long outing on the 2.439-mile road course, ahead of fellow new additions Max Taylor and Josh Pierson. Hughes was sixth, while the big name features of Fittipaldi and Martins, for HMD Motorsports, lay 11th and 12th.
Whether for confirmed drivers to bed in with their teams in a rare test or for teams to evaluate drivers for their squads, the October test always provides crucial track time.
“This is a really good test,” Murray explained. “Especially at this time of year, it’s good to have that little month off and then get straight back into it before a couple of months off. We’re so limited on testing and that’s what I struggled with this year.”
It was announced at the end of September that Murray would be moving to Andretti having spent his rookie season with their technical allies at Cape Motorsports, which has now entered a relationship with Ed Carpenter Racing for 2026.
He joins an outfit which has dominated the last two NXT seasons through champions Louis Foster and Dennis Hauger. Given the closeness of the Cape bond, Murray had valuable access to data and video from Andretti’s drivers, who accounted for nine wins across the 14-race season between Hauger, Hughes and Salvador de Alba.
This existing relationship has thus far made the transition ahead of next year seamless.
“It’s pretty similar,” Murray admitted. “My engineer was from Andretti last year and I’ve kept him for this year. We work really well together and I’m happy to keep him. And I already knew a lot of the guys in Andretti because we worked out of their workshop. I was able to have access to a lot of the Andretti databases last year, which really helped my progression.
“So it was like just going back to the same team, really. Cape were awesome last year. I can’t speak highly enough about them. They’re a great team and a really nice family to be around. But I’m really excited to see what we can achieve with Andretti.”
Murray grew up in Scotland before moving to Dubai in 2018, after which he started karting at 12 years old at a local track. Now aged 18, having first raced a full season in cars in the Formula 4 UAE Championship in only 2023, his ascent has been equally stark and prompt.
With limited testing, Murray struggled to a lowly 30th in the championship through 15 races in his debut UAE F4 season, also dabbling in the GB4 Championship and Spanish F4 that. He jumped to 19th the following season, then running the GB3 Championship season back home in the United Kingdom, where he finished 18th in points.
His résumé was one tainted by uncompetitive situations leading to unrepresentative results.
“A race now and then where you don’t have a good weekend, it’s easy to get over; you just knock it down and go on from there,” he divulged. “But when you have a really tough season and you feel like it’s not down to yourself, it is pretty hard mentally.
“But honestly, you’ve just got to stay disciplined, stay motivated and try and work harder and harder until it does [go well]. You do benefit from it and do get quicker.”
At the end of the 2024 season, Murray was left with a decision to make on the direction in which he wanted to go for his future. Initially, he had the opportunity to run another season in GB3 or divert his attention to GT racing. But as decision-time neared, another route arose.
Within two months, Murray was living in Indianapolis and limbering up to enter the IndyCar ladder at its premier feeder series level.
“Since F4 really, I’ve always wanted to properly pursue motorsport as a career. It’s been proper tunnel vision since then, really, on what I want to achieve,” he said. “[After 2024] I wasn’t really sure on what I wanted to do. I still wanted to go the single-seater route.
“Around Christmas time, my dad and I and my manager were talking about possible options and things to do. We were going to decide in the next couple of weeks. And then I got an offer around a couple of weeks after Christmas.
“The Andretti Cape seat opened up and we just took it straight away. And it’s by far the best decision I’ve ever made, for sure.”
A keen Scottish rugby and Manchester United fan, as well as an enjoyer of boxing, Murray’s sporting - and specifically motorsport - fandom has extended as far as IndyCar. As he has risen rapidly through the racing ranks, has always watched the Indianapolis 500, and when time zones have allowed or on late nights in Dubai, he has been a keen viewer of IndyCar.
But he had never been to the United States even this time one year ago, making his all-in switch to NXT for 2025 a gamble. He had to decide quickly - and that has paid off.
“It was such an unexpected opportunity,” he recalled. “All the seats were taken up at that point. I’d missed most of pre-season testing as well so it was proper late on to sign a contract. I’d come over here and done a test in a [USF Pro 2000] car and liked it but was still just a bit unsure.
“I’ve always had my heart set on the single-seaters; GTs have always been a second option for me. I always wanted to be F1 champion or IndyCar champion and stuff like that. It’s every little kid’s dream. But the biggest thing that attracted me over here was how well it’s run.
“Following IndyCar every race is really something special. The crowds are massive over here and the fans are really awesome. You get a really good fanbase that are really passionate about the racing.”
There was a lot for Murray to adapt to - no less an unfamiliar set of tracks and a new car and tyres, as well as adapting to American culture in racing terms and otherwise.
It was a slow start by way of results in the early rounds, but a sixth-place finish in Round 5 in Detroit marked a breakthrough maiden top-10 result. He only once again finished in the top 10 with fifth in Race 2 at Laguna Seca (Round 11) but left the year feeling higher-than-displayed potential may have been unfulfilled.
Above all, he laid valuable foundations for a sophomore season.
“I’d say I’m pretty happy with it,” Murray reflected. “Results-wise, I think there was definitely potential to have more. There were a lot of driver mistakes that were made or stupid DNFs and things like that, which really stunted my points and proper good finishes in the races.
“Everything was so new to me: the car, tracks and everything. I loved every bit of it. The biggest thing that I took away was just how much I’ve learned and grew as a driver and improved.
“There were a lot of good highlights. Obviously Detroit was good. Then Laguna was overall a great weekend - had the pace there the whole week [starting eighth for both races]; it was unfortunate to have a gearbox failure in Race 1 but we came back and finished on a high. But it was good. I enjoyed last year.”
There were still some lower moments - none more so than a concussion suffered in a major airborne crash at Mid-Ohio leaving him sidelined at Iowa Speedway - to balance out the overall positivity.
On a performance front, adding to one-lap speed too often leaving him backpedalling in races, ovals were a glaring weakness as Murray debuted in a discipline alien to him.
“It wasn’t great missing Iowa and we had a couple issues the last two rounds in Nashville and Milwaukee,” Murray conceded. “Driver improvement wise, I think the ovals are going to be my biggest focus to work on in the off-season and the ones that I prepare most for next year.
“Getting up to pace on an oval is not too difficult but racing is definitely where the experienced guys have to take a toll. If you’re good at managing the lift, you’ll be really strong in the race. But if you’re not, you’ll just be in no man’s land, which is where I got stuck a couple of times last year.”
To work on the shortcomings, Murray and his Andretti team are planning on running a sim-racing schedule spanning every track to aid preparation, especially given the gaping period without any actual on-track time.
On top of that, Murray is a believer that running through video from every race makes a marked difference. No stone is being left unturned.
As has been the case throughout the infant years of his burgeoning career, there is a sense that he enters 2026 with more to show than that exhibited across 2025. And now with a proven championship-winning squad, his expectations are lofty.
In the eyes of Murray - not short of self-belief - he is capable of upsetting the odds.
“I want to win races,” he pledged after his strong start to life with Andretti. “I want to get a lot of podiums and I want to win races. Driving for Andretti, it is what they do. We win races and we win championships as well. So that’s what I’m going to try to do this year.
“That’s definitely my target, to finish as high up as we can. The best case for me would obviously be to lift that championship trophy at the end of the year. That’s definitely what I’m going to strive for.”
