INDYCAR
Dennis Hauger quickly figured out the best way to avoid potential and real chaos Sunday in the INDY NXT by Firestone Detroit Grand Prix – stay out front.
Pole sitter Hauger, from Norway, led all 45 laps of the race on the streets of downtown Detroit in the No. 28 Rental Group car for his fourth victory in five races this season in the INDYCAR development series. He held off the No. 76 HMD Motorsports car of 2024 series Rookie of the Year Caio Collet by 1.0460 seconds in a one-lap dash for the checkered flag after a restart at the end of Lap 44.
SEE: Race Results
“The tires, they cool down really quickly, so that last lap was sketchy,” Hauger said. “I think I heated up the tires nicely, and we got a good gap after the back straight.
“Super happy with that. We kept it clean, and we got a good win today.”
Hauger expanded his series lead to 38 points over fellow rookie teammate Lochie Hughes, who is the only other driver to win a race this season.
Rookie Juan Manuel Correa earned his career-best finish of third in the No. 39 HMD Motorsports car. His previous best result was 14th in the second race of the Indianapolis road course doubleheader last month.
Series veteran Josh Pierson completed a solid day for HMD Motorsports, which fielded the cars that finished second, third and fourth, with a fourth-place result in the team’s No. 16 machine. Hughes rallied from a late pit stop due to a damaged front wing to round out the top five in the No. 26 McGinley Clinic/USF Pro Championship car.
Just six of the 20 cars in the race finished on the lead lap, as the tight confines of the nine-turn, 1.645-mile temporary circuit on the streets of downtown Detroit induced chaos nearly from the green flag.
At the start, Hauger and Hughes raced side by side into the first turn, with Hauger clinging to the top spot. In Turn 4 on the same lap, the No. 99 Abel/Force Indy car of Myles Rowe was sent into a spin due to rear contact from the No. 17 car of teammate Callum Hedge.
That incident spawned a caution period due to a bottleneck that blocked the track and led to an accordion effect of collisions, with nine cars involved and many suffering damage.
Hauger held steady on the restart on Lap 3 and gradually eased away from Hughes and Andretti Global teammate Salvador de Alba in the No. 27 Grupo Indi machine.
De Alba passed Hughes for second place on Lap 5 and stayed within four-tenths of a second of Hauger by Lap 10.
But Hauger expanded his lead to 1.5 seconds by Lap 19 as de Alba, Hughes, Collet and Correa dueled – often side by side – for second through fifth. There was some contact, and the front wings on the cars of Hughes and de Alba were damaged.
The wing damage, which also included rubbing a deep groove into his right front Firestone Firehawk tire, forced de Alba to pit from second place on Lap 24. Hauger had all but checked out up front by then, ahead by 6.5 seconds.
Hughes’ front-wing damage compromised his car’s performance, and Collet passed him for second on Lap 38. Hughes was forced to pit for a front wing change on Lap 39 from third place.
It looked like Hauger was going to canter to the checkered flag, as his lead had reached double digits by Lap 40. But Jordan Missig spun exiting Turn 2 on Lap 41 in the No. 48 Abel Motorsports car, triggering the second and final caution of the race and erasing Hauger’s big lead.
The field lined up for a final restart and one-lap shootout at the end of Lap 44, but Hauger got a big jump at the green and never was threatened by Collet or Correa.
The next INDY NXT by Firestone race is Sunday, June 15 at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. It’s the first of four oval races this season for the series.
