Reigning Indy NXT champion Louis Foster secured a full-time step up to IndyCar for the 2025 season with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) on a multi-year deal.

By Jeroen Demmendaal

It definitely feels like vindication, Foster said when Feeder Series asked him about his new deal with RLL, announced Wednesday.

The Briton had been exploring options outside of the European junior ladder as early as his 2020 British F3 campaign in his second year of single-seater racing. After coming second in Euroformula Open in 2021, he switched to the Road to Indy stateside with the ambition of making it to the IndyCar Series.

Now, three years and two championships later, he has reached his goal.

“I think obviously coming over to America in 2022, not knowing anything about anyone, no one knowing me et cetera, it was a pretty big leap of faith,” Foster told Feeder Series during a press call this week. “I’d been watching IndyCar before that and I knew that was going to be my most likely opportunity to have a career in single-seaters, which I fell in love with from an early age.

“So yeah, to be able to realise the effort and the risk that we put into moving my entire life – at the end of the day, you come over to America to race. And it wasn’t just flying back and forth. I was fully moved to America and really committed myself over here.”

In his first year in the United States, Foster won the Indy Pro 2000 title with Exclusive Autosport. He then signed with Andretti Autosport for the 2023 Indy NXT season, which he finished fourth with a pair of victories.

“For it all to pay off, it really does mean the world to me after these last three years of putting everything I have into this, and I want to continue to do that,” Foster said. “This is where I want to be, and this is where I want to stay, and hopefully we’ll have a long career in IndyCar.”

A dominating performance

Foster comes into IndyCar after dominating Indy NXT with Andretti Global in 2024. The 21-year-old stormed to the title in his sophomore year in the series, grabbing eight wins and four more podium finishes in 14 races.

His lowest finish all season was seventh at Indianapolis, which was also his only result outside of the top five. From the second race at Indianapolis onwards, he finished every race either first or second.

Given his strong form, there was plenty of interest in his services. Talks with RLL started over the summer and were finalised in recent weeks despite RLL’s well-documented challenges in terms of funding for the 2025 season.

RLL did not confirm which entry Foster would drive in 2025, and in its press release announcing him, the team said that details on sponsorship for Foster’s entry would be announced at a later date. But as team co-owner Bobby Rahal puts it, the team felt it had no time to lose.

“It wasn’t premature for us to sign Louis, and frankly I wanted to get him before somebody else might. The time was right for us,” Rahal told Feeder Series. He added that some funding for the entry was already in place thanks to Foster’s $850,000 scholarship prize for winning Indy NXT.

“That obviously puts a dent in the budget – maybe not a huge dent,” Rahal said. “As a proponent of the Indy NXT championship award, I think IndyCar should make that a lot richer for the drivers who win it. Because let’s face it, a million dollars sounds like a lot until you realise it’s USD 10 million to run a car these days without driver salaries.

“Then of course we have the Leaders Circle,” Rahal added, referring to the prize money paid out by IndyCar for the 22 best-placed entries each year. “Then we’ve got some existing sponsors. We’re still waiting for some sponsorship opportunities to conclude, which we’re close on. But we’re certainly going to give Louis the best effort we can regardless of the number.”

Foster said he was looking forward to competing in street races such as Long Beach and Toronto behind the wheel of an IndyCar. Another obvious highlight will be his first Indianapolis 500, an event Rahal won as a driver in 1986. He smiles when Feeder Series brings up the prospect of competing in the biggest race in the world.

“I’ve got a winner who’s my boss now, so I can get some help from Bobby! But yeah, it’s insane. I think it will be one of those moments that won’t really hit you until afterwards, I can imagine,” Foster said.

“I think it’s going to be the same process as before, just try my best to take it one step at a time and really become a sponge and learn from everyone around me. And being a rookie in such an iconic race, I’m sure after the weekend it’ll hit me pretty hard what we had just done and what I had just competed in.”

Header photo credit: Penske Entertainment