Matteo Nannini was the man of the hour in the 13th round of the Indy NXT championship at Nashville. The Cape Motorsports driver took pole position in qualifying and backed it up in the race with a decisive victory, while his teammate Nikita Johnson finished second and retook the championship lead from Enzo Fittipaldi. Feeder Series reviews the action.

By Vincent van der Hoek

Nannini delivered an impressive race on the Nashville oval. For the first part of the race, he resisted intense pressure from Johnson, Myles Rowe and Lochie Hughes; for the second, the Italian broke free from his pursuers and opened up a 5.6s gap to claim victory. Johnson in second place completed a Cape Motorsports 1-2 and grabbed back the championship lead from Fittipaldi by one point as the Brazilian finished 11th. Rowe of Abel Motorsports completed the podium in third place.

Practice and qualifying

The championship contenders were confident coming into this weekend but keen to learn from their prior races – and those of others.

“Right now, the guy to beat in Indy NXT on ovals is for sure Myles Rowe,” said Fittipaldi, who asserted that he was ‘pretty confident’ entering Nashville. “I’ve looked back at previous races – even at the Milwaukee test, to go up the grandstands and watch how he drives, watch how he approaches the corners. You can always learn something.”

At the first Indy NXT oval race of the season at Gateway last month, Johnson started in fifth but finished in seventh. Coming into Nashville, he knew what areas he had to improve.

“I just got a little bit messed up with the restart at the very end,” Johnson told Feeder Series in the media bullpen. “I had a few guys check up ahead of me. I just wasn’t in the right spot at the right time. We looked back on that, and I know how to fix that. The whole thing about these long corners is just the momentum. You just can’t kill your momentum or you’re going to lose two, three places.”

In practice, however, things were looking slightly different. Andretti Global took a 1-2 finish with Hughes topping the timing sheets and Max Taylor in second place. The session also previewed the type of racing expected at the 2.140-kilometre oval. Close slipstreaming, the development of a second groove – all signs that drivers were getting familiar with oval racing.

With qualifying coming up, teams faced a challenging decision. Nashville had an impound after qualifying, which meant t teams had to use the same setup and tyres for both qualifying and the race. 

Nannini ended up grabbing pole position with an average speed of 177.427 mph (285.541 kph) over two laps.

“I had nothing to lose. This track is about having the confidence to be flat out from the get-go,” Nannini told Feeder Series after qualifying. “I didn’t, but I forced myself to be flat for those three laps.

“Our season has been so up and down, like crazy. We have amazing moments, and then we are slowed down by things out of our control. So to get pole here is definitely a good step forward.” 

As qualifying is done in reverse championship order, Nannini – 11th in the standings entering the round – had to sit and watch his rivals attempt to knock him off the top step one by one.

“I didn’t know how fast my lap was, but then when I saw that the gap was almost a mile an hour, then I was like, ‘I should be fine’. Then after Myles I was like, okay, if Myles didn’t pass or [Alessandro] de Tullio because he has a very, very fast car in a straight line, [I] should be good.”

Lined up next to Nannini on the front row was De Tullio, who set an average speed of 177.114 mph (285.037 kph) on his run. The Argentine driver was visibly frustrated after getting out of the car in pit lane, believing he had the pace to put his AJ Foyt Racing machine on pole position. 

Johnson took third place with an average of 177.072 mph (284.969 kph).

While the 18-year-old will have been disappointed to miss out on the top spot, fellow title contenders Fittipaldi and Tymek Kucharczyk had bigger problems in qualifying. The HMD Motorsports teammates qualified in 14th and 17th respectively, giving Johnson an early advantage over his main rivals. Alongside Johnson on the second row was Abel Motorsports’ Rowe, who had his best qualifying of the season.

Race

Nannini held the lead at the race start, with Johnson moving up to second place. De Tullio held on to third despite a big run from Rowe on the inside into Turn 3. Niels Koolen, who had his best qualifying of the season in fifth, suffered a problem, forcing him to pit and eventually finish 44 laps down. 

Battles were raging all through the field until the end of lap five, when Jordan Missig and Juan Manuel Correa crashed hard into the wall in Turn 4. Missig appeared to lose the rear, leaving Correa with nowhere to go but into his side. Both cars sustained heavy damage, but their drivers were unhurt.

After a caution period of nine laps, the race got back underway on lap 15 with Nannini still in the lead, but behind him, Johnson and Rowe were pushing hard to take the lead. Two laps later, Nannini, Johnson and Rowe went three-wide into Turn 1, with Rowe taking the lead, only for Nannini to send it back around the outside on lap 18 to take back the lead a split second before a caution came out for debris on the back stretch. 

With the debris quickly removed from the track, the race got back underway on lap 21. The battle for the podium positions was as intense as ever, and Johnson, fighting for second, was back in the virtual lead of the standings. His position strengthened a lap later, when Kucharczyk was forced to visit pit lane with front wing damage, dashing his hopes of a good finish. Kucharczyk would eventually finish in 18th place, three laps down from Nannini.

Back at the front, the trio became a quartet when Hughes, who had started ninth, started to mix it up with Johnson and Rowe. Matters got spicy when Hughes and Rowe made contact on lap 28 as the Andretti Global driver passed the Abel Motorsports driver around the outside of Turn 1, his left rear clipping Rowe’s front wing. Both drivers were lucky to escape without major damage, and Hughes pushed on to pass Johnson for second place on lap 36. 

“Got tight with the 26 and I,” Rowe said in the post-race press conference. “Clipped my wing a little bit. Had to look over to make sure I didn’t ruin his race or mine. That’s the fine line of these milliseconds to get the draft, make passes happen.

Hughes then set his sights on Nannini for the race lead, but the Italian knew exactly how to break the momentum of the Andretti Global driver and never gave up the race lead. Johnson and Rowe were now battling for third place, with Rowe getting the better of Johnson on lap 43 of 65.

With 20 laps to go, Nannini began building his lead tenth by tenth, which further grew when Rowe started attacking Hughes for second place. The American finally got past Hughes into Turn 1 with 16 laps to go, but by that point, Nannini was a second in front, having snapped the tow and any realistic chance for the runners behind to challenge for the lead. Two laps later, Johnson followed suit and took back third place around the outside.

As the race went into the final 10 laps, both Cape Motorsports cars were the fastest in the field. As Nannini built up a four-second lead out front, teammate Johnson was hounding Rowe for second place. After several attempts, the 18-year-old made his way past Rowe with six laps to go, taking second place and setting up a Cape Motorsports 1-2. 

After having led 64 of 65 laps, Nannini took the win in only his second oval race of his career. It was his second win of the season but his first on track as his Road America victory came after the post-race disqualification of AJ Foyt Racing’s De Tullio, the original winner.

In the end, the race only had two cautions, which pleased race winner Nannini.

“I was hoping not to have yellow flags because it’s such a big restart zone, ” Nannini told Feeder Series in the post-race press conference. “The wait into Turn 1 is pretty big. I know if I didn’t get a good jump, they can get my tow and have a good chance in Turn 1. I think the two safety cars, yellow flags, was enough.

For teammate Johnson, the restarts provided opportunities to take the lead, though he ultimately couldn’t capitalise on them. 

“The yellows, I think, were helpful for battling up front,” he said. “When we were at speed, the high line was a little bit dirty. With the track sweepers, there was a lot of the oil dry stuff that was up top, like [lane] two and a half or the third lane. Just having a restart meant that everybody would be bunched up and we would take the high line a little bit slower, so for me it helped out.Ultimately, we didn’t get it done. Matteo did a good job of pushing me up half a lane higher. I think the restarts were fun – it was definitely a little curveball in there.”

Johnson finished in second place, retaking the championship lead from Fittipald by one point. Rowe finished in third for his third podium of the season and fifth from the last six Indy NXT oval races His Abel Motorsports teammate Max Garcia finished fourth, capping off one of the strongest weekends yet for the reigning USF Pro 2000 champion. 

In spots five through seven were three Andretti Global drivers, though not in the order they occupied at the start. Taylor recovered from a disappointing qualifying to rise from 12th to fifth, with Josh Pierson starting alongside him in 11th and finishing behind him in sixth. Hughes, who was still in fourth place with 10 laps to go, fell back to seventh position at the end. 

Jack Beeton finished the race eighth as the best HMD Motorsports driver ahead of De Tullio, who slid back to ninth place in his HMD-affiliated AJ Foyt Racing car. Bryce Aron finished the race 10th as the best Chip Ganassi Racing driver, while championship contender Fittipaldi finished 11th after starting 14th.

With four rounds remaining, Johnson leads the championship standings with 451 points, delivering a 21-point swing to sit just ahead of Fittipaldi with 450 points. Kucharczyk had a disappointing weekend, but his deficit to the championship leader decreased by only eight to 25 points. Andretti drivers Taylor and Hughes are next in the standings, but they will need a miracle to get back into the title picture as they possess 361 and 345 points respectively. 

Indy NXT is back in action in three weeks’ time at the Portland International Raceway road course. 

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying	Matteo Nannini, 52.7541	Alessandro de Tullio, +0.0931s	Nikita Johnson, +0.1058s
Race (65 laps)	Matteo Nannini, 34:01.8143	Nikita Johnson, +5.6449s	Myles Rowe, +5.8761s

Standings	Drivers	Rookies
P1	Nikita Johnson, 451	Nikita Johnson, 451
P2	Enzo Fittipaldi, 450	Enzo Fittipaldi, 450
P3	Tymek Kucharczyk, 426	Tymek Kucharczyk, 426
P4	Max Taylor, 361	Alessandro de Tullio, 324
P5	Lochie Huges, 345	Jack Beeton, 299
P6	Myles Rowe, 336	Max Garcia, 264
P7	Alessandro de Tullio, 324	Nicolas Stati, 175
P8	Jack Beeton, 299	Alexander Koreiba, 149
P9	Matteo Nannini, 297	Carson Etter, 141
P10	Josh Pierson, 282	Nicholas Monteiro, 139

Read the previous round’s report here.

Header photo credit: James Black / Penske Entertainment