Cape Motorsports’ Nikita Johnson became the 2026 Indy NXT champion Sunday in Laguna Seca after finishing second in both races over the weekend. Enzo Fittipaldi finished the championship in second place by 29 points, and Tymek Kucharczyk – who won race two – closed out the season 34 points behind in third. Feeder Series was on the ground at Laguna Seca to capture all the action.

By Michael McClure and Vincent van der Hoek

Ahead of race one, the title battle was still a close three-way fight between the main contenders. Kucharczyk qualified on the front row for both races, but contact with Myles Rowe on the opening lap of race one knocked those ambitions. Josh Pierson, who started race one from pole, went on to take a dominant win by leading every lap of the race. Kucharczyk responded to his race one disappointment by dominating race two just as Pierson did in race one, but the driver behind him was the one with the biggest trophy of all. 

Practice and qualifying

Andretti Global was quick out of the gates in the first practice session on Friday as Lochie Hughes, Max Taylor and Pierson finished in the top three. Jacob Abel for Abel Motorsports finished in fourth, with Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Nolan Allaer, running the road courses for the team since July, in fifth.

Andretti continued their strong performances in the second session, with Pierson taking the top spot and Taylor taking third. Abel Motorsports found some extra pace between sessions to put Abel in second and Rowe in fourth. Juan Manuel Correa finished practice in fifth.

Kucharczyk was the fastest of the title contenders in both sessions in ninth and eighth. Fittipaldi was 13th in practice one and ninth in practice two, with Johnson 18th and 11th respectively.

Though he hadn’t exactly shone earlier in the weekend, Kucharczyk was quick from the outset in qualifying and never let up the pace in the 10-minute session, ultimately setting a 1:13.848 as his fastest time. In the closing moments, Rowe got close to grabbing the top spot but fell just short at 1:13.972. Nevertheless, Abel Motorsports completed an excellent session, claiming three of the top four spots in the group with Abel third and Max Garcia fourth.

In group two, Andretti picked up where they had left off in practice by starting out strong. Hughes, Taylor, and Pierson set the pace in the opening laps, but it was the last of those who kept putting in the strongest lap times. The 20-year-old American eventually went fastest of all to claim pole position for race one with a 1:13.6351, though Kucharczyk held on to race two pole position as the Pole’s second fastest lap, a 1:13.8680 was faster than Pierson’s 1:13.9047. 

“It’s tricky. This place over the years has changed so much, especially after the repave,” Pierson told Feeder Series after qualifying. “Where the grip is and where it isn’t has fluctuated, and there’s some new patches out there that we saw on the track walk on Thursday that create an extra challenge, so it was a difficult session. I felt like it was just about finding the right lap at the right time.”

Starting on the second row for both race one and two would be Chip Ganassi Racing’s Niels Koolen and Rowe, while title contender Johnson and Garcia shared row three for both races. Fittipaldi had more work to do, qualifying 13th for race one and 12th for race two. 

For Kucharczyk, the result was more than a pole position – it was a chance to start ahead of his title rivals at the season’s most critical juncture.

“It was a really, really good session,” Kucharczyk told Feeder Series after qualifying. “The car was amazing. The team has done a mega job and I had just full trust with them this weekend. Maybe in the practices, the pace was not mega, but I knew the potential was there and I just tried to go out there and execute every lap and focus lap by lap, corner by corner, and that really paid off.”

Race 1

It took two corners for everything to unravel.

Pierson got away cleanly as the field filtered through the kink at Turn 1 and into the braking zone before Turn 2, with Kucharczyk following in second after braking late to streak ahead of the fast-starting Koolen. But Rowe was on the inside and braking late himself. The two cars connected, Kucharczyk dropped down to 24th, and the championship that seemed within reach after qualifying vanished into thin air. 

Johnson had a front-row seat to the incident and managed to avoid the spinning HMD car, slipping past a baulked Koolen. Hughes and Abel were less fortunate and were forced to go through the gravel in avoidance, falling to the rear after starting in the top 10. Rowe was handed a drive-through penalty for causing the collision with Kucharczyk. 

When the dust had finally settled, Pierson controlled the race from the lead with Johnson trailing in second place, Garcia in third, Koolen in fourth and Correa in fifth having started 11th. 

The other major title contender, Fittipaldi, sat in seventh after having started the race in 13th until Taylor then overtook him on lap eight. By this point, Kucharczyk had made it up to 14th from the back of the field. 

The first caution period of the race came on lap 13, caused by Carson Etter spinning in Turn 9. That started a chain of cautions in quick succession. One lap after the restart on lap 16, Rowe caused his second collision of the day with an overly optimistic dive on James Roe in Turn 5. The pair locked wheels, which sent the Abel Motorsports driver spinning across the track and into the path of Nicholas Monteiro. Their contact took both drivers out of the race and triggered a caution that lasted until the end of lap 20. 

The chaos continued just after as Alessandro de Tullio – who had lost four places after running wide on the previous restart – got a snap of oversteer and pushed Alexander Koreiba wide exiting Turn 2. The Juncos Hollinger Racing driver suffered front wing damage and had to pit for repairs. 

One lap later, Sebastian Murray and Colin Kaminsky made contact entering Turn 3 while disputing 12th. Murray spun across the track at the exit before coming to a stop in the middle of the track, bringing out the third caution. Kaminsky pitted with front wing damage.

With eight laps to go, the race got back underway. Pierson remained faultless and took victory by 2.6294s. Johnson did great business for the championship prospects by clinching second place, well ahead of his title rivals, while Garcia took his second podium in as many races.

“It’s been a long time,” Pierson said. ““Coming from prototypes and endurance series, IMSA, the World Endurance Championship, I figured I might have a little bit easier time transitioning than I did. It’s been a lot of hard work, a lot of sleepless nights,” Pierson said. 

“The pole [at Milwaukee] did a lot for my own confidence, just to know it’s one of those things I can do, right? Getting myself in that window, knowing that’s something I’m capable of.”The Milwaukee race ended in what Pierson called ‘one of the worst moments of [his] career’ after he crashed out of the lead. Six days later, he was enjoying one of his best, having been peerless in the high-pressure moments such as the three safety car restarts.

“It’s tough here because the restart zone is in a weird spot,” he told Feeder Series after the race. “It’s like exit of [Turn] 10 to just on the exit of 11. There’s two ways to look at it. You can get a good run up into 11, and then you really need to get the braking done nicely so you can get the car rotated and go. Or you can do what I did on the second restart, which is just wait until the middle of 11 and then take off.

“I experimented with a couple different ways. The key on any restart is always just to keep people guessing. You don’t want to be predictable. I [thought], ‘I’m going to change up where I go from each time and make sure that Nikita and everyone behind me isn’t going to be able to predict what I’m going to do.’ That was my starting point, and then honestly just the car we had, the setup that we had, traction, everything on power was so easy that getting out of the corner then and getting the run down the straightaway was no problem.”

Behind the podium trio, Correa finished the race in fourth, securing his fourth top-five finish of the season. 

“We actually struggled with pace. We had a small issue in the car, but we just got a good start, kept it clean, and then made a couple moves on the restarts. And yeah, super happy – almost a podium. I think it was definitely the best we could have done from P11,” he said.”

“It was a little warmer than it has been all week, but the degradation wasn’t terrible, to be honest. We had our own little technical issues that we were dealing with, so it was just about surviving the race.

“There is some degradation in this track, but it didn’t feel like today was a massive drop-off. Having so many yellow flags, safety cars, helped keep the track alive.”

Koolen finished the race in fifth, scoring his best result on a road course this season, with teammate Bryce Aron recording his personal best finish of the year in sixth. 

Taylor passed Fittipaldi for seventh into Turn 2 on lap 29, making amends for an error at Turn 5 on lap 16 that cost him momentum and a position to the Brazilian. Fittipaldi came home eighth to pick up valuable championship points. Kucharczyk tried everything he could to do the same, ultimately finishing 10th behind Allaer.

In the end, though, Kucharczyk was all but eliminated from the championship picture. Unless Johnson did not start, his only path to the title would be victory from pole with the most laps led, with Johnson finishing 24th and last and Fittipaldi finishing no higher than eighth.

Race 2

Just as in race one, the driver starting second had a rough go at it in race two. Before he had even passed the flag stand, Pierson was hit from behind by Garcia, which sent him spinning into Koolen. Both cars retired on the spot.

All of this happened right in front of Johnson, who once again narrowly avoided a major accident. Mirroring the decision taken towards Myles Rowe in race one, Garcia was handed a drive-through penalty for his collision with Pierson, which promoted the champion-elect to second place.

After five laps behind the safety car, the race got back underway. Kucharczyk set off on his dominant run immediately by opening up a gap over Garcia, who served his drive-through penalty at the end of the lap and dropped to 22nd. Johnson, meanwhile, was put under heavy pressure by Hughes but held firm.

Fittipaldi took the restart in ninth but capitalised on wide moments for Aron and Rowe into Turn 6 to jump up to seventh place, which soon became sixth place as Garcia served his penalty. The Brazilian then moved into fifth place as he overtook Matteo Nannini on lap eight, with Rowe following him through two laps later.

Running in the podium spots meant Johnson had the title sealed no matter where Fittipaldi finished. In the end, little changed. The final 20 laps of the season were uneventful, with no further changes of position within the top 10. Race leader Kucharczyk consistently built a gap, which grew to 6.5765s seconds by the end of the race.

It brought the Pole his second race win of the season and put him within 34 points of the title. But knowing what could have been had Saturday gone differently made it a bittersweet day.

“That was probably my saddest win of [my] career,” he said in the post-race press conference. “It was hard to enjoy it. You’re driving around, you’re fighting for the championship. I felt like I’ve done everything I could this week. I qualified P2, P1, and I had everything under control. 

“There’s some drivers that just drive like totally reckless drivers that don’t care about anything.It is what it is. It’s part of racing. There’s nothing you can do about it. I wish to turn back time. I probably would have left just 10 centimetres space, probably get away with a P2 yesterday. 

“It’s hard to compensate the victory today. It is what it is. Still, to bounce back and today prove that I could jump in the car and be the quickest out there is a strong point I think I showed to everyone.”

By coming across the line in second, Johnson did enough to win the Indy NXT championship, becoming the youngest winner in series history at 18 years old. The opening lap of his final race in the series, however, could have ended in disaster. 

“I’m not really sure exactly what happened,” the new champion said. “I saw someone get turned. I guess that was Josh. I left a little bit of a gap on the start because I knew there’s no point to get up on the rear wing and take my front wing off. There’s too much risk there and no reward.

“I saw they were crashing and I got on the brakes really hard, checked up, moved out of the way, avoided it. I was really glad that nobody from behind hit me because I had to really slow down not to be involved. I just missed it again. Being smart kept me out of it.”

Andretti’s Hughes took the final podium spot in third, thereby consolidating fifth in the standings behind teammate Taylor. 

“I was giving it everything I had,” the Australian said. “Unfortunately it just was hard with Nikita having such clean air. He was basically almost leading the race from my perspective anyway. It’s just super hard to get runs. Around here, with the understeer you get, it was just difficult. [I] had a couple cracks at him but could never kind of get in the position I wanted to have a real crack. But [I’m] happy to end the season on a podium. These last few races have been a bit unlucky. To end on somewhat of a better note is nice.”

Abel finished the race in fourth, his best result since his comeback at Portland. Championship runner-up Fittipaldi finished in fifth ahead of Rowe in sixth. Nannini capped off his season with a seventh-place finish, while De Tullio, who scored the most pole positions this season, finished in eighth. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Aron came home in ninth, and Jack Beeton closed out the top 10.

Notably for the championship, Correa finished 12th, ensuring he had just enough to beat Rowe to seventh by one point. Beeton did the same over Garcia, who finished the race 21st after his penalty.

A full one-on-one interview with Indy NXT champion Nikita Johnson will follow.

Results and standings after round 17 at Laguna Seca

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying, Group 1	Tymek Kucharczyk, 1:13.8481	Myles Rowe, +0.1247s	Jacob Abel, +0.2523s
Qualifying, Group 2	Josh Pierson, 1:13.6351	Niels Koolen, +0.2880s	Nikita Johnson, +0.3328s
Race 1 (35 laps)	Josh Pierson, 51:58.9259	Nikita Johnson, +2.6294s	Max Garcia, +6.5426s
Race 2 (30 laps)	Tymek Kucharczyk, 41:41.5269	Nikita Johnson, +6.5765s	Lochie Hughes, +7.0266s

Standings	Drivers	Rookies
P1	Nikita Johnson, 585	Nikita Johnson, 585
P2	Enzo Fittipaldi, 556	Enzo Fittipaldi, 556
P3	Tymek Kucharczyk, 551	Tymek Kucharczyk, 551
P4	Max Taylor, 470	Alessandro de Tullio, 442
P5	Lochie Hughes, 453	Jack Beeton, 382
P6	Alessandro de Tullio, 442	Max Garcia, 381
P7	Juan Manuel Correa, 389	Nicolas Stati, 227
P8	Myles Rowe, 388	Alexander Koreiba, 207
P9	Jack Beeton, 382	Carson Etter, 182
P10	Max Garcia, 381	Nicholas Monteiro, 179

Header photo credit: Joe Skibinski / Penske Entertainment