Not even two hours after winning the Indy NXT title at Laguna Seca last month, new champion Nikita Johnson sat down with Feeder Series to film a video podcast about his championship season. Hear his insights on how his 2026 title charge came to be – and the personality trait he retained through the highs and the lows.

By Michael McClure

In the span of nine days, Nikita Johnson had three races, one at Milwaukee and two at Laguna Seca, to overturn a one-point deficit to rival Enzo Fittipaldi and secure the Indy NXT title. Taking home the champion’s prize package would catapult him towards the IndyCar opportunities he’d always dreamed of. Losing out would leave him functionally empty-handed.

It would be a high-pressure situation for any driver to handle, never mind a rookie just a few months past his 18th birthday in the midst of Indy NXT’s tightest championship battle in years. 

So when Johnson qualified a season-low 15th at the Milwaukee Mile, eight places behind Fittipaldi and 13 behind Tymek Kucharczyk, unease would have been natural. After all, the title challenge he had built over the previous six months hinged on moving forward.

“We [were fast] in practice and struggled in qualifying, and a lot of people were doubting me that I wasn’t going to go forward, and they thought that I would be messed up in the head,” Johnson told the Feeder Series Podcast. “And they’re like, ‘Enzo’s going to have a big points day [and Johnson] is not going to do well.’ I think it was good that I fought through all of it and I didn’t let anything affect me. I was like, ‘I’m just going to go do my job like any other race weekend and turn that from potentially being a big points loss day to a big points gain.’”

At first, Johnson’s progress was slow. In the first half of the 90-lap race, he had yet to crack the top 10, only doing so after race leader Josh Pierson crashed on lap 54 and triggered the first caution. At that point, Kucharczyk was fourth and Fittipaldi sixth; by the second caution on lap 69 they were fifth and sixth, but Johnson was right behind them in seventh. By the third caution on lap 78, Johnson had passed both and surged to fifth as his rivals struggled with degradation.

Perhaps more important than tyre temperatures, however, was the fact that his ice-cool confidence didn’t crack. By finishing fifth with Fittipaldi ending up seventh, Johnson came away with a slim but significant three-point lead – the reward for what was, in his words, his best drive of the season, even without any silverware to show for it. 

A week later came the doubleheader at Laguna Seca, where Johnson’s primary goal was now bringing home the championship. Opening-lap incidents occurring around him in both races threatened that objective, but Johnson avoided trouble each time. Even without world-beating pace, Johnson came home an untroubled second on both Saturday and Sunday to pull out a 29-point lead over Fittipaldi.

“I was going to save and think about the championship, but also I wanted to put a statement and show this is what happens when you have a driver that doesn’t feel the pressure and can go deliver and do the job,” he said. “He’s going to get podiums in the final week of the year, fighting for a championship, while others are probably feeling the pressure.”

Stability and opportunism in races sustained Johnson’s title challenge – he never topped a qualifying session. Nonetheless, two wins, nine podiums total and 585 points were a vast improvement on his scattered 2025, when he ran partial campaigns in Indy NXT, GB3 and F3 and only once stood on the podium across all three series.

At that time, coming off of an underwhelming and scoreless F3 stint, Johnson wasn’t exactly top of mind in the list of possible 2026 Indy NXT champions. Evidently, plenty changed around him from September 2025 to September 2026 – team, machinery, environment, competition – but what inspired his own improvement in that 12-month period? 

“Probably being even more chill,” he answered. “Last year, I was pretty relaxed and chill, and nothing really affected me, but even more this year. It’s funny when guys try to go weave under the safety car and go to your outside wheel and stuff and try to intimidate you. And I’m like, ‘You guys are dumb. That doesn’t work on me. You’re just wasting your time.’

“That was probably the biggest improvement, just me being even calmer – and being hard to beat.”

To hear more from Johnson on his Indy NXT championship challenge, check out the latest episode of the Feeder Series Podcast, available now on all major podcast platforms.

Header photo credit: Chris Owens / Penske Entertainment