Juan Manuel Correa made his Indy NXT debut in 2025, competing in a partial season with HMD Motorsports. In 2026, the 27-year-old showed steady progress in his first full season with Cusick Morgan Motorsports and concluded the season in seventh place in the championship. Feeder Series caught up with him at the Milwaukee Mile to discuss his 2026 campaign in detail and how he has used his experience to keep improving.

By Vincent van der Hoek

After spending most of his junior racing career on the European single-seater ladder, Correa switched to Indy NXT in May 2025. The Ecuadorian-American participated in nine of the 14 Indy NXT races, taking a podium in his third start with HMD Motorsports in Detroit and adding three more top-10 finishes across the season.

This year, Correa joined the debuting Cusick Morgan Motorsports. While the team was new to the Indy NXT grid, their technical partnership with HMD meant they received substantial support from one of the series’ stalwarts.

“Cusick Morgan is small, but our partnership with HMD means that there’s basically eight cars under the same umbrella. The biggest challenge is more to find what works for you in an environment where there are seven other competitive drivers that are kind of pulling things their way,” Correa told Feeder Series in Milwaukee.

“We wouldn’t have been able to get the results we had without them being involved. It has its pros and cons and, also, this is probably the most competitive year of Indy NXT ever. There’s been a huge step up in that sense. Even the weekends where we’re in a pretty good spot, it’s not easy to get that last bit. We were always rounding the top six, top five, close to the podium, but we haven’t had a weekend where we really put everything together and got the win. There have been weekends where we had the speed for it; it just didn’t go our way. We got luck in some points, mistakes in other times.”

Correa’s season started off with a ninth-place finish around the streets of St Petersburg followed by fourth in Arlington. He spent most of the Barber and Indianapolis double-headers on the fringes of the top 10 before enjoying a breakthrough in Detroit, where he qualified on the second row of the grid. His time at the sharp end was short-lived after he was handed a drive-through penalty for contact with Salvador de Alba, though he recovered to ninth in a chaotic race.

The next race at Gateway, the first oval of the season, yielded a 14th-place finish, which he followed with two seventh-place finishes during the double-header at Road America. Those oscillations were emblematic of the rest of his season: 22nd and a lap down after an incident in Mid-Ohio race one, fourth in race two, a non-finish after a collision in Nashville, sixth in Portland.

“It’s been a pretty frustrating season in the sense that we’ve had so much speed, but when I look at the results, it hasn’t been as strong as where we should be in terms of potential,” Correa said. “It’s still been a fun season. It’s been really fun working with Cusick Morgan Motorsports and helping them build the program. There’s been a lot of work going on behind the scenes. Also, for myself, I feel like this year I’ve really understood the series better, understood the tyres better. I’m a pretty complete driver now. Maybe only the ovals are still a missing link on my side.”

When Correa arrived at Milwaukee, he was coming off two disappointing oval rounds and going to a circuit where he had never raced before. Yet merely two days after speaking to Feeder Series, he finished in second place behind Abel Motorsports driver Max Garcia – his best career result.

Would a victory have been possible? That day, it seemed unlikely; Garcia was just a bit too fast. At other events, Correa sees a missed opportunity to stand on the top step.

“In Detroit, I was flying. That was the weekend where we should have won the race. It didn’t go our way, but we’ve had a few of those,” he said. “In this series, it’s difficult to make up positions, and all the races we’re always going forward, no matter what. That has been a strong point where even not putting it together in quali, we know most of the time in the races we’re going to go forward.”

Correa ended the season with fourth- and twelfth-place finishes at Laguna Seca, the former after rising from 11th on the grid. Those results amounted to seventh in the standings on 389 points, with 10 top-10 finishes – a veritable improvement from 2025. What’s made the difference?

“Getting to understand the dynamics of the race weekend here, understanding the tyres, that has been huge for me, and knowing what sort of window the car needs to be in for me to perform,” Correa answered. “When I got here, I had no idea what I needed from the car in order to perform. We were always chasing the tail. Now there’s been a lot of growth in that sense where I have enough experience to have a pretty good understanding.”

The experience Correa brings to race day primarily comes from outside of Indy NXT. A decade-long veteran of single-seater racing, Correa began his career by racing in ADAC and Italian F4 series in 2016 and 2017 before moving up the ladder into FIA F3 predecessor GP3 and, finally, FIA Formula 2.

The debilitating lower body injuries he suffered in the accident that took Anthoine Hubert’s life in 2019 left him on the sidelines for a year and a half. He finally returned to the cockpit in 2021 while still recovering from his injuries and spent the next four years balancing F3, F2 and endurance racing.

It’s no surprise, then, that the 27-year-old is nearly a decade older than some of his rivals – among them teammate Nicolas Stati, who only turned 18 earlier this month.

“That’s been an interesting part as well,” he said. “Most of the kids on the series, there’s some exceptions, but most of them are quite a bit younger than I am. It’s just funny to see we’re in different places in our careers. We have different levels of experience.

“However, age doesn’t bring you speed; it brings you experience. Still, a lot of these kids are quick, and in some ways, they keep you on your toes because they’re coming every weekend and pushing to the max. They don’t care about risks. It brings a bit of dynamic into the team. It’s good – at least for me, it keeps me honest. I know where I can make a difference with my experience.”

Alongside venturing into Indy NXT in 2025, Correa also dipped his toes into the IMSA SportsCar Championship, competing with United Autosports USA on four occasions alongside Ben Hanley and Nick Boulle. This made him one of the few drivers with endurance racing experience in IndyCar’s second tier.

“It helps me quite a lot with feedback and helping the team develop because I’ve done it with other teams. Having experience in so many different cars helps with that,” he said. “Who I am as a driver is a mix of everything I’ve done and I’m able to perform well here as well, so it definitely helps.

“Racing-wise, I don’t think there’s that much you can bring from endurance to Indy NXT, to be honest. There’s not a lot of tyre management here. It’s a sprint race; it’s kind of elbows out. If anything, karting is more applicable to how we race in the series.”

While the 27-year-old said ovals remain his biggest point of improvement, he acknowledged that more track time would be the key to bridging the gap.

“Apart from that, if I analyse this season, the weakest link has been qualifying,” he said. “We’ve been pretty good everywhere, race pace-wise, race management. In that sense, I feel like I’ve been ready for IndyCar for a long time already. Even coming from F2, you can jump straight into IndyCar and do well. This has been just an interesting stepping stone where I’ve got an opportunity to learn the tracks, learn a bit about the tyres, and start to learn about the ovals as well.”

Correa has not appeared in any post-season tests thus far, and whether he remains in the category in 2027 remains to be seen. Still, he said his switch to the American motorsport scene in 2025 was by no means a permanent goodbye to the international landscape.

“I’m open to opportunities,” he said. “I do love racing in the US. It’s a lot of fun. I’ve gotten to know the tracks now, and they’re really cool.

“The mentality is a little different. We’ve spoken about that. I think it suits me. I feel really good here, but there are other championships in Europe and worldwide that I’d love to do, and it’s still on my bucket list. Some I’ve already done, like ELMS, WEC – those are amazing championships, so I’m always open. As a driver, when racing at this level, you have to keep your options open.”

Interview by Michael McClure

Header photo credit: Joe Skibinski / Penske Entertainment