By Noah Poser, Staff Writer
As he strolled to a fourth win in the season’s first five races on a chilly Sunday morning in Detroit, Dennis Hauger’s experience on the streets of Motor City was less a race and more akin to a dream cruise.
Starting on pole with his Andretti Global teammate and nearest INDY NXT championship rival Lochie Hughes beside him on the front row, Hauger wasted no time taking the lead and driving off into the distance while chaos unfolded behind him.
“I saw some of it in the mirrors,” Hauger said. “It looked a bit messy in the first half of the race, but my race was clean and that was key for me around here. Once I got a gap, it was just about managing and trying to keep the overtakes while getting through the lap cars clean as well.”
The mess started straight away on the opening lap when a handful of drivers were involved in various incidents in the first few corners, ultimately ending the days of Max Taylor, Ricardo Escotto and eventually Myles Rowe and bringing out an early red flag.
Hailie Deegan and hometown favorite Nolan Allaer also had their days derailed in the first lap festivities.
From there, however, the drivers were able to keep things relatively clean through the middle stages of the race, allowing Hauger to drive out to a lead of nearly seven seconds, a gap aided by podium contenders Salvador de Alba and Hughes each having to pit due to front wing damage while running inside the top three.
This presented an opportunity for Caio Collet and Juan Manuel Correa to take their places on the podium. For Correa, who was competing in just his third INDY NXT race, it marked the first podium of his American open-wheel racing career.
“INDY NXT, it was not my plan,” Correa said. “28 days ago, I was not going to be here. I was going to be coaching throughout the season and trying to find a drive for next year somewhere. But the opportunity came and I took it and I’m glad I did.”
Collet was not as content with his second-place finish, despite feeling he maximized his performance on the day.
“It’s tough,” Collet said. “For sure, you want to be first and we’re all here to win but right now we just need to keep working hard to reduce the gap and maybe we’ll be able to really fight. So far this season, Dennis has been a step ahead, him and Andretti, so we need to keep our heads down, keep working hard and hopefully in the next race and over the next couple months we can fight and maybe bring the championship fight as well.”
Collet had one final opportunity to steal victory away from Hauger after a caution came out with four laps to go for an incident involving Jordan Missig.
Instead, Hauger proved one final time to be untouchable in Detroit on the ensuing one-lap green flag dash to the finish, pulling out to a final margin of victory of 1.046 seconds in the span of a single lap.
Despite still winning handily, the late yellow wasn’t something Hauger wanted to see.
“I think I just said on the radio when it happened, ‘oh, mannnn,’’’ Hauger said. “Because we had a comfortable gap, no real stress and with four laps to go you know you’re going to have cool temperatures in the tires on the restart, which is always a bit sketchy.
“And it was a messy one on the last restart, but it was fine because I didn’t overreact. We knew it was going to be like that around here with some restarts. That’s how it is and we still had to do the job.”
And it was a job well done for the rookie from Norway, as he was able to capitalize on Hughes’ misfortune to extend his lead in the INDY NXT standings.
With Hughes recovering to finish fifth after picking up a few spots on the final lap, the gap between the two drivers now sits at 38 points as the series heads to World Wide Technology Raceway for what is set to be the first oval race of the season.