Jacob Abel pulled off a thrilling victory against Indy NXT championship leader Louis Foster at Portland International Raceway.
After starting second, Abel made a diving move to the inside of Foster, who started on pole, and defended the top spot for all 35 laps en route to winning by 0.4103s on the 12-turn, 1.964-mile natural terrain road course. It was the third win of the season for Abel, who is the only driver mathematically left to fight Foster for the title and now 79 points back with two races remaining (532-453). Foster needed to leave Portland with 108 points to clinch the title.
“That was just a really good weekend start to finish for us,” Abel said.
“We didn’t roll off the trailer that well at all. We were really struggling there the first practice session, especially going against someone like Louis, who won here last year and rolled off and just made his stuff better and better. So, a huge shout out to the Abel Motorsports crew. I mean, we worked really hard this weekend and yeah, it was a little tough there. Obviously, he was putting the pressure on me the whole time, but yeah, it was awesome so huge thanks to everyone.”
Behind the No. 26 Andretti Global entry of Foster was rookie teammate Bryce Aron in third. HMD Motorsports rookie Caio Collet finished fourth, ahead of fellow rookie Christian Brooks in fifth.
The Race
Foster brought the field the green flag, but it was front-row mate Abel who swung inside and snatched the lead into Turn 1.
Meanwhile, the typical chaos of Turn 1 at Portland broke out as competitors behind Abel and Foster clattered together. Several cars came together, leading to Josh Pierson, who started 11th, tagging the back of Salvador De Alba Jr and sending his No. 2 Andretti Cape entry into a spin. The outcome elevated rookies Bryce Aron and Christian Brooks to third and fourth, respectively. James Roe, who started third, fell down to 16th in the melee, while Reece Gold dropped to seventh.
By lap 3, Abel and Foster broke away from the field, with a 2s gap to Aron in third. Abel held a 0.3681s advantage on Foster, which grew by just over a tenth of a second two laps later.
The caution came out on lap 8 after an over-optimistic inside passing attempt by Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Ricardo Escotto on Roe into Turn 1. The outcome ended Escotto’s race, while Roe returned three laps down after brief repairs.
Abel led the field to the restart on lap 10, with he and Foster tangled into a tight battle for the lead as the two touched lightly in the middle sector of the lap. Foster even called for a block over the radio, but no action was taken as Abel maintained the lead and extended it to 0.5431s by lap 15.
The halfway mark on lap 18 saw Abel’s lead shrink slightly to 0.3074s over Foster, earning a valuable two bonus points for leading the most laps. With 10 laps to go, Foster continued to stalk Abel despite being 0.5713s behind. The two once again checked out from the rest of the field, with Aron 3s back in third.
Aron began to close the gap on the leaders with eight laps to go, pushing to only 1.5741s behind Abel.
Abel’s lead on Foster dropped to 0.4193s, while Aron continued to close on the pair at 1.1518s off of second place. Aron got to within 0.6s of Foster with two laps to go as Abel widened his lead to 0.6329s. Abel throttled to the finish without any dramas, while Foster held second over Aron.
