St. Pete Indy NXT: Frost snatches great opportunist win

From pole, Andretti Autosport’s Louis Foster was able to hold off the 18-car pack, as Christian Rasmussen of HMD Motorsports got around Jacob Abel (Abel Motorsports) to claim second, and Kyffin Simpson passed Rasmus Lindh (both HMD).

The yellow flew first for a collision between Reece Gold of Juncos Hollinger Racing squeezing Enaam Ahmed (Cape Motorsports) into the wall on the run between Turns 3 and 4.

The second yellow was caused by contact between Colin Kaminsky and Jagger Jones sending the latter into the Turn 4 tire-wall, and three-time W Series champion Jamie Chadwick pushing the Cape Motorsports driver further in. She was extracted and returned to pitlane for repairs.

At the restart, Abel made a great move to get past both Rasmussen and Foster down the inside into Turn 1 and claim the lead, while Nolan Siegel moved his HMD car past his squabbling teammates Simpson and Lindh to snatch fourth. Danial Frost and Josh Green also took advantage to move into fifth and sixth, up from seventh and 10^th on the grid respectively.

Abel stretched his lead over Foster, the reigning champion in Indy Pro 2000 (now called USF Pro 2000) to 2.5sec and then held it steady, as the Andretti driver kept Rasmussen at arm’s length. This trio were pulling away from the Siegel-Frost-Green-Simpson-Lindh train, with Kaminsky and Hunter McElrea completing the top 10.

Just before the halfway point in this 45-lap race, Foster had pared down Abel’s advantage to under one second, and Rasmussen remained within two seconds of the Andretti driver. Both Abel and Foster set their fastest laps so far on Lap 24, but Foster’s was 0.2sec quicker. He was now just half a second behind the leader.

Further back, Lindh and McElrea pounced on an error by Simpson at Turn 1 to move into seventh and eighth.

On Lap 27, the full course yellows flew for Josh Pierson stuffing his HMD entry into the tire barrier at Turn 10. At the green flag, which came on Lap 32, Abel took a curious but effective line through the final turn to stay well clear of Foster who immediately came under pressure from Rasmussen. Foster moved right under braking for Turn 1, but slithered long, allowing Rasmussen and Siegel to dive past. As he battled to retain fourth from Frost through Turn 3, he struck the wall and had to limp to the pitlane. His teammate Chadwick outbraked herself for Turn 4 and went into the tires again. Out came the full course caution again.

On the restart, it was Abel’s turn to make an error under pressure while protecting the inside from Rasmussen, and while he struggled to gather up the tail-out moment, hindering his immediate pursuer, Siegel and Frost pounced to move into first and second.

Further around the lap, a three-car pile-up took out Josh Green and Matteo Nannini, promoting Ernie Francis Jr. to fifth ahead of McElrea, Christian Bogle and Kaminsky.

Inevitably, after these caution periods, it was now a timed race, and at the drop of the green, Siegel outbraked himself, allowing Frost to drive around the outside of him in Turn 2.

Siegel then barely held off Abel and Rasmussen to the checkered flag, while McElrea nipped past Francis to claim fifth.

Thanks to swift repair work by the Andretti team – and attrition – Chadwick and Foster were able to rejoin the field to claim 13^th and 14^th respectively.

P	Name	Laps	Diff	Led	ST	Status	Team	Points
1	Danial Frost	40	LAP 40	2	7	Active	HMD Motorsports	51
2	Nolan Siegel	40	1.8038	4	6	Active	HMD Motorsports	41
3	Jacob Abel	40	1.9782	27	2	Active	Abel Motorsports	38
4	Christian Rasmussen	40	2.2621		3	Active	HMD Motorsports	32
5	Hunter McElrea	40	2.7494		12	Active	Andretti Autosport	30
6	Ernie Francis Jr.	40	4.3832		17	Active	HMD Motorsports	28
7	Josh Green	40	4.7900		10	Active	HMD Motorsports	26
8	Reece Gold	40	7.2390		8	Active	Juncos Hollinger Racing	24
9	Rasmus Lindh	40	8.2011		4	Active	HMD Motorsports	22
10	Kyffin Simpson	40	9.1595		5	Active	HMD Motorsports	20
11	Colin Kaminsky	40	16.6940		14	Active	Abel Motorsports	19
12	Christian Bogle	39	In Pit		19	In Pit	HMD Motorsports	18
13	Jamie Chadwick	39	1 LAPS		18	Active	Andretti Autosport	17
14	Louis Foster	38	2 LAPS	7	1	Active	Andretti Autosport	18
15	Matteo Nannini	34	Contact		9	Contact	Juncos Hollinger Racing	15
16	Josh Pierson	26	Contact		15	Contact	HMD Motorsports	14
17	James Roe	23	Mechanical		16	Mechanical	Andretti Autosport	13
18	Jagger Jones	3	Contact		13	Contact	Cape Motorsports	12
19	Enaam Ahmed	---	Contact		11	Contact	Cape Motorsports	11