INDY NXT SERIES: DETROIT GRAND PRIX

June 2, 2024

Louis Foster

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Wrapping up the INDY NXT by Firestone podium, Louis Foster, second straight win of the season, fourth career win, bumping up to second in points.

I thought the coolest part of today, not only the win for you, but celebrating the 500th race for this developmental series for INDYCAR. Colton Herta was there. Kind of a cool moment there with the award.

LOUIS FOSTER: It's obviously it is great to get the 500th race. (Indiscernible) yeah, no, it's obviously a great award to get. Shows the longevity the series.

THE MODERATOR: Dominating performance, but it wasn't that easy. You had to keep those guys behind you on a couple restarts.

LOUIS FOSTER: Yeah, I think Caio was the only person who could challenge us for the win today. Andretti gave me a great car. Was able to manage the pace and the gap.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Until lap 40 the gap went smaller and smaller, point three. Are you nervous or scared that he could try something? The last caution went into your favor.

LOUIS FOSTER: Yeah, I mean, I don't think he was at a point three behind me with that caution. He was always a bit further back.

Yeah, I mean, I was just managing the gap. If he got too close, I would push a bit more. If he backed up a bit more, I would back up as well.

I wasn't too worried about it. I have a good spotter in my ear telling me what was going on. Yeah, I was pretty comfortable in that position.

Q. Are you a believer in momentum and do you now feel you're in a good position for the championship?

LOUIS FOSTER: Believer in what?

Q. Momentum.

LOUIS FOSTER: Yeah, obviously I think it's been a good two races, for sure. Yeah, obviously a few unfortunate things with Nolan Siegel today. I think we're definitely in a good point for the championship, see what happens. Keep pushing forward and see what happens.

Q. Are you aware of the issues that your championship rivals are having when you're in the cockpit or something you found out afterwards?

LOUIS FOSTER: I knew that Nolan hadn't started or had issues with it. That was definitely, I knew that. That doesn't really change. We're open on the pole. We can still win the race pretty easily from pole.

It didn't change the way I drove. I think more or less the fact that it was Caio behind me rather than Jacob. If Caio had gone for something, I would have been more inclined to let him go in a way, if that makes sense, because I was still going to get on those two.

Saying that, I think Caio is going to be the guy to beat for the rest of the year. That race he was very fast. I expect him to be up there a lot more against me, Jacob and Nolan.

Q. This track is mostly low-speed corners. Very different to the other road courses. How much can you take from this weekend going forward? Is it really applicable to the other rounds? In terms of how this weekend panned out, do you feel this track is well-suited to INDY NXT?

LOUIS FOSTER: Okay, so right. Firstly, what we can take from this race? Yeah, I mean, some things. Obviously we don't have any more street races this year. That's one thing that doesn't necessarily help.

But no, I mean, we're at a point now, the drivers are at a point, doesn't matter what circuit you're going to, you are looking for the optimum in the car. Road America is completely opposite to this track in a way.

We just take forward the things we've learned maybe about the tires and other stuff, more detailed stuff that I won't go into.

Yeah, I mean, I don't see any reason why we can't move this momentum forward into the next round at Road America.

This circuit, I never raced at Belle Isle so I can't speak on Belle Isle, but I think it's a quite difficult track to drive on and difficult to overtake. It also gives a lot of good racing. You can see the INDYCAR race now, our race, there were cautions, incidents.

Yeah, it's very hard to drive, borderline too aggressive. I think for our cars, as long as you can hustle the bumps, it's fine.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks for coming up.