INDYNXT: COLLET CLOSES UP TO HAUGER GOING INTO PORTLAND
Indycar arrives to the Western part of the United States for the third to last round of the season, followed by its feeder series, the IndyNXT
Last weekend at Laguna Seca saw a brilliant Caio Collet do more than succeed, reducing his gap from championship leader Dennis Hauger from 81 to 42 points.
It was the opposite situation for the Norwegian though, after seeing his rival take double pole and 2 wins at Monterey, Dennis only got a P2 in race 1 and retired from race 2, re-opening up the championship fight against Caio Collet and losing up to 40 points to the Brazilian.
IndyNXT now gets to Portland for the beginning of the final stages of the championship, set to end on August 31st at Nashville.
This weekend a new face arrives on the grid, the Brazilian Nicholas Monteiro will be stepping up from USF Pro 2000, where he currently seats 13th winless in the standings. He will drive the number 24 of HMD Motorsport, previously occupied by Sophia Floersch.
A track with not-so-long straights but very wide turn 1 and 2, provides good racing mainly at the start. A good point to observe this weekend will see which drivers will cut turn 1’s kerb in order to find a good exit into turns 3 and 4.
With Caio Collet having previous experience on this track, he will have the opportunity to once again beat Hauger to get even closer in the championship. However, Andretti always used to have good results in this track, including last year’s P2 and P3 with Louis Foster and Bryce Aron.
54 points are into play this weekend and we could see the first turnaround in the standings this season, which has been dominated by Dennis Hauger so far. Lochie Hughes, also driver of Andretti, is not a driver to discard as well, he is only 89 points behind the leader sitting 3rd.
IndyNXT kicks off Friday 8th of August at 16:00 ET Time with Practice.
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