Spring Slumber Ends as Series Roars Back to Racing at Barber

Fox Sports

01-05-2025

INDYCAR
The INDY NXT by Firestone season resumes this weekend at Barber Motorsports Park, with a 35-lap Grand Prix of Alabama scheduled for 11:30 a.m. ET Sunday, May 4. The event will be broadcast on FS1 with audio coverage available on SiriusXM channel 218 and the INDYCAR Radio Network.
The season began March 2 with an impressive performance by Andretti Global rookies Dennis Hauger and Lochie Hughes, who qualified and finished 1-2 in the season opener on the streets of St. Petersburg. Hauger has since demonstrated his versatility by topping the charts at the Nashville Superspeedway oval test April 1 and the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course test April 22.
SEE: Event Details
The duo enters the 17-turn, 2.3-mile Alabama road course as the drivers to beat.
However, there are plenty of capable rivals among the 20-driver field ready to challenge the Andretti Global rookies' pursuit of victory lane Sunday.
Headlining that list could be sophomore teammate Salvador de Alba.
After transferring from Andretti Cape INDY NXT to Andretti Global after last season, de Alba aims to build on a strong fifth-place finish at St. Petersburg. His goal is to improve on road courses this season, and Barber could be the perfect venue to showcase his progress.
A sleeper is ABEL Motorsports driver Jordan Missig. He impressed with a sixth-place finish in St. Petersburg and was eighth fastest in the Nashville oval test.
Here are two other things to watch for this weekend's second race of the 2025 season.
Can Sophomores Keep Andretti Global Rookies Honest?
Andretti Global is still searching for its first Barber Motorsports Park victory in the INDYCAR development series since 2019. Barber's technical layout could reward experience over raw pace, which could help someone besides Hauger or Hughes enter victory lane.
The track has a history of veterans winning.
David Malukas won one of the doubleheader races in 2021 for HMD Motorsports. Linus Lundqvist won the single race in 2022 while Christian Rasmussen was victorious for the team a year later. Jacob Abel drove his No. 51 ABEL Motorsports entry to Victory Lane last season.
If history holds and trends continue, Myles Rowe could leverage his seasonal surge pattern this weekend. Rowe moved from HMD Motorsports to ABEL Motorsports this offseason.
He enters this weekend after placing fourth in the season opener at St. Petersburg and finished sixth in his rookie season last year.
Plus, Rowe has driven into victory lane in the second race of the season in two of the last three years.
In USF2000 in 2022, he won the second race of the St. Petersburg doubleheader weekend. He then won at the second track of the year at Barber Motorsports Park.
In his USF Pro 2000 championship-winning season in 2023, Rowe won the second race of the St. Petersburg season-opening weekend again to follow with a sweep at the second venue of the year – Sebring International Raceway.
Rowe's teammate Callum Hedge could threaten, too. Hedge had an eighth-place finish in St. Petersburg and ninth at Barber last year. Hedge, 21, racked up eight top-10 finishes last season, with five top-five finishes.
Last year's Rookie of the Year, Caio Collet, needs a good weekend. He finished a distant third in St. Petersburg, the same spot he finished in points last year. The Brazilian had championship aspirations for his sophomore season and aimed to use his experience to finish ahead of the Andretti rookies' inexperience early in the season.
Collet finished fourth at Barber last season, leading to a strong rookie year on natural road courses. He finished with seven top-five finishes in eight natural road course starts, including his lone victory at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course last July and a pair of runner-up results in the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca doubleheader.
Driver Changes
Hailie Deegan, who finished 14th in her maiden INDY NXT start at St. Petersburg, will be the lone female driver in the field after HMD Motorsports and driver Sophia Floersch announced March 27 that they mutually agreed to part company for the rest of the season.
Floersch, from Germany, qualified 17th and finished 12th in her debut in the INDYCAR development series on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, in the No. 24 HMD Motorsports entry.
Rookie Evagoras Papasavvas will drive the car this weekend. The 17-year-old tested for the team at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and comes to INDY NXT after racing the last three seasons in USF 2000 for Jay Howard Driver Development. He was named as an HMD Motorsports reserve driver early this season.
Another driver change is sophomore driver Bryce Aron will switch from HMD Motorsports to the No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing entry. Aron, from the Chicagoland area, finished 13th in St. Petersburg. He replaces Jonathan Browne in the car. Browne finished seventh in the season opener.
Aron joins new CGR teammate Niels Koolen, who remains in the No. 10 entry.
Track Specs: 2.3-mile, 17-turn natural road course
Qualifying Record: Christian Rasmussen (1 minute, 10.7371 seconds, 117.053 mph, April 29, 2023)
Push To Pass Parameters: 150 seconds of total time, with a maximum time of 15 seconds per activation.
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