IndyCar's unlucky rookie finally has breakthrough he deserves
IndyCar

IndyCar's unlucky rookie finally has breakthrough he deserves

by Jack Benyon
5 min read

He’s spent the last two weekends being attacked by walls and most of this season having ‘lady luck’ laugh in his face, but now, Louis Foster has something tangible to show for his IndyCar efforts this season.

The 21-year-old and reigning IndyCar feeder series champion Foster took an absolutely mighty pole position on one of the championship’s - and continent’s! - toughest road courses at Road America.

“We had a really fast car, then I thought qualifying was going to be only against people on new tyres,” said a surprised Alex Palou, who will start next to Foster on the front row and creates an all-reigning champion duo with Indy NXT title-holder Foster and 2024 IndyCar champion, Palou.

“I think Louis did it on used tires, right? Yeah, I wasn't counting on that. He did an amazing job.”

Foster scraped through the first segment of qualifying by 0.056s, reckoned he messed up his one shot at the Fast 12 but still made it through, and then beat Palou and Kyle Kirkwood - the only race winners in eight IndyCar races this year - to pole on the used softs when they had a fresh set.

In terms of an against-the-odds pole goes, this was absolutely massive given the competition and the odds against him.

The only reasonable explanation for the result is that finally having his Mansell-esque moustache shaved off for charity - by Dario Franchitti no less - after carrying it for most of this season made him more aerodynamic, streamlined.

But on a serious note, despite being 24th in the championship currently, Foster’s rookie campaign has been far more impressive than it has looked. His average qualifying is 12.89, which is far better than his fellow rookies.

Sadly, he's not been able to convert his excellent qualifying results on race day. At Thermal he qualified 10th in just his second IndyCar race, but an issue with the rest in the cockpit of his car hindered his progress, and he ended up 24th.

At Barber he qualified 12th, but the team’s pace on hard tyres mysteriously vanished and then Foster had a small off which resulted in 26th.

He did turn a third into an 11th at the Indianapolis road course, impressing early on before falling back in the typical strategic battles you have at that track.

But the last two weeks, he’s been a punching bag.

Foster was lucky to escape after a suspension failure at Detroit speared him into the outside wall at Turn 3, then into the slow-moving Felix Rosenqvist and finally into the run-off barrier. An almost certain top 10 taken away,

One week later at Gateway, he was the best RLL car but got too high in Turn 3. A late caution flag probably contributed to the accident which followed as the spinning Foster was smashed by race leader Josef Newgarden.

The pole at Road America feels like the chance for an urgent reset.

While Rahal Letterman Lanigan's results don’t match a team of its size and stature in recent years, few teams work as hard on the frontline. Hiring mechanics and engineers gets harder every year in IndyCar as there are few of them and that drives the price up, and it’s clear RLL hasn’t been able to hire at will like some other teams have to bolster its ranks.

Its Indy 500 struggles have also been well documented, but this year it really showed light at the end of the tunnel with Foster taking 12th and the highest finishing rookie in that race.

All three cars were rapid in qualifying and Foster believes that’s down to the camaraderie in the team. He was immediately bear-hugged by team-mate Graham Rahal after the session while Devlin DeFrancesco also praised his team-mate.

And the crew have totally rebuilt Foster's cars twice in the last three weeks thanks to the crashes. It's brought them closer together.

“I think teamwork is really the key for us at Rahal Letterman Lanigan,” said Foster.

“As soon as Graham finished his group stage, he jumps out of his car, the first thing he does is runs to me, lets me know about certain things that he learned in the session. If that's not teamwork, I don't know what is.

“I don't see any teams or drivers doing that. It is a really family feeling at RLL. All three of us are super close. I think that really helps us push the program forward.”

It might seem an odd thing to say but we haven’t really learned anything from Saturday. We know RLL is a close-knit team, we know it’s in a phase of its existence where on the right day, it can pop up with a pole and a win like it did with Christian Lundgaard at Toronto in 2023. We know Louis Foster is fiercely quick and capable of reaching this level.

But the time for learning will be Sunday.

We’ve seen Foster have good qualifying results and then the race itself fall apart. We even saw a rookie polesitter last year, Linus Lundqvist, who was tagged by his then team-mate Marcus Armstrong.

Foster has to take this one lap at a time and while a win is likely out of the question given the prowess of Alex Palou at Road America, another top 10 would go a long way to helping Foster’s points situation and case for remaining in the series further into the future.

Asked when pole would sink in for him, he said: “We've had very, very good qualifying results so far this year. Obviously this is the best. I'm super happy. But we need to do well in the race tomorrow at the end of the day.

“That's my target right now, is to focus and be with the team and make sure that we've got the race car to be able to battle up front and try to retain our position as long as possible up front. We'll go for a win if we can. We have a fast car.

“Full focus on the race. We have to bring in some solid points. Will probably sink in after this weekend.”

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