The inaugural IndyNXT Grand Prix of Arlington didn’t quite go to plan, but it did give us a new race winner. In a shortened, time‑constrained sprint that never reached its planned distance, Max Taylor kept his head, picked his moment, and “sent it” to grab his first series win and the championship lead. He did it on the brand‑new Streets of Arlington, a tight 2.73‑mile, 14‑turn strip of concrete wrapped around AT&T Stadium and Globe Life Field that already feels like it has a very particular personality.
Star Student Sets the Pace
If you watched any of Friday, you might have picked Taylor as the guy to beat within a few laps. He topped Practice 1 with a 1:39.8262 in the No. 28 Andretti Global car, more than a second clear of rookie Tymek Kucharczyk, with Jack Beeton, Myles Rowe and Lochie Hughes rounding out the Top 5. IndyCar’s own press release called Taylor the “star student” as he talked about how bumpy, intense and fun the place was. On Saturday morning, nothing had really changed at the top. Taylor lowered the benchmark to 1:38.8321 and headed Practice 2, this time with Seb Murray and Hughes closest, while Kucharczyk and Rowe stayed in the mix. The field did close-up a bit behind him, but the pattern was set: Andretti and HMD had the cars to beat.
Qualifying Surprise
Qualifying gave us the first real twist of the weekend. De Tullio dug out a 1:38.8841 in Group 1 to take his first IndyNXT pole and put A.J. Foyt’s famous No. 14 back on top. Behind him, the rookies absolutely stacked the deck: Fittipaldi lined up P2, Kucharczyk P3 and Taylor only P4 after Andretti admitted they’d missed the sweet spot on setup. Beeton and St. Petersburg winner Nikita Johnson filled row three, followed by Correa, Hughes, Matteo Nannini and Rowe. It wasn’t clean, either. Jordan Missig lost his best lap for triggering a local yellow, and Alexander Koreiba saw two laps deleted and his session effectively nuked after causing a red. Still, on paper, the story was simple: rookies had locked out the sharp end, and Foyt had a genuine shot at something special on Sunday.
Time to Race… Almost
On Sunday, the race never quite became the race it was supposed to be. Officially, it was billed as 27 laps and 55 minutes. What we actually got was a 30‑minute timed, 15 lap total, and five of those were behind the Safety Car. That’s not a great recipe for a flowing junior‑series race, especially on a brand‑new, narrow street circuit. Even before we saw a proper green, things got messy. With the clock running and the field still under caution, the backstretch turned into an accordion.
Colin Kaminsky’s No. 57 Abel Motorsports got the worst of it. He sustained heavy front‑end damage after contact with other cars and the outside wall, bringing out a full‑course yellow that chewed up the opening chunk of the race. Two corners later, Kucharczyk and pole-sitter De Tullio made light contact, nudging the Foyt car wide and letting Fittipaldi slip into the lead from P2. For De Tullio, the Texas fairy‑tale ended fast. By the time the race finally went green, De Tullio was stuck in the pack with a damaged car and would only recover to P11. Given how big that pole was for Foyt’s returning program, it was a real let‑down.
Green Flag Running
Once we actually got some green‑flag running, you could feel how boxed‑in most of the field was. Fifteen laps total, two cautions, a time‑constrained finish… the midfield and back half just didn’t have many realistic chances to do anything to move forward. Calling it processional is harsh, but it’s not completely unfair either.
The front of the race, though, provided the action. Fittipaldi led the first twelve laps, but Kucharczyk and Taylor were basically his shadow. The Polish rookie kept getting right to the gearbox, even trading the lead with Fittipaldi twice at one stage. Every time they reached the timing line, however, the Brazilian-American was still in charge. Afterwards, Fittipaldi was honest and admitted Turn 10 was killing him over the bumps. He also said that Taylor, lurking behind in third, was “definitely the fastest on track.” Kucharczyk was even more brutal on himself. “We had so much more pace than Enzo,” he said, before summing up his own afternoon: “I blew it.” Two races, two P3s, and absolutely zero interest in being “just” a podium guy.
Final Laps
The final restart, with just over three and a half minutes to go, was where Taylor earned the win. Fittipaldi led, Kucharczyk sat second, and Taylor went straight on the attack. First, he dealt with Kucharczyk. He used a late, committed dive that he later called “probably the move of my career.” Taylor survived a squeeze and a venture to the dirty part of the track. It was on the edge, but it was clean.
With around two minutes left, Taylor had reeled Fittipaldi into range, closing the gap to less than 0.3 seconds. Heading into the final sector, Fittipaldi made a small mistake. He had “a slight lockup on the front right” into Turn 12 and Taylor made his move. He dove underneath and took the lead. All three podium finishers agreed it was late aggressive, but fair. Kucharczyk, who had to avoid Taylor on one of those lunges, even said he’d have done the same thing himself. Kucharczyk also called it “fair and square,” which helped validate Taylor’s win. Taylor then underlined the point with the fastest lap of the race, and pulled out enough of a gap to win by 1.8925 seconds. Fittipaldi held onto second for his first IndyNXT podium. Kucharczyk took his second straight P3 and looked like the angriest podium finisher in recent history.
What This Weekend Means
In championship terms, this was big. Taylor leaves Arlington with back‑to‑back podiums, his first IndyNXT win and a ten‑point lead over Johnson. Johnson, this weekend, could only manage P6 on a tough day for Cape Motorsports. Fittipaldi finally got his season started after a grim St. Pete. And Kucharczyk has two trophies from two starts even if he was in no mood to celebrate his P3.
As for the track and format, it’s hard not to file this under “promising, but rough around the edges.” On paper, Arlington was meant to be a 27‑lap, 55‑minute race. In reality, we got 15 laps in 30 minutes, two cautions, and a rolling‑caution start that ended with an incident that burned almost half the shorter race time. That combined with a very narrow, very bumpy first‑time street circuit and gusty winds up to 40 mph. It was no surprise the midfield looked bottled up while the front three did most of the heavy lifting. There is decent race potential here, though. Give IndyNXT a little more downforce for venues like this, carve out a bit more width in the key braking zones, and suddenly you’re talking about a proper elbows‑out junior race rather than a cautious sprint with a frantic last five minutes. Compared to something like Miami’s F1 layout, Arlington is much more claustrophobic.
For a first swing, the series still found a worthy winner and a genuine highlight‑reel move. Now we’ll see how this developing title fight translates to Barber Motorsports Park at the end of March, where the walls are further away but the margins are just as small.
Feature Image: Travis Hinkle | Penske Entertainment