2025 IndyCar Rookie of the Year Louis Foster is “ready and itching” to get back into the seat of an IndyCar for the 2026 season. Coming off a very successful rookie campaign, the 22-year-old British racer is more than ready to get back behind the wheel.
Prior to finishing 20th and 16th at the two preseason tests at Sebring and Phoenix, Foster spoke with Pit Debrief and other media outlets about his upcoming season.
Setting the right priorities
Entering the 2026 IndyCar season, Foster is ready to tackle the big things first. When asked by the media, Foster shared, “You can spread yourself too thin sometimes. It’s about taking it step by step. I’ve said this before.
“I think for me, it’s focus on the big things first, the things that will increase performance the most first, right? I think that’s the key. Once you’ve got those nailed, then start working on other things.”
He furthered that line of questioning by saying that the team wants to take steps forward, not back, even though it would not be a quick process. Race pace was a big issue in 2025.
“At the end of the day we’re going out there, we want to win a race this year if we can. We want to be on the podium this year multiple times with different cars if we can. We want to be — for me bluntly, I want to be able to finish where we start instead of going backwards because that’s what we did last year. Those are the key things for us.
“It’s a complex, multi-year scenario because of where we are, but it’s something that I think everyone understands and everyone knows that it’s going to take time and everyone is behind it in the right way. I think better time and effort towards that goal, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be achievable.”
Louis Foster carrying over knowledge into 2026 IndyCar season
Despite having stellar qualifying pace in the 2025 season on road and street courses at times, things didn’t quite go the way Foster would have wanted. Incidents at Road America, IMS, and Mid-Ohio had the driver of the No. 45 RLL Honda on the back foot.
Foster spoke to the gathered media at the IndyCar content days about what the team needs to do to carry the positive momentum from his rookie season into 2026 and overcome the varied issues from the previous season.
“I think each weekend for us, the difficulty was it always tended to be something just slightly different. If we had one issue, we worked towards fixing that issue. We didn’t master it immediately, but we got better.
“It was always different things. I think it’s taking all of those hits on the chin, learning from them, trying not to do those mistakes again.
“So really there isn’t one specific thing. I wish there was because it would make my life a hell of a lot easier if it was just one thing. As it always is in this sport, it’s not always one thing. It’s a lot of different small, minute things that add up. That’s the difference between being successful in INDYCAR racing and not.
“Yeah, we learned a lot of things. I go into the season with a lot more knowledge, 10 times the amount of knowledge I went in with last year. Yeah, I think we can start on a much stronger foot this year, specifically in the races.”
Adding talent to the team roster
Before the start of the 2026 NTT IndyCar season, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has focused on bulking up its staff. The team hired former IndyCar series driver Ryan Briscoe as a driver coach, assisting the team in coaching Foster, Rahal, and Schumacher. Briscoe formerly worked with the PREMA IndyCar team.
Louis Foster shared his thoughts on the new edition to the RLL team and on how valuable he views Briosce’s new role to be. Foster commented, “I think driver coaches are extremely important. If it’s done right, they can be extremely valuable to the team. Not only to the drivers, but also to the engineers.
“I have never worked with Ryan before, but I’ve only heard extremely positive things. Once we get to be able to sit in a room together, get to chat, get to know each other a bit more, yeah, I’m sure it will be great.
“Obviously, he’s a very well-versed driver in INDYCAR, understands it very well.
“For me, one of the big things driver coaches can be quite good at it is almost translation between drivers and engineers. There’s a mixture of language that’s used. Sometimes the understanding can be helped to increase when there is a driver coach is there to almost bridge that gap in a way. Looking forward to it.”
Foster with an eye on the new 2026 IndyCar calendar editions
The 2026 IndyCar season features 3 new tracks on the calendar: Arlington in Texas, Markham replacing Toronto, and Phoenix making its IndyCar return. When asked by the media, Foster expressed his excitement for the new challenges, commenting, “Yeah, I think they’re great additions to the calendar. I think all three of them are.
“We’ll see how Markham goes. Kind of interim, but not really. Nice to still be in Canada. That’s important for the series. There’s a lot of Canadian fans, I know that. It’s great to give them the ability to come to races, as well. That to me is super important, that we’re still in Canada.”
Louis Foster also spoke on how excited he was to tackle the new Arlington race, feeling that it may be a great fit for him.
“For me, Arlington is definitely kind of my kind of race I’m circling. I think it’s going to be a really cool event. It looks from the renderings and from the preparations going into that event like it’s going to be an event that it’s going to be a hallmark event of the calendar, almost like a Long Beach kind of thing.
“I hope it goes well. Obviously a first year for a lot of these events, I’m sure there’s going to be some growing pains. Hopefully we can start from a good foot on all those events and have them in the future.”
