2026 Indy NXT St. Pete | Qualifying results

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Qualifying for the opening round of the 2026 Indy NXT season has been completed at St. Pete, view the full results below.

24 drivers were hoping to emulate Dennis Hauger‘s brilliant start to 2025. The Norwegian ultimately won the championship comfortably too. Caio Collet, 2nd last year, also made the jump to IndyCar over the off-season.

In practice, Max Taylor was supremely quick as he was fastest in both sessions. Lochie Hughes pushed him hard on Saturday morning. Tymek Kucharczyk was a very impressive P3.

Group 1

Nikita Johnson topped the times, posting a 1:05.214. Lochie Hughes was less than a tenth away as the man P3 in the standings last year missed out on P1 in the group.

Pierson, de Tullio, de Alba, Garcia, Kaminsky, Escotto, Missig, Etter and Koreiba was the rest of the order for those who set a competitive time.

It was a disaster for Enzo Fittipaldi as the Brazilian driver lost the car out of turn 3 and smacked the wall, breaking his left rear suspension. He’ll start on the last row.

Johnson 1:05.214
Hughes 1:05.310
Pierson 1:05.597
de Tullio 1:05.743
de Alba 1:05.832
Garcia 1:05.942
Kaminsky 1:06.058
Escotto 1:06.316
Missig 1:06.668
Etter 1:07.385
Koreiba 1:07.385
Fittipaldi 1:14.465

Group 2

Max Taylor made sure a driver from Group 2 would seal pole as he logged a strong 1:04.999 to be quickest. In the end, nobody could touch him and the Andretti driver continued his dominant weekend by smashing in a 1:04.888 as the chequred flag fell.

Matteo Nannini had a sizable shunt with just 3 over minutes left. He lost the car in turn 2 and made heavy contact with the wall. Luckily he was absolutely fine. He had been running in P6 before that.

Taylor 1:04.888
Murray 1:05.391
Kucharczyk 1:05.402
Rowe 1:05.514
Correa 1:05.525
Monteiro 1:05.966
Beeton 1:06.010
Koolen 1:06.068
Stati 1:06.097
Aron 1:06.168
Roe 1:06.321
Nannini 1:07.077