Juan Manuel Correa has taken his first ever Indy NXT podium in the Detroit GP. It took the American driver only three race starts to secure his first bronze in the series.
How did it happen?
Correa managed to avoid the chaos at the beginning of the Indy NXT Detroit GP, and in the latest stages of the event joined championship leader Dennis Hauger and Caio Collet on the podium.
The former Formula 2 driver broke down how he secured this great result after the end of the Indy NXT race as a lap 1 pileup saw a red flag come out.
“I saw a bunch of replays before this weekend to prepare, and I saw that it was going to be chaos, so I just kept it clean. The start was messy. I got lucky to miss the big crash.”
Strong pace
After the initial melee, Correa was able to confide in the strength of the pace of his HMD car no. 39.
“From then on, I was pretty confident about our pace based on free practice. Quali didn’t really go my way, so I knew I had a bit more than what I showed in qualy, and I just controlled the race.”
Correa went on to recall the final stages of his race. Unfortunately these were made harder by the presence of the lapped cars.
“I was behind Caio, put a bit of pressure in the beginning and then I decided to save my Push-to-Pass for the end. I was expecting more restarts towards the end of the race which didn’t happen. Then right at the moment when I was going to start attacking Caio, the lap traffic came into play, which is not something I’m used to in Europe.”
Adaptation to American racing
The talented driver, who has survived and successfully recovered from a life threatening accident in Spa 2019, admitted that he’s still getting to grips with some American racing perks, including having to deal with lapped cars without blue flags.
“It took me a bit too long to get by and they were in their own fight, so it was pretty sketchy to be up there. Then the restart, I thought I was going to try to have a lunge at Caio, but as he said, the tires were so dead that it would have been too risky, so I took my medicine and P3 and I’m happy with that.”
It’s the first Top 10 and Top 5 result for the Miami native. He was pleased to see already celebrated his and his team’s hard work.
“We came through, and we have a lot of work to do as a team. That’s part of the reason why I’m here. I’m happy to be up to speed now, and hopefully I can push Caio and the team to keep going forwards and hopefully catch this 9 next to us because he’s pretty quick for sure.”
What next?
Correa also discussed his hopes for the future after the end of the Indy NXT race in Detroit. He admitted he would really enjoy to build himself a racing future in the States, even stepping up to IndyCar.
“I’ve been following INDYCAR for as long as I’ve been following F1, to be honest. I just took the European route because certain things in my career kind of drove me that way.
“But now that I’m here, yeah, that’s the ultimate goal. It’s an amazing series, and this is the place to be if we want to go,” he concluded, extremely thankful for the opportunity received.
