How Foster proved a point and fulfilled a lifelong dream in 2024

Winning the Indy NXT Championship and getting an IndyCar seat for 2025 has been a great year for me. Winning the title in such impressive fashion was just icing on the cake. It showed how much effort Andretti and I have put in over the last two years. Our rivals at HMD were pretty dominant in recent indie NXT history, so I’m glad to have changed that.

The performance has given me the opportunity to go and drive in IndyCar with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing next year. I had discussions with Bobby Rahal throughout the year, but it came to a head as the season ended. I am very happy to join the team as they are a great organisation. I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know everyone because there are a lot of new faces, and it’s a team that I hope I’ll be able to grow with. It’s about changing that and I hope there is a long future where we can be successful.

It was amazing when I announced the drive because calling myself an IndyCar driver and giving myself the label of being a professional racing driver has been a lifelong dream. I thank Bobby, Mike Lanigan, David Letterman and the entire team for believing in me. The honeymoon period is over now, and my focus is just on performing well and that’s all I want. It’s one thing to be in IndyCar, but it’s another thing to stay in IndyCar and be successful. My mindset from day one was, ‘How do we prepare for the upcoming season so we can go out on the field and surprise people?’ This is my goal. I want to be a pleasant surprise on the grid and make a big impact.

We have some winter testing planned, and the initial sessions will be about teaching me all the ins and outs of in-laps, out-laps, pitstops, fuel economy, hybrid systems and growing problems that I need to learn. , The team and I can then have a good conversation about the goals for next year and understand what direction we want to go with the car.

I did some pitstop practice so I could focus on myself and connect more with the team because it’s all about togetherness. There are so many talented individuals on every IndyCar team these days because they are truly world-class people. I think the difference is not in the people you have, but in how you make everyone work together. This is what we are focusing on.

A visit to Barber Motorsports Park was a highlight for me this year. I came from behind, due to some problems I could not qualify and finished fifth. That was a really good weekend for me personally – I learned a lot and it made me realize that, even when we had a bad weekend in this championship, we still had the momentum to stay ahead. That gave me a lot of confidence to go ahead and beat them all for the rest of the year.

When you’re fighting for a championship, you don’t start from behind. So, when you do that, it’s actually a little fun, because you get a chance to go racing properly again. Often in championships you spend your life at the front, and you never really get to race anyone. The weekend where we dominated at Laguna Seca was good too, and then the weekend in Milwaukee where we won the championship. There were a lot of highlights throughout the year that were really cool.

The ultimate goal was the championship and once we accomplished that, going into the final race in Nashville, there was nothing to lose. Even though I’m the reigning Indy NXT Champion, it didn’t guarantee a seat in IndyCar, so I really wanted to seal the season and go out with a win, to make my position clear in the minds of all the owners. There I am the driver leading their team.

The win on the oval made the difference between winning by a close margin and winning by the margin we did, and it proved I can race and win on every track: road course, street course and oval.

Oval racing still feels very fresh to me, but after this year I feel more comfortable in the car and understand what I need to do as a driver. It means a lot to do well this year, I’ve only won one of four oval races coming up in my career, but now I have eight oval races, and I’ve won five of them. I think there was a lot of pressure on my competition, where people tipped them to be better than me at the Oval, and I really wanted to make sure that was eliminated immediately.

Those wins on the oval made the difference between winning by a close margin and winning by the margin we did, and it proved I can race and win on every track: road course, street course and oval. I have learned three disciplines, so there will be no question marks for any IndyCar team boss about whether I will be able to perform.

It’s great to have the support of Andy Meyrick and the people at Silverstone and the British Racing Drivers’ Club. I would love to be able to come back more often, especially for Grand Prix, but next year is going to be difficult. I’d like to support the BRDC a little more than before, but it feels good to race in a foreign country and fly the flag for the club and its superstars. It may be just me and Callum Ilott as Brits in IndyCar next year, but it’s great to be part of one of the UK’s top elite athlete programs.