Nikita Johnson became the youngest champion in Indy NXT history at Laguna Seca on Sunday, at 18 years, three months and 12 days old. He did it by finishing second in a race he never looked like winning, which is a fair summary of how he won the title at all.
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All 656 laps, and a top ten in every race
Johnson finished 29 points clear of Enzo Fittipaldi across a 17 race season. The way he built that margin is the part worth looking at: nine podium finishes, a top ten in every single race, and the only driver on the grid to complete all 656 racing laps of the year.
He is from St. Petersburg, Florida, and drove the No. 21 Cape Motorsports entry powered by ECR. The championship comes with an INDYCAR Series career enhancement package, which is the ladder’s way of saying the next step is paid for.
His own summary of the season was about temperament rather than speed. “It’s good to finally show my emotions,” he said. “I think a lot of people thought I was passionless, but I’m just emotionless when I drive, right? I just go out there and do the work. I’m happy that the work is done now, and I can finally go celebrate.”
Kucharczyk led all 30 laps a day after being spun out of the title fight
The race itself belonged to Tymek Kucharczyk. The Polish rookie started from pole in the No. 71 HMD Motorsports car, led every one of the 30 laps and simply left. Nearly four seconds clear by lap 11, five by lap 15, 7.3 by lap 24.
He had arrived at Laguna Seca third in the standings, 29 points behind Johnson and with a mathematical chance. That ended on Saturday, when contact from Myles Rowe’s Abel Motorsports with Force Indy car spun him on the opening lap. He recovered to tenth, but the title was gone.
“Really proud of the work,” he said after Sunday’s win. “Everyone on the team did amazing. Big congrats to Nikita. What can I say? ‘What if’ if yesterday didn’t happen? But nevertheless, really proud of today. We maximized what we had.” It was his second win of a first season racing in North America, after victory on the Indianapolis road course in May, and he ended the year third in points, 34 behind Johnson.
Two first laps decided the weekend
Both races were shaped by an opening lap incident, and neither was the champion’s doing.
On Sunday it was Josh Pierson, Saturday’s winner, who had an apparent mechanical failure from second on the grid. His Starchive Andretti car sputtered on an upshift just past the flag stand, Max Garcia’s Abel Motorsports machine hit him from behind, and Pierson spun into Niels Koolen’s Chip Ganassi Racing entry. Both cars ended up in the gravel and out of the race.
Johnson started fifth, saw it happen and went around it. That brought out the only caution of the afternoon, and from the lap five restart the race settled into Kucharczyk disappearing at the front while Johnson managed Lochie Hughes behind him. Hughes finished third for Andretti Global, with Jacob Abel fourth and Fittipaldi fifth.
A first title for Cape Motorsports
Cape Motorsports has been winning junior open wheel championships in America for years without ever taking this one. Brothers Dominic and Nicholas Cape now have it, and Johnson made a point of saying so first. “I’m happy that we got it done, and I can’t thank the Cape boys enough,” he said. “They’ve always been in my corner the whole time.”
It closes a weekend that also settled the senior series, where Scott McLaughlin ended a 36 race drought to win the IndyCar season finale at the same circuit.
Our view: the boring way is the hard way
Johnson won this championship without ever being the fastest driver in the field over a season. Kucharczyk took two wins in his rookie year and finished third. Fittipaldi was closer on raw pace more often than the points suggest. What separated Johnson was that he never had a bad afternoon.
Completing all 656 laps of a season sounds like an accounting note until you consider what it actually requires in a spec series full of teenagers on street circuits and ovals. It means never being in the wrong place at a restart, never over committing to a move that was not there, and never being the driver a rival could lean on. He was fifth on the grid on Sunday and drove around a two car pile up that ended someone else’s race. That is not luck twice in two days.
The interesting question is whether that temperament survives the step up. IndyCar rewards the same discipline, but it also punishes drivers who cannot generate a result when the car is not good enough. Johnson has proved half of what he needs. We will find out about the other half when the career enhancement package turns into a seat.
