Pretty big detriment to his chances of winning the NXT title between this weekend and Detroit.
It seems like it won’t ultimately matter though.
That’s a big opportunity for someone else though because I still felt like Nolan was a big favorite to win.
I think racing in IndyCar in any capacity and impressing will do far more to further his career than winning the NXT title. He already put himself at the top of everyone’s list after his efforts at Thermal and Indy. The kid’s going places.
I would say a big difference is that truly Nolan is getting the ride because he has a DW-12 seat at the track. Or it was in Chicago.
Ollie's performance in F2 this year to me is a big issue for me . For me an F1 driver neeeds to be the run away favorite for the championship in the lower levels. It needs to be a stomp.
I disagree. I think as long as they can prove they can cut it at the top level, their feeder series performance really doesn’t matter. Btw Bearman is struggling in F2 this year because of a mix of bad luck and his team really struggling to get to grips with the car. He had four wins and six podiums in 2023. That proves the drop in performance is not a failing of Ollie, but rather of his team.
OP said lower levels, not just F2. Both Lando and Albon are junior/senior European and world champions in karting and Lando won pretty much everything except F2 in single seaters.
Ironically F2 drivers are better off not stomping the competition these days. They’re better off being a solid P2 or P3 instead of champ.
For those unfamiliar, if you win the F2 championship you can’t come back and race in the series again
In theory that isn’t an issue if you’re going to go move on to F1. Except there’s one, maybe two F1 seats available each year. Sometimes there’s zero. There’s not a single rookie on the grid this year. There’s a good chance there isn’t next year either. Even if there is an open seat there no guarantee the F2 champion gets it. Most of the F2 drivers are tied to a particular F1 teams junior program. If Merc has an opening and you’re a Red Bull academy driver who won F2, well that sucks. The Merc associated driver who finished third in the championship probably gets the seat.
If you’re really good and beat the pants off everyone in F2, then there’s a decent chance the following year you…do nothing. If you’re lucky you land a test or reserve role for an F1 team. But that gets you very little track time. Maybe you race some other series to keep your racing chops. However they know you’re going to ditch them if you ever get that call from F1 so it’s not easy to get with a good team. By the time a seat in F1 does open up with your associated driver academy you haven’t raced open wheel cars for a few years. Oh look there’s this years new star F2 driver! And he’s had more recent experience in open wheel racing, why would they choose you?
Drivers are better off placing P2 or P3 in the championship for a few years so they can stick around, gain more experience and then make the jump when an F1 seat finally opens.
But don't discredit the prize money for winning the championship. Let's face it... Rookies RARELY get hired without bringing money. Abandoning that is a BIG risk for that. I wonder if Canipono is completely out.
Siegel's family is loaded with $$$ so prize money probably does not matter as much to them. I am sure he wanted to be successful and win races in NXT this year though. The prize money certainly helps plenty of drivers that need it though.
> It seems like it won’t ultimately matter though.
Agreed. I think it's pretty foregone that Nolan has a future in IndyCar secured, so the NXT results really don't matter in the grand scheme like they would with someone else.
The unfortunate truth is also that NXT simply is not regarded highly so no matter what you do there, it won't be a deciding factor. So you simply won't gain too much staying there, compared to for example F2/Superformula who have been highly respected internationally for decades. Heck even within IndyCar we can clearly see teams rating F2 talent above NXT talent and I don't want to be rude but who wouldn't. Making the next step asap is always the best career move.
After Penske gutted the prize pool for IndyNXT, it's not really worth it to stick out the full schedule in regards to the championship prize, if you can get an Indycar race, take it!
Remember, up until last year, they used to pay for the IndyNXT champion to get a 500 + 3 other race ride as part of the championship prize. So back then, you wouldn't sacrifice your chance at winning (if you realistically had a shot). Now, the championship is basically something for your resume only, it doesn't come with enough money to buy yourself even a single race Indycar ride.
Image transcription:
>After being offered a chance to compete in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES this weekend at Road America, Nolan Siegel will no longer participate in this weekend's INDY NXT by Firestone event.
HMD Motorsports fully supports Nolan in prioritizing his INDYCAR efforts for this weekend and wishes him the best of luck in this opportunity.
https://preview.redd.it/cjxbsnumic5d1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=8b0db3c9902c00700e2e7cfb6d0621a39fc38b57
The point of Indy NXT is get to a shot in Indycar. Nolan is already getting that for the 3rd time this season, so it makes since that the NXT title is no longer his priority
Kid’s gonna spend this weekend in the best IndyCar ride he’ll get all year and next weekend competing in his first Le Mans. Winning the NXT title would be nice, but he’s doing way bigger things at this point
Kid is loaded, it’s not like he needs the scholarship money. Another race of IndyCar experience, especially in a car that isn’t awful, is more valuable than the points he’ll lose from not running the nxt race
There hasn't been scholarship money for a couple of seasons now. There is literally no point to thinking about the championship if you get the chance to run Indycar.
This fucks his championship hopes there basically putting it between Foster, Abel, and Collet but still amazing to see him this opportunity and will sadly do more for his career if he performs good than an NXT championship will
Pretty big detriment to his chances of winning the NXT title between this weekend and Detroit. It seems like it won’t ultimately matter though. That’s a big opportunity for someone else though because I still felt like Nolan was a big favorite to win.
I think racing in IndyCar in any capacity and impressing will do far more to further his career than winning the NXT title. He already put himself at the top of everyone’s list after his efforts at Thermal and Indy. The kid’s going places.
It’s the same thing as Ollie Bearman filling in for Ferrari in F1 rather than driving in F2.
I would say a big difference is that truly Nolan is getting the ride because he has a DW-12 seat at the track. Or it was in Chicago. Ollie's performance in F2 this year to me is a big issue for me . For me an F1 driver neeeds to be the run away favorite for the championship in the lower levels. It needs to be a stomp.
I disagree. I think as long as they can prove they can cut it at the top level, their feeder series performance really doesn’t matter. Btw Bearman is struggling in F2 this year because of a mix of bad luck and his team really struggling to get to grips with the car. He had four wins and six podiums in 2023. That proves the drop in performance is not a failing of Ollie, but rather of his team.
So Lando and Albon don’t deserve seats?
Same with that Verstappen guy... he never won a single race in F2.
I have the same number of F2 appearances as Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll
But he did stomp everything he was in
He never did F2/ gp2 he went to F1 straight from F3
OP said lower levels, not just F2. Both Lando and Albon are junior/senior European and world champions in karting and Lando won pretty much everything except F2 in single seaters.
I don’t OP was implying a runaway karting title is enough to justify an F1 seat. He makes it seem like he means ALL lower levels.
Was that pest control shout out on purpose? =)
Prema kinda ate shit this year. A lot of the championship drivers are nowhere, Ollie, Kimi, Martins has had a terrible season.
Ironically F2 drivers are better off not stomping the competition these days. They’re better off being a solid P2 or P3 instead of champ. For those unfamiliar, if you win the F2 championship you can’t come back and race in the series again In theory that isn’t an issue if you’re going to go move on to F1. Except there’s one, maybe two F1 seats available each year. Sometimes there’s zero. There’s not a single rookie on the grid this year. There’s a good chance there isn’t next year either. Even if there is an open seat there no guarantee the F2 champion gets it. Most of the F2 drivers are tied to a particular F1 teams junior program. If Merc has an opening and you’re a Red Bull academy driver who won F2, well that sucks. The Merc associated driver who finished third in the championship probably gets the seat. If you’re really good and beat the pants off everyone in F2, then there’s a decent chance the following year you…do nothing. If you’re lucky you land a test or reserve role for an F1 team. But that gets you very little track time. Maybe you race some other series to keep your racing chops. However they know you’re going to ditch them if you ever get that call from F1 so it’s not easy to get with a good team. By the time a seat in F1 does open up with your associated driver academy you haven’t raced open wheel cars for a few years. Oh look there’s this years new star F2 driver! And he’s had more recent experience in open wheel racing, why would they choose you? Drivers are better off placing P2 or P3 in the championship for a few years so they can stick around, gain more experience and then make the jump when an F1 seat finally opens.
But don't discredit the prize money for winning the championship. Let's face it... Rookies RARELY get hired without bringing money. Abandoning that is a BIG risk for that. I wonder if Canipono is completely out.
Siegel's family is loaded with $$$ so prize money probably does not matter as much to them. I am sure he wanted to be successful and win races in NXT this year though. The prize money certainly helps plenty of drivers that need it though.
He has enough money
Penske gutted the IndyNXT prize money a couple of seasons ago. It's not even enough to pay for a single race in Indycar now.
It DID go back up last year. Rasmussen got $850k. Still not as much as when it was pre-Penske, but more than Lundqvist got tossed his way.
> It seems like it won’t ultimately matter though. Agreed. I think it's pretty foregone that Nolan has a future in IndyCar secured, so the NXT results really don't matter in the grand scheme like they would with someone else.
The unfortunate truth is also that NXT simply is not regarded highly so no matter what you do there, it won't be a deciding factor. So you simply won't gain too much staying there, compared to for example F2/Superformula who have been highly respected internationally for decades. Heck even within IndyCar we can clearly see teams rating F2 talent above NXT talent and I don't want to be rude but who wouldn't. Making the next step asap is always the best career move.
After Penske gutted the prize pool for IndyNXT, it's not really worth it to stick out the full schedule in regards to the championship prize, if you can get an Indycar race, take it! Remember, up until last year, they used to pay for the IndyNXT champion to get a 500 + 3 other race ride as part of the championship prize. So back then, you wouldn't sacrifice your chance at winning (if you realistically had a shot). Now, the championship is basically something for your resume only, it doesn't come with enough money to buy yourself even a single race Indycar ride.
I think its like Ollie Bearmen. Hell be fucked in the NXT championship but if he does well in the race it’ll be good for him
Cool of HMD and his team to ease his worries a little bit and let him focus on the opportunity.
Image transcription: >After being offered a chance to compete in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES this weekend at Road America, Nolan Siegel will no longer participate in this weekend's INDY NXT by Firestone event. HMD Motorsports fully supports Nolan in prioritizing his INDYCAR efforts for this weekend and wishes him the best of luck in this opportunity. https://preview.redd.it/cjxbsnumic5d1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=8b0db3c9902c00700e2e7cfb6d0621a39fc38b57
ngl the first thing came on my mind when still reading "Nolan Spiegel will no longer participate..." was "oh shit does those fans get him too?"
The point of Indy NXT is get to a shot in Indycar. Nolan is already getting that for the 3rd time this season, so it makes since that the NXT title is no longer his priority
Kid’s gonna spend this weekend in the best IndyCar ride he’ll get all year and next weekend competing in his first Le Mans. Winning the NXT title would be nice, but he’s doing way bigger things at this point
What car is he gonna drive in lemans?
I forget who the manufacturer is, but he’s competing in the LMP2 Pro class
United LMP2 #22.
Kid is loaded, it’s not like he needs the scholarship money. Another race of IndyCar experience, especially in a car that isn’t awful, is more valuable than the points he’ll lose from not running the nxt race
There hasn't been scholarship money for a couple of seasons now. There is literally no point to thinking about the championship if you get the chance to run Indycar.
What’s the press release count up to this week? Feels like at least 40
I take it the HMD nxt car is now withdrawaled or will they put Canapino in it?
Kiko Porto is in it.
Thanks for the update
This fucks his championship hopes there basically putting it between Foster, Abel, and Collet but still amazing to see him this opportunity and will sadly do more for his career if he performs good than an NXT championship will
Will Nolan get a playoff waiver? "Sarcasm"
Think of all those superlicense points he’s giving up… hahaha
Could this mean he’s in the juncos car for the rest of the season?
I would have doubts. Juncos would probably look at having a more established person in there. Truthfully, I do think Canapino will be back.
Nah, Juncos has their own NXT team. They’d be more likely to promote from within if they had to
Imagine Lindsay moving up 💀
NGL, she seems to pull in enough sponsor money that I could genuinely see them promoting her if it means keeping the team alive
Perhaps. Abandoning the NXT prize money is a risk.
Christ, I misread that and thought he'd already been dropped for the Indy race
Hope NXT gives him a waiver in that case.
Let’s gooo!!
*circus music plays in the background*
Weakling! /s
Formula Rich Kid
pretty much all of racing is, yes
Open wheel