The IndyNXT champion discussed his move up the American single seaters ladder alongside Team Owner Bobby Rahal, going into details about how the contacts between him and RLL Racing began, what to expect from his first IndyCar season and what was key in assuring him the seat.
Asked by Pit Debrief on the goals set for the 2025 season, both as a team and with regards to his latest signing, the 500 winner was positive, mentioning a pivotal lead engineering change which should be able to prompt that final step in performance to allow RLL to improve in its most evident weak spot, oval racing.
“We’re continuing to invest in our performance with our R&D group, we’ve been pretty competitive on the road courses and street courses and still struggle a bit on the ovals. But I think we’ve got some good good feel for where we need to be.
“We brought back in Todd Malloy, who actually was Graham’s engineer for the first race Graham won, and a two-time Indy 500 winner as an engineer. He’s kind of our lead race engineer now, so I’m really excited about that because I know Todd for many years and he’s a really sharp guy.
“For us, it’s all about improving our oval track performance. And the races were not too bad, qualifying at Indy has always been a bit of a struggle. Although this year, Takuma qualified, pretty, pretty shockingly fast for a Honda. We’re continuing to to do what we can to improve ourselves.”
The signing of Foster, who won a record-breaking number of eight races out of fourteen rounds to become champion, is definitely a step forward in the right direction, planning to build the team of the future around him.
“Louis is part of that, frankly. As I say, there’s a lot of experience with Graham, who’s got a great feel for setting up cars for the race in particular. And I think if you asked Christian or Pietro, they would echo that.
“The combination of the two and whomever we might attract for the third seat, it’s good. We have actually have a big expectations for 2025. And as I said, Louis is part of that, part of the one piece of that puzzle that’s going to help us get to where we want to go.”
The young British driver set a precise goal for his rookie season: to win the coveted Rookie of the Year prize, which was awarded to fellow IndyNXT champion Linus Lundqvist in the past season.
“Yeah, I’m honestly mainly shadowing what Bobby said. I think the obvious one also, though, is rookie of the year. That’d be lovely to get. So we’ll see what other rookies stand up on the grid, and see what the competition is like for that.
“But yeah, as a first year, I think the first half of the year is going to be definitely some growing pains, learning about IndyCar racing and really trying to understand it as much as possible. At the end of the day, I don’t know exactly what to expect.
“So it’s hard to give expectations now, but, if I can leave the year with a couple of podiums, top five finishes, fast 6 qualifyings, that’s kind of what I’m thinking of, and that’s what we want to really want to work towards. The biggest target for me is to be able to get working well with the team and make sure we all gel well and perform the best we can every weekend,” he summed up.
Asked on what motivated him and his fellow team owners to sign Foster, Rahal highlighted his obvious talent, which has definitely shone bright in his two past championship winning campaigns and the fact that his youth is a perfect complement to his teammate Graham Rahal’s experience and IndyCar knowledge.
“For sure, Louis had a great year, he’s won championships pretty much at every level, last couple of years at least, and there’s no doubt that he’s got what it takes. And for us, we really look at Louie as being a long-term play for us.
“So, you’ve got the seasoned veteran in Graham, and I think he still has four or five good years left in him, if he wishes. And then, of course, Louis, and we’re still working on our third car.
“But I was just very impressed with the way he went about his racing this year. He really doesn’t seem to make mistakes, can really run quick pace lap after lap after lap, and without making those mistakes.
“He seems to be smart behind the wheel, which is so critical. Also, if you look at how NXT drivers have, kind of graduated into the IndyCar Series, there doesn’t seem to be too much difficulty in that. [Christian] Rasmussen did a good job, [Linus] Lindqvist did a good job, there have been others, and so it’s, to me, kind of a natural progression.
“I think it does show really how good the NXT Series is in terms of preparing young people to make that final step to IndyCar. So for us it didn’t really take a lot of thought, we just feel there’s a great opportunity here for us at RLL, and I think for Louie as well,” he concluded praising the young British talent and acknowledging the importance of the recently renamed feeder series.
In spite of the fact that talks between RLL and Foster had begun pretty early during the summer, his full time multi year deal was only a more recent development, explained the former Andretti driver:
“I think we began conversations with Bobby, I want to say maybe June, July, that kind of preliminary stuff, just chatting about opportunities next year. As most teams do, it’s common, everyone plays their cars close to their chest for a while, and we weren’t really sure what opportunities we would have.
“There was one weekend I won the championship and even really up to Nashville, there was still nothing really tangible on the table. But I’m super thankful that we’ve been able to come to an agreement now that I can race in IndyCar for the following seasons, and obviously with a team such as Rahal Letterman Lanigan, such a massive wealth of knowledge here.”
Foster is extremely excited to begin his new adventure, and is ready to completely dedicate himself to the preparations and training needed ahead of the first round of the 2025 IndyCar season at St. Petersburg.
“I’ve spent the whole morning touring the shop and meeting everyone, there’s really good guys here and they all want to work hard and everyone wants the same goal. I think that’s the most important thing in any team is the mindset is right and the commitment is right. And if you’ve got those two, then you’re 95 percent of the way there. You just got to get it all together.
“So, from my side of things, it’s fully about focussing on the start of the season because IndyNXT is hard, but IndyCar is a different ballgame, and I appreciate that. It’s now about working hard and making sure that we hit the ground running and get the results that we deserve to get, and we will work hard towards that.”
