Foster keeps learning as IndyCar moves to Thermal Club for Round 2

Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver Louis Foster heads to California full of optimism in taking on his second NTT IndyCar Series race.

The 21-year-old from Odiham in Hampshire showed impressive pace across the course of his first IndyCar weekend in St Petersburg earlier this month, scoring 12th in the final practice before the race, and had qualified 16th out of 27 cars after missing out on graduating from his group by just 0.143s.

But in the race, he was collected in another driver’s accident which he could not avoid, meaning his race ended on the first lap.

“The first weekend, definitely had its ups and downs," says Foster, who is backed by Copart, a global leader in online auto auctions.

“But we can take away strong pace from my debut weekend, there’s definitely things I and the team want to work on to find improvements in car performance and lap time.

“Yes, the race at St Pete didn't go to plan, but we can bounce back from that. We've got high hopes for the rest of the year, and we're not going to let the first race result affect us.”

Foster had a test day at Barber last week, with most of the drivers from the 2025 NTT Indycar Series, which gave him a chance to get back in the car and complete valuable mileage and learning in advance of this weekend at the Thermal Club and also the race at Barber later in the season.

He has also spent the last three weeks understanding what went well at St Pete plus looking at what happened to his team-mates through the race weekend in a bid to learn, adding; “it's information that we have now that enables us to learn and make steps forward as a team and myself as a driver.”

Now Foster heads to the exclusive Thermal Club for IndyCar’s first points-paying race at the venue.

It’s a 17-turn, 3.067-mile track with plenty of twists and turns, plus the surface can get a layer of sand on top which causes issues with grip creating a new challenge.

“Now I know the track, which is super helpful,” says Foster, who did a test at the venue in November last year.

“I am able to attack the track from lap 1 without having to learn the circuit.

“We did some fuel saving as well during that test, so that I can also take that knowledge with me. It’s a constant learning curve, every time I get out of the car there's something new to learn.”

You can watch Louis this weekend in the UK on Sky Sports F1, with qualifying at 9pm on Saturday and the race coverage starts at 7pm on Sunday.

Thermal Club road course schedule, all times Eastern:

Friday March 21

Practice 1 - 1830 (2230 UK)

Saturday March 22

Practice 2 - 1300 (1700 UK)

Qualifications - 1700 (2100 UK)

Sunday March 23

Warm-up - 1100 (1500 UK)

Race - 1500 (1900 UK)