Next British Indy 500 winner? Louis Foster signs 'dream' Rahal deal

“I’m just looking forward to getting the season started. I think now, honestly, my mindset [is]: this was a great year in Indy NXT, but my mind is already on 2025 and doing the best job I can for the team and hopefully we can have a long and fruitful career together.”

The Rahal team itself is one with big ambitions too. A veteran IndyCar squad which secured the championship in its debut season for ’92 – with team boss Bobby at the wheel – and has 25 race wins in total, it has struggled for consistent form in recent years.

The team opened a new 100,000sq ft factory, complete with an F1-style remote ‘mission control’ room for strategy and engineering, in Indiana last year, and snared a race victory with young Dane Christian Lundgaard at the 2023 Toronto race, and now yearns to be a regular winner again.

With several veterans like Scott Dixon, Will Power and Bobby’s own son Graham in the twilight of their careers, the team boss points out that the face of the IndyCar grid is changing – and he wants to build around one of the hottest young prospects in Foster.

“He’s won championships pretty much at every level, and there’s no doubt that I think he’s got what it takes,” he said.

“I was just very impressed about his racing this year. Really doesn’t seem to make mistakes. Can run quick pace lap after lap after lap without making those mistakes and seems to be smart behind the wheel. Particularly, being smart behind the wheel I think is so critical.

“We really look at Louis as being a long-term play for us. You’ve got the seasoned veteran in Graham, who I think still has four or five good years left in him if he wishes, and then of course Louis.

“I retired at 45, and there’s a lot of guys that are knocking on that door right now. I think the next few years we’re going to see this kind of graduation of a lot of young guys and perhaps young ladies coming into IndyCar through either Indy NXT or Formula 2.”

Despite some dips in performance, the Rahal team was still a podium finisher last year on the Indianapolis road course with Lundgaard. Does Foster think he’s chosen the right place for success?

“Obviously with a team such as Rahal Letterman Lanigan, [it has] such a massive wealth of knowledge,” he pointed out.

“I’ve spent the whole morning touring the shop and meeting everyone, and there are really good guys and they all want to work hard and everyone wants the same goal.

“I think the most important thing in a team is the mindset is right and the commitment is right. And if you’ve got those two, then you’re 95% of the way there, you’ve just got to put it all together.

“From my side, it’s really about focusing on the start of the season because INDY NXT is hard, but INDYCAR is a different ballgame, and I appreciate that.

“And it’s now about working hard and making sure we hit the ground running and get the results that we deserve to get, and we’ll work hard towards that.”

With the FIA junior ladder of F3 and F2 now almost exclusively the domain of the super-rich – bar some hefty sponsorship or generous F1 academy deals – more and more European drivers are trying their luck across the pond, including Lundgaard (formerly of the Alpine junior team), Juri Vips (Red Bull), Callum Ilott and Theo Pourchaire, as well as triple W Series champion Jamie Chadwick, who won her first Indy NXT race this year.

In winning the INDY NXT title and now signing for Rahal, Foster has become a poster boy for what can be achieved in the US by coming up the ranks.

Crucially, the US junior system offers prize money whereas the FIA one doesn’t – Foster decided to try and make it big in America following a competitive year in British F3 in 2020, joining and winning the F3-equivalent USF PRO 2000 series the next season. The change of scenery has paid off big time.

“I’ve always been very supportive of the ladder system in America. At the end of the day, that was the main reason I came over to America, or one of the main reasons. My career in Europe would not have continued without that funding, which they don’t have in Europe.

“The way it’s done in America, honestly without that I wouldn’t be where I am today. All my thanks to everyone who’s helped put these prizes together.

“I think INDY NXT as a championship, as Bobby said before, it’s raised really good drivers out of it, and I’m hoping that I can add to that list.

“Recently you’ve got Kyle Kirkwood, Pato [O’Ward], and obviously more recently you got [Christian] Rasmussen and [Linus] Lundqvist, and they’ve all had successful few years in INDYCAR. I’m hoping to add to that.

“We go next year to the big circus of IndyCar, and it’s the same tyres. There’s only one or two tracks I haven’t been to. I feel very prepared to be able to make that step I feel ready for it, having driven an IndyCar a year ago. So I’m looking forward to it, and I’m sure with everything I’ve done in Indy NXT, I’m sure it’s going to help me a lot.”

As well as being refreshingly outspoken, Foster is also confident without being arrogant. His objectives for next year say as much.

“I don’t know exactly what to expect, so it’s hard to give expectations now,” he said.

“But if I can leave the year with a couple podiums, top-five finishes, fast qualifyings, that’s what I’m thinking of and that’s what I really want to work towards.”