New Zealand’s Hunter McElrea has finished second in this morning’s Indy NXT race on the streets of Nashville at the Music City Grand Prix. Championship leader Christian Rasmussen dominated in a lights-to-flag victory but was pressured by the Kiwi at points throughout the race.
With Saturday’s qualifying cancelled due to the wet conditions, the grid for the race was made up based on the championship order, seeing Rasmussen take pole next to Nolan Siegel and McElrea lining up fourth alongside Jacob Abel.
Rasmussen would launch well off pole as McElrea got the jump on Abel off the second row to fall into third. The Kiwi would move to second on Lap 3 with a move on Siegel, who soon dropped to fifth as Abel and Louis Foster also worked through.
By Lap 8, Rasmussen had extended his lead to over three seconds, as McElrea built a similar gap over Abel in third and Foster in fourth.
Foster would take third on Lap 9 with a move over the famed Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge and began hunting down McElrea, who was now 3.5 seconds up the road. Rasmussen’s lead had extended to 4.5 seconds by this point.
A full course caution was called for on Lap 17 when Christian Bogle hit the Turn 10 wall, bringing out a Safety and eliminating the gaps between the front-runners.
McElrea remained on the tail of Rasmussen off the Lap 20 restart, and the pair built a small gap on Foster, only for a second Safety Car to be called on Lap 24 when Ernie Francis Jr ran into the Turn 4 tyres.
The Lap 27 restart was short-lived when, just one lap later, Rasmus Lindh and Danial Frost came together at Turn 4, the latter ending up in the barriers.
Abel and Foster resumed their battle off the green flag, with Foster running long at Turn 11 and venturing into the escape road. Abel, however, was penalised for illegal blocking and was forced to give third place to Siegel.
As this unfolded, McElrea had built an 8-second lead over third place while Rasmussen had also pulled a gap up front. Abel would also quickly retake third.
James Roe would pass Siegel for fourth on the final lap, and a recovering Foster managed to pass Lindh to come home sixth.
Rasmussen went on to take the chequered flag by just over one second, while McElrea was 9.5 seconds clear of Abel, who claimed third.
The victory sees Rasmussen extend his championship lead over Siegel to 45 points. McElrea jumps Abel in the standings to move to third, a further 14 points behind Siegel.
Indy NXT returns next weekend at the Indianapolis Road Course, again racing in support of IndyCar.
Header Image: McElrea in action in Detroit. Image Source: Hunter McElrea (Facebook)
