Hauger looking at rollercoaster weekend at Barber as a 'learning experience'

Reigning Indy NXT champion Dennis Hauger was the big surprise at the first race of the season, where the rookie qualified third in the No. 19 Dale Coyne Racing Honda. He’d go on to place 10th at St. Petersburg, and with the Norwegian’s first IndyCar road course race on the docket, he was expected to show more of the same, but Barber Motorsports Park had something different in mind.

The entire Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix weekend was one strange result after another for Hauger, who was 22nd fastest to open the event on Friday while teammate Romain Grosjean was 11th. In qualifying, Grosjean excelled again and started sixth while Hauger was next-to-last in 24th, and in the race, the situation didn’t improve. He reached the finish line in 23rd and had a first-time occurrence along the way: he was lapped.

"This weekend was a big learning experience for me,” Hauger said of being consistently uncompetitive. “That’s what’s important with weekends like these; you need to learn all you can. I know there are things we could do better that will help us moving forward.

“This is my first time being lapped in my entire career, and I won’t lie, that doesn’t feel good. A lot of people put a lot of effort into this, and this isn’t the result any of us want. We have two weeks to turn the page, and then we’ll be going to Long Beach to try this all over again."

Even with the disappointing visit to Alabama, Hauger leaves holding 17th in the championship, the top rookie among the three in the field.