Kucharczyk breaks through for first Indy NXT win at IMS

Tymek Kucharczyk was Mr. Consistency for the first five races of the Indy NXT by Firestone season. But now he’s a winner.

Series rookie Kucharczyk, the first Polish driver to compete in the IndyCar development series, earned his first career victory by holding off Max Taylor to win Race 2 of the Indianapolis Grand Prix doubleheader Saturday on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

“What a special day,” Kucharczyk said. “To do it here, coming back to November in my first test in an Indy NXT car, now a winner here at Indy, it’s spectacular. I’m so grateful to my sponsors, to my team. It was a tough race. It was really, really hard to hold Max behind me. He was pushing me for the whole race.”

Kucharczyk was the only driver to record a top-five finish in the first five races this season, but his best was third place, three times. He finished fourth in Race 1 of this doubleheader in mixed conditions Friday.

But Kucharczyk climbed from fifth to the lead after the first two turns on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile circuit, leading all 30 laps in the No. 71 HMD Motorsports car. He took the checkered flag .6273s ahead of Taylor in the No. 28 Susan G. Komen machine of Andretti Global after a taut, race-long duel in the caution-free race.

Enzo Fittipaldi, who won Race 1 Friday, prevailed in an exciting three-way fight over the last 10 laps of the race for the final podium spot in the No. 67 HMD Motorsports machine. Lochie Hughes placed fourth in the No. 26 Andretti Global car, with Alessandro de Tullio rounding out the top five in the No. 14 AJ Foyt Racing entry.

Series leader Nikita Johnson placed sixth in the No. 21 Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR car. Kucharczyk climbed to second in the standings with his win, 11 points behind Johnson.

There were two main flashpoints in the race, which took place under sunny skies in a contrast to the wet conditions at the finish Friday.

The first came at the green flag. Taylor started from pole and went side by side with Josh Pierson’s No. 29 Starchive Andretti entry of Andretti Global, with both cars going wide. Kucharczyk snuck through the opening for the lead, with Taylor clinging to second.

Kucharczyk maintained a gap of six- to seven-tenths of a second for the next 16 laps before the second main incident of the race. Kucharczyk locked his right front wheel braking for Turn 1 on lap 17, creating a large flat spot on his Firestone Firehawk tire.

“Other than the lockup that I made midway through the race, it was a pretty flawless execution,” Kucharczyk said. “I don’t think we had probably the fastest car on the grid today, but the first lap helped me massively. Max was pushing really hard, so I had to save the Push to Pass at the end, as well. It’s all good. I made it happen, so super, super grateful.”

Taylor pulled to within .4807s on lap 23, and it appeared the flat spot on his tire may have started to sap speed from Kucharczyk. But the Pole managed his tires and saved enough Push to Pass engine boost to increase the gap to .7830s on lap 25. He maintained a steady gap to the checkered flag.

“That was everything,” Taylor said of his effort. “I thought we were going to catch him. I messed up on the start, I think. So, something to look over. But still good points, decent points this weekend, and a lot to take away and a lot to improve on if we want to win this championship.”

Taylor is third in the standings, three points behind Kucharczyk and 14 behind Johnson.

The next INDY NXT by Firestone race is the Detroit Grand Prix on Sunday, May 31 on the streets of Detroit.

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