NTT INDYCAR SERIES: BORCHETTA BOURBON MUSIC CITY GRAND PRIX

August 31, 2025

Louis Foster

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Joined by Rookie of the Year, Louis Foster. Congratulations. What are your thoughts about this rookie campaign?

LOUIS FOSTER: Yeah, obviously I'm super pleased. I think one of the main goals we had this year was to win this title. A lot of bad luck at the start of the year meant it was probably closer than I would have wanted to be honestly. Kind of had to hang on at the end and really hope that Robert messed up, which he did, because we didn't have the car today.

I think besides that, the RLL team have been absolutely incredible all year. We've had our ups and downs, but I think we've been able to bounce back from those downs pretty damn well. Yeah, obviously all credit goes to them.

THE MODERATOR: What do you make of this rookie season? What did you learn?

LOUIS FOSTER: A lot. Yeah, it's tricky, man. Coming into INDYCAR is a tricky business. The qualifying performances this year have been pretty stellar, especially on road and street courses. That's the part that you do as a driver all the way up to INDYCAR, right? You do qualifying all the time. You're used to that.

The races, double the length, never done a pit stop before, fuel saving. There's a lot to learn in the race that we definitely missed out for sure. A lot to learn in the off-season.

I'm looking forward to coming back in 2026 with a reset, a lot more experience and knowledge behind the wheel in the races to try to move up the championship standings.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Not to dump cold water on your Rookie of the Year celebration, but what happened with your incident with David Malukas early in the race?

LOUIS FOSTER: First off, I heard he went to hospital. Want to make sure he's okay. I've heard that he is somewhat okay. That's good to hear. I'll text him after to make sure he's okay.

For me, we were trying to stay on the lead lap. Had one leader in front of me. I think he was second at the time. I held my line. He turned down into me. I couldn't do a lot about it.

I think he tried to chop across in front of me expecting me to back out of it more than I did. He hit my front right. Luckily I didn't get any damage. Luckily he's somewhat okay.

Yeah, unfortunate. I think I got the penalty for blocking. I'm going to see the stewards afterwards because I'm not sure exactly what that was for.

Q. Coming over from European open-wheel racing to INDYCAR, do you think it will help other drivers from Europe to do the same way? Budget constraints in F1 and F2...

LOUIS FOSTER: Are you asking about budgets and finances?

Q. It's may be an alternative for other European drivers coming over here. What is your opinion?

LOUIS FOSTER: Yeah, okay.

Q. FIA F3 and F2, nearly unpayable for young drivers.

LOUIS FOSTER: I've always been a massive advocate of the Road to Indy system. At the end of the day I wouldn't be here today without it. I think America has a very special ladder system that nowhere else in the world has. That's a fact.

Yeah, for me I never competed in Formula 3 or Formula 2 simply because of the budgets more or less. I came to America with a chance to win the scholarships and move up each year. That's what I did.

For me, for young drivers, there's no better place than America.

Q. When you had the incident and the race control called the penalty, did you think your chances at the rookie title were shot at that point or did you believe you had to dig deep and make it happen?

LOUIS FOSTER: Yeah, it was difficult because I moved up a few spots. I was in a comfortable place. We still weren't particularly amazing. We weren't rapid. We were there or thereabouts. When that happened, it really killed us. I think we went two laps down because of that more or less, got stuck there.

At that point it was all about myself keeping out of the wall, finishing the race, hoping for the best, hoping that other people have misfortune, that I can move up from other DNF's or Robert not going far enough up the field. That's what happened.

Q. Earlier this week when I asked how would you describe your season as a color, you said amber. Would you change that now?

LOUIS FOSTER: Is there a color between amber and green? What would that be?

Q. I have no idea.

LOUIS FOSTER: Better, for sure. I think obviously when you asked that, that was before we'd won the Rookie of the Year. This is obviously our main goal for this year.

I still feel like we left a lot on the table, honestly. I'm determined to come back next year stronger and better with the team.

Like I said, genuinely our main goal was to win Rookie of the Year. We got a pole, four or five Fast Six appearances. We need to execute better on Sundays. Once we do that, we'll be a serious team to reckon with.

Q. Your main goal was sort of to secure the Rookie of the Year title from the beginning of the year. Heading into year two next year, where do those goals shift and what does the target become?

LOUIS FOSTER: Good question.

I think it's hard to put a number on it. I think top 15 maybe in the championship from thinking about that right now. I think we have the ability to do that. I think if a few Sundays went better our way, I think if general race pace and race performance improves just a hair, I think that's well within our reach.

There's a lot of things going on behind the scenes at RLL that aren't in the public eye that are quite hopeful. We'll see. I think that's kind of the goal for me. If we can secure a top-15 finish next year, keep progressing slowly. Some podiums, a win obviously would be great. It's really hard to say in INDYCAR. You just never know.

But I think as long as we see clear and constant progression throughout the off-season and going into next year, then I think I'll be happy.

THE MODERATOR: Great to see an INDY NXT champion perform the way you did here in 2025. Congratulations. More in store in the future.

LOUIS FOSTER: Thank you.