NTT INDYCAR SERIES NEWS CONFERENCE

May 21, 2026

Louis Foster

Nolan Siegel

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and continue on with row 7 here at Indy 500 media day. As mentioned, Will Power has a family commitment. He's unable to join us.

Starting 21st, last year's Rookie of the Year in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and the highest finishing rookie in the 500, and the best mustache in the field as well.

LOUIS FOSTER: There's only one, so it really doesn't count.

THE MODERATOR: Driver of the No. 45 Droplight Honda for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, it's Louis Foster.

Starting 20th back in his second start in the 500, finished the season in 10th at the Sonsio Grand Prix, driving the No. 6 NTT DATA Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, we welcome in Nolan Siegel.

Sting Ray Robb was in here earlier, and apparently he's trying to grow a mustache.

LOUIS FOSTER: Trend-setting, what can I say?

THE MODERATOR: You might be setting a trend here.

LOUIS FOSTER: Could you grow one?

NOLAN SIEGEL: No.

LOUIS FOSTER: You haven't shaved today, have you?

NOLAN SIEGEL: Can you tell?

LOUIS FOSTER: I can tell.

NOLAN SIEGEL: I'm getting there, aren't I?

LOUIS FOSTER: Just shave there and leave that.

NOLAN SIEGEL: It's not going to look anywhere as cool as Austin Powers over here.

THE MODERATOR: So you shave here and leave that. It's good you mansplained that to him.

Tell me about your preparation the last couple weeks, what's it been like, and how anxious are you to hop in a car, hopefully, weather permitting, for two hours tomorrow?

NOLAN SIEGEL: I'm very excited. We've had a very smooth month so far. Happy with our race car, happy in traffic, a lot more comfortable than last year. Looking forward to getting back in. Hopefully the rain holds off tomorrow. We'll see.

Honestly, I left Monday kind of saying, if I was to just jump into the race in that car, I would be happy. I think we're in a really good spot and looking forward to getting back at it.

THE MODERATOR: That's good to hear. Louis, for you, you need a couple more hours, or feeling good about the race car?

LOUIS FOSTER: The heat didn't help the team, to be honest with you. We were very happy up until it mattered on Saturday -- well, Sunday. Sorry.

We would love to be able to drive tomorrow, if we could. We'll see what the weather does. But, yeah, we've got an understanding of what we need to do. Luckily it does look like it will be cooler on Sunday, which has definitely answered some of our prayers.

Yeah, we just struggled as soon as it got hot. Monday was horrible to drive. We were throwing things at the car, and nothing seemed to work. Qualifying was a struggle for us as well.

Yeah, we're praying for some cooler weather but also praying for some running hopefully tomorrow just to try to nail down the last little things. We're pretty confident, if we have to just race the car, that we've got something we can race, but we'll double-check.

THE MODERATOR: Honestly, Sunday's conditions, a little cooler than what you experienced in practice group running prior. Certainly got all the notes for that when it comes to that.

Open it up for questions.

Q. We already have heard that maybe there's a lot of people with confidence in their cars. Do you feel like you already have the car, or still have any doubts of little things in order to go to the race?

NOLAN SIEGEL: I think the doubts for me come with condition changes. I think there are a lot of people that have felt very strong in one set of conditions and then they change and it has kind of flipped the grid around, which is what we saw in qualifying.

A lot of people that felt strong, including us, like Friday felt super strong, and then come out on Sunday when it was 10 degrees hotter or whatever it was and kind of completely flipped the script.

We'll see what the conditions are on Sunday, and I think that that will kind of dictate who's strong and who's weak, and I think there will be some surprises if the conditions do change compared to tomorrow or Monday.

LOUIS FOSTER: I agree. Not too much to add. I think everyone is going to try to say they're confident in their car. No one is going to say, yeah, my car sucks. So take it with a pinch of salt, I would say.

There are definitely some strong cars out there and definitely cars that are weaker. But I think everyone is working hard to make sure they can turn out on Sunday with the best race car.

Q. How can you tell if someone's race car is good?

LOUIS FOSTER: If you can overtake them. If you can overtake them, their car is worse than yours.

THE MODERATOR: How refreshing would it be if someone came out and said my car sucks?

LOUIS FOSTER: There are some drivers who would say that. It wouldn't be refreshing. I can name a few that would say that immediately.

But it's not the nicest thing when your guys have put in a month of work and you go, yeah, this sucks. I don't think anyone is going to say that anytime soon.

I think an INDYCAR that sucks around this track compared to an INDYCAR that is great around this track is such a small difference. It really only takes a couple of setup changes and a couple of things just to click to go from a car that's borderline undrivable to great to drive. In my experience, we've done changes where I've gone from a happy car to a very unhappy car.

Even if it does suck, continue to have the faith that we can get over this hurdle and over this bump, and then hope that, based on the conditions, it works.

THE MODERATOR: Maybe that's why this place can be so maddening sometimes, right? It's that little thing here or there.

Q. Louis, I know the road course is an entirely different beast and all, but the fact you got your first top ten in the most recent race, what was the confidence level going into practice and all? And just kind of the good feeling with you and the team heading into qualifying and into final practice tomorrow.

LOUIS FOSTER: It's a weird one because we go from the IMS road course, a place we've been historically -- that's historically our best track in the last four or five years, to the 500, which historically, especially in qualifying, is our worst, simple as that.

Yes, coming off of a great result is always nice, but we knew that we were going to have to dig deep this month to try and make sure that we could learn things. We have been, we've been strong on ovals this year to an extent. Obviously we had Graham and Mick on the second row at Phoenix.

I thought our qualifying was pretty decent, and I felt good in the car so far this year with respect to how I felt last year in the RLL car around ovals. This year it does feel very different, and I have a lot more confidence to drive the car, which is super helpful.

But yeah, I mean, momentum is always super important in racing, and I think the fact that we came off of our first top 10, which annoys me to say, but it's true, it was our first top 10, is nice. We've been carrying that momentum forward.

Q. Nolan, last year you had Kyle Larson as the fourth Arrow McLaren and now you've got Ryan Hunter-Reay, series champion, Indy 500 winner. How much have you been able to learn from him to help increase your program this year?

NOLAN SIEGEL: Yeah, a huge amount. Ryan's been involved with the team the whole season leading up to now as well. It's been nice to get a chance to get to know him before he jumped in as a driver this month at the 500. Having him and TK together as well is just a huge wealth of experience for me to pull from.

I think for the whole team, it's not just me -- obviously I'm the least experienced, but for Pato and Christian and for all of the engineers, just having people like Ryan that have been successful in INDYCAR, been successful at the 500 with different teams in different situations, I think is super, super valuable, and it's pushed the whole team forward.

Q. For both of you, looking at the speeds over here, the only difference is 4/10,000 of a second. Is it crazy to think about two different teams and you're so close on the speed chart here?

NOLAN SIEGEL: That's what makes this place so difficult. The margins are extremely small. Like Louis said, you can make small changes that takes you from a very happy car to a very unhappy car or an unhappy car to a happy car, I think. Yeah, you miss it by a little bit, and that's what makes the difference, and that's what makes it so difficult.

Q. Nolan, just a quick one for you. We spoke to different members of the Arrow McLaren after qualifying, and there was a fair bit of head scratching going on. With the hot temperatures, one car went one way and the other car went the other way. As a team collectively, do you feel like through that experience you're more prepared for the changing weather conditions that could come on Sunday?

NOLAN SIEGEL: For sure. With the condition change, we all sort of missed it a little bit in qualifying, which was frustrating because we've been very happy in general all month, and I think again much stronger than last year as a team.

So to miss it in qualifying was a little bit of a disappointment, but it definitely taught us a lot. I think we're better prepared for the condition change that's coming this weekend.

I don't think we knew how big a difference it was going to be given that we've kind of been running in cool, cloudy conditions all month and just underestimated that change a little bit, I think.

Looking forward to Sunday now having had that experience, but at the same time, I think a lot of other people have the same story and are going to be a lot stronger as well. It's not just us that are learning. We'll see. Hopefully we've learned more than others.

Q. I was going to ask this question when Will Power was still supposed to be here, but I'll still ask it anyways. I don't know if you can see this, but it's been about 15 years since this photo, and my question is is the middle finger still a universal language at the track?

LOUIS FOSTER: What year was that?

Q. 2011.

LOUIS FOSTER: How old were you in 2011?

NOLAN SIEGEL: Seven.

LOUIS FOSTER: What year were you born again?

NOLAN SIEGEL: '04. You can do the math.

LOUIS FOSTER: I'm a racing driver, not a mathematician, mate. Is it still what?

Q. A universal language at the track.

LOUIS FOSTER: Yeah, I would say so. I don't really see -- the thumbs up has become the new middle finger. Kyle loves the thumbs up. It's always so funny whenever I see that. So I feel like maybe we've become a bit more politically correct over the years and gone to a thumbs up.

Which I think is even worse. If someone cuts me off when I'm driving, I don't middle finger them, I thumbs up them, you're a great driver, man. I haven't seen anyone flip me off recently. I don't know about you. Have you seen anyone recently?

NOLAN SIEGEL: I haven't been flipped off recently.

LOUIS FOSTER: We can make that happen.

NOLAN SIEGEL: We're starting next to each other. We'll see. (Laughter).

THE MODERATOR: What a perfect way to begin the race for you guys.

LOUIS FOSTER: We'll pull away and do this to each other.

Q. Nolan, you actually said you're doing something wrong if you don't get at least two in a season.

NOLAN SIEGEL: Yeah, I feel like I've had a very under the radar, chill season so far, and I have not been flipped off yet. I think I need to up the aggression a little bit.

LOUIS FOSTER: You don't like friends, do you? Do you not want friends?

NOLAN SIEGEL: I don't need friends here.

LOUIS FOSTER: Okay, fair enough.

NOLAN SIEGEL: I'm kidding. You're my bestie, Louis.

Q. Today is actually Global Accessibility Awareness Day. I'm blind. So if I were to express to my friends that are blind, what do you hear in the car? Is it the comms that keeps you focused, or is it the feeling of the road and the car?

NOLAN SIEGEL: I think it's a mixture of everything, to be honest. It's kind of such an all-consuming experience driving the race car, and I think that's part of what makes it enjoyable is there's the sound, the feel, the focus that's required.

It's very difficult to think about anything else in that moment, and I think that's kind of what makes it enjoyable and almost like calming and zen at times. It's like a full sensory experience, which is quite cool.

It's nice to have a time where you can't think about anything else.

LOUIS FOSTER: Yeah, I think I'd agree. I think, surprisingly, what I would say, sight is one of the -- obviously very important to drive the race car, right, at these speeds? But from a natural emotional standpoint when you drive it, I find it's the least.

I think that you feel a lot from the G forces, the acceleration, the rattling of the gears when you pull them, the wind blowing you around. It's a lot of things going on inside the race car that you just feel in your body that makes it so special to drive. I think that's what you remember.

I don't think -- from qualifying, I don't remember, when I look back at it, when I'm older, for sure, I won't remember how fast it looked like I was going but how fast I felt like I was going. The car is almost lifting off the ground at those speeds, which is fun. It's scary, but that's what makes it memorable as a driver, and that's what makes it special.

I think the fans can actually see that when we race around here and when we do our qualifying laps, when we see the on-boards, they can almost see what we feel in a way.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks so much for coming up on the big white couch today. Have a great rest of your Media Day. Good luck tomorrow. Have a great day tomorrow.