Nikita Johnson Feasts on Home Cooking To Earn First Win at St. Pete

Nikita Johnson earned his first INDY NXT by Firestone victory Sunday, winning his hometown Grand Prix of St. Petersburg after prevailing in a duel of talented teenagers.

Johnson, from St. Petersburg, delivered his first victory in just his fourth career start in the INDYCAR development series. It also was the first INDY NXT victory for Cape Motorsports, which Johnson joined this offseason after a part-time foray last season in the series with HMD Motorsports.

SEE: Race Results

“I can’t thank the boys from Cape Motorsports enough and everyone from ECR who has been helping us,” Johnson said. “It’s a pretty amazing feeling to get my first win in INDY NXT and Cape’s first win in INDY NXT. I can’t wait to see all my friends and family.”

Series rookie Johnson, 17, drove his No. 21 Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR entry to victory by .6990 of a second over pole sitter Max Taylor, 18, in the No. 28 Susan G. Komen car of Andretti Global. Rookie Tymek Kucharczyk rounded out the podium finishers in his first INDY NXT start by placing third in the No. 71 HMD Motorsports entry, 5.055 seconds behind Johnson.

Andretti Global took three of the top five spots. Seb Murray placed fourth in the No. 27 Prosperity machine, while Lochie Hughes rounded out the top five in the No. 26 car.

Johnson (photo, above) wasted no time asserting his command of this race, scheduled for 45 laps but halted on time after 55 minutes. He started second and used a bold, sweeping move to the outside of Taylor in Turn 1 at the start to grab a lead he would never relinquish.

“It was pretty straight up,” Johnson said. “I reviewed some video from previous years on YouTube, the INDY NXT channel. I knew I wanted to get up front quickly, and I did just that. I went into Turn 1 and knew what he (Taylor) was going to do before he did it and just went around the outside. After that, I kept it pretty simple, tried to keep a nice gap.”

Caution periods ended up being Johnson’s biggest foe besides Taylor. The race was slowed by four full-course yellows, but Johnson held off Taylor on each of the restarts.

Perhaps Taylor’s best chance came on a restart on Lap 20. He tried the same move Johnson used to gain the lead on Lap 1, but his attempt at a sweeping, outside pass was unsuccessful.

“All the restarts were pretty difficult,” Johnson said. “He (Taylor) caught on at one point, and I had throw in a little curve ball and change it up.”

Taylor maintained pressure on Johnson for the entire race, never trailing by more than a second and keeping his car usually within six- or seven-tenths of the leader. But Taylor also never got close enough after restarts to mount a serious challenge to the race lead.

The two teens traded blows over the closing laps. Johnson turned his quickest lap of the race on Lap 38, but Taylor countered with the speediest lap overall on Lap 39.

“Good race overall, good points,” Taylor said. “Showed a lot of pace but just messed up on the start.

“The restarts were very difficult to get right. Just kept trying to apply the pressure, trying different things. Probably could have had an opportunity to pass him there, but you live and you learn.”

The next INDY NXT by Firestone race is the Grand Prix of Arlington on Sunday, March 15 on the streets of Arlington, Texas.