Dennis Hauger ready to make his IndyCar debut: "Trying to adapt quickly"

Dennis Hauger made a bold choice. A gamble few young drivers dare to take. By leaving the F2 To join Indy NXT, the Norwegian changed his career path in 2025, turning towards the car American with the ambition to join theIndyCarIt only took him a year to achieve his goals. And what a year it was!

Champion with six wins and ten podium finishes in fourteen races, the former protégé of the racing program Red Bull He caught the eye of Dale Coyne Racing, who offered him the chance to experience the big leagues of IndyCar in 2026. Now all that remains is to start the season and try to have the same success as in the second division of American open-wheel racing.

"To be honest, I'm not worried.", assures Dennis Hauger. “I think with what we’ve shown in testing, we know we can set good lap times. We have the speed. I think for some tracks it will be better than for others. That’s just how it is. I think the work we’ve done with Dale Coyne Racing, also with the partnership with Andretti, will allow us to be competitive. It’s simply a matter of doing the work like I did in Indy NXT, staying on top of things, keeping our feet on the ground, and getting the job done. I think that will be the main thing. We’ll see how it goes. Obviously, I want to stay in IndyCar and do well. I hope we can get off to a good start in St. Petersburg and build from there.”

To sign him, Dale Coyne had to reach an agreement with Andretti, who were signing the 22-year-old to the Indy NXT series. Once that was done, he became the first (and so far only) driver announced by Dale Coyne Racing. "It's a smooth partnership. Honestly, we'll see how it goes once the season starts." explains Hauger. “I work with Dale Coyne. We’re trying to maximize our resources. There isn’t, I would say, a full partnership in terms of setup, dampers, and things like that. But we’re definitely working together on the data, acting as a team, focusing on the drivers. Then we’ll probably have a few tweaks here and there to make ourselves stronger in certain areas, especially at tracks where maybe one team is weaker and the other stronger. I think that’s the main thing. It will be a work in progress as the season goes on.”

Rapid adaptation thanks to Indy NXT?

Dennis Hauger is currently waiting to find out who his teammate will be for next season, while a certain Romain Grosjean Grosjean could very well be among the candidates. "At the moment, I have nothing official in IndyCar, but it remains my Plan A for the 2026 season," Grosjean told us in the Daytona 24 Hours paddock. "For me, whoever it is, I'm sure I'll be in good hands," Dennis Hauger said regarding the identity of his future teammate. "I hope it will be someone I can get along well with in terms of data analysis.", continues the Oslo native, who still has to adapt to the IndyCar driving style after having spent most of his career in junior formulas.

ALSO READ > IndyCar, ELMS… What's next for Romain Grosjean in 2026?

"I would say that F2, in particular, has a very different driving style compared to the F3 and F1"I think so. Coming to Indy NXT was really a breath of fresh air for me."he analyzes. It was a lighter car. The car could move around a bit. You could really attack the corners differently and manage the car in a different way, which suited me immediately. From day one, we were among the fastest drivers. So it makes sense that it felt natural to me right away. Obviously, the IndyCar is also a heavier car, but you can still move it around a bit, fight with it, which I enjoy. I think that was the biggest difference for me coming from Europe to the United States. It gave me a good feeling immediately.

The 2021 Formula 3 champion thus arrives with a small, but important, experience thanks to the Indy NXT, which allowed him to discover, for example, oval races and most of the circuits on the calendar. “Coming with the experience of Indy NXT is a good thing. It gives me confidence, knowing that we had really good speed last year.”, notes the Norwegian. “I felt that IndyCar was in a similar driving style window, which really helped me progress from the first few days of testing. Yes, I hope we can just keep moving forward. I know there will be some new things. At the end of the day, we're driving the car and we want to drive it as fast as possible. That's what I'm going to try to do: try to adapt quickly as I go.”

Without a specific objective, but with the desire to quickly get into the swing of things in order to, why not, try to ride the momentum built in Indy NXT in order to reproduce some brilliant moves.