By: Ashley McCubbin

After scoring three wins and nine podiums in Indy NXT competition, Caio Collet made the next move of his young racing career for 2026 and jumped up to the NTT IndyCar Series.

“I think they’ve gone quite well, obviously the last one was definitely the best,” Collet spoke of his start to the season. “I think the first race was just trying to understand how everything works, and then I think IndyCar as well is such a dynamic chambership that you go from a street course to like an oval, and then another street course. So it’s sort of a bunch of things that happen at the same time that you need to just adapt really quick and understand really quick as well.

“But I think the first 3 races, they’ve been quite good, I think. Obviously Arlington, we did a decent job. The whole weekend we were quite competitive and in fighting the top 10 so something that we were happy about, and obviously trying to progress from there. Apart from that, just trying to understand everything a little bit better and getting more comfortable with the car and the team.”

Collet’s chance on the big stage did not come with anybody, though, but rather driving for one of the series’ all-time greats in A.J Foyt.

“It means a lot,” Collet shared. “I’m really proud to be representing the team and I think such a team with a lot of history in IndyCar. So for me it is just trying to extract everything that I can from the car and give them a good result.”

Through the first four races of the season, Collet has scored a trio of top-20 finishes, highlighted by the 12th-place finish on the streets of Arlington, Texas. Through these first four events, the competitiveness of the field overall has surprised him the most.

“I think just one mistake or something that you don’t do right – either yourself or like procedure wise, especially in qualifying, there is no margin for error in the car,” he commented. “I think IndyCar has a lot of really good drivers, a lot of really good teams so you need to be on the top of your game, regardless of what section and what lap – so like every single lap matters. So you really need to step up your game and something that I think is really impressive to me.”

Continuing to improve weekly is ultimately where Collet’s mind is at, as he focuses on the goal of winning Rookie of the Year for 2026.

“I think after two races in, it is something that is achievable for us,” he commented. “Obviously on the championship side, I think a top-15 maybe is something that will be a good result at the end of the year.”

As previously mentioned, Colet entered this year coming off a runner-up finish in the Indy NXT points in 2025. He spent two years in the division, placing third in the standings in 2024.

“It’s definitely a little bit bigger and faster than the Indy NXT car is,” he commented. “Like whatever the Indy NXT car did, the Indy car is just better. So especially braking, traction – you are able to brake much later, you have better traction, better tires, so it’s just a bigger and faster car.

“Some of it changes the driving style a little bit, as well. Because the Indy NXT is quite light, you can play a bit more with the steering, and the Indy car is a little bit less forgiving. So you just need to drive it a little bit more smooth and extract a little bit more from the car and specialize the tires.”

While Indy NXT runs on a single compound for their full event, IndyCar typically has a ‘primary tire’ and an ‘alternate tire’ with each of them having different features. Although one may produce quicker laps, the softness of the tire could result in those times falling off quicker.

Collet noted he struggled with that a little bit through the first three events and knows it is something he will need to improve upon.

Continually growing a driver will be important as the series heads to its biggest event of the season, the Indianapolis 500 in May, which obviously Collet has circled on his calendar.

“It will be my first one, so it’s definitely the one that I’m looking forward to the most,” he commented. “But apart from that, I would say Road America and Gateway. From Indy NXT, they are two of the tracks that I really liked from the past two years.”

For Collet, he got his start in racing through his father in watching run Rally events in Brazil as a young kid. It resulted in him being given a motor bike when he was four-years-old. Although he was having fun, a bad accident when he was eight-years-old resulted in his mom saying it was not allowed anymore.

As a result, his father got him a go-kart a couple months later, and he began racing in the regional events in Sao Paulo and has not stopped ever since.

“There were a lot of others that went through and did amazing results before me so it’s just trying to be the next one,” Collet spoke of representing Brazil. “Obviously there’s a lot of work to do and it’s just my Rookie year now, just trying to get settled. To build a career in IndyCar in such a high level and competitive championship is never easy. But it’s something that I’ve always dreamed of in my whole career – to be in such a competitive championship like this racing against the best guys in the world and obviously representing Brazil, it’s something that I’m really happy and proud of so hopefully I can be the next champion.”