While much of the outside focus has been on the big-name driver change at their NTT IndyCar Series team over the offseason, with two-time champion and former Indy 500 winner Will Power set to replace Colton Herta, Andretti Global have had an equally intriguing offseason on the Indy NXT side.
Winners of the two most recent Indy NXT championships with Louis Foster and Dennis Hauger, Andretti Global have almost fully reloaded ahead of the 2026 season. Three of their four drivers are new to the team, although two of those three have previously competed full-time in the series.
Lochie Hughes is the team's lone returning driver, following his third place finish in the 2025 standings as a rookie; third is the best 2025 finish among all returning Indy NXT drivers in 2026.
Josh Pierson is set for his third full season in the series after driving for HMD Motorsports, and he is set to be joined by Sebastian Murray, who fan full-time as a rookie for Andretti Cape.
Max Taylor, on the other hand, has never run a full Indy NXT schedule. Yet his results in testing show he is more than ready for the jump up to the No. 28 entry that Hauger drove – the entry in which he led the championship wire-to-wire – a year ago.
Max Taylor poised for Indy NXT breakout in 2026
Taylor, who ran a six-race schedule with HMD Motorsports in 2025 for his first taste of the series just below the IndyCar, competed full-time in the USF2000 Championship in 2024 and full-time USF Pro 2000 Championship a year ago with Velocity Racing Development (VRD). He also won the 2024 USF Juniors championship with VRD.
"I had a really good partial season last year with HMD," Taylor told FanSided's Beyond the Flag. "It was very beneficial for sure. I’m very thankful for the opportunity that they gave me. And then we started to seriously look into options for next year after the partial season started off pretty well, and Andretti basically approached me.
"I kind of knew some of them, like J.F. Thormann from my past racing in USF Juniors, where I was racing against Sebastian Wheldon, and he’s an Andretti junior. We already had a bit of a relationship and they sort of reached out to me and we got into talks throughout the season."
The 18-year-old Greenwich, Connecticut native hit the ground running.
He was second on the speed charts in the test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course back in October, and he topped the speed charts in the test at Barber Motorsports Park back in November. Then in January, he was second in the test at Sebring International Raceway.
It's confidence inspiring, for sure, but Taylor knows that now is when it actually starts to count. And he's pumped for the opportunity.
"That is the right way to look at it, where it is nice to have these results and get some confidence up, but at the end of the day, there are just tests," Taylor admitted. "A lot of guys are trying out different things and on different run plans and stuff, but I definitely still think it is representative of our pace. I think we do have pretty strong pace going into the season.
"A lot of confidence for sure, but we’re still working really hard, all of us together, and doing all the right things. [We're] still doing the same things to get the results starting the season next week."
And he's certainly not feeling the pressure.
"I’m incredibly excited," he said. "Honestly, I cannot wait. I’m just honestly counting down the days. I love St. Pete. It’s such a great weekend and great way to start the season. It’s a really great race weekend.
"But yeah, a lot of confidence going into it. Definitely a little bit nervous just because it’s the first race. But I think as long as we stay how we’ve been going, all the guys and girls at Andretti working really hard together, we should be good. We should be good for a good weekend."
Taylor only got to compete at five different venues during the 2025 season, and he placed a season-high fourth in the second race at Laguna Seca, the lone track where he competed twice.
This year, he's looking forward to running all 17 races at 12 different venues.
"Honestly, all of them," he responded when asked which venues he's most looking forward to visiting in 2026. "I think Arlington is going to be really cool. That’s going to be a really interesting race, new track for everyone, so very unique situation. But yeah, that one I’m definitely excited for, for sure.
"And then, honestly, all of them. I love them. Road America, Mid-Ohio, some of the ovals. Just excited to get after it."
Although he hasn't yet competed full-time in the series, he is eager to demonstrate that his experience in select races from his limited 2025 schedule can be advantageous.
"The field this year is really stacked," he said. "I think especially in recent years, it just has gotten more competitive each year. So I think this is probably the most stacked Indy NXT field that we’ve seen.
"Those past experiences in the partial season are going to help me so much, just the experience in this car, at the [existing] tracks, with a longer race, new tracks, managing push-to-pass. There’s a lot more at this level compared to USF Pro and past levels that I’ve done. So definitely going to be an important role going into this season to hunt for the championship."
At Andretti, championships are the expectation
A lot of the series' talent is within the Andretti Global organization, and Taylor is looking forward to having himself, Hughes, Pierson, and Murray push each other and continue to raise the bar for the entire team as the season progresses.
"Absolutely, we all push each other," he said. "All four of us are really very talented drivers. Lochie’s really quick, Pierson’s really quick, Seb’s really quick as well. We’re all at the top of our game for sure.
"And we’re on a very good team. Andretti have finished first or second in the Indy NXT championship with a driver in the past seven seasons with five championships. So definitely the right place to be, and it’s been really great to work with my teammates. They’ve been really good building a relationship there and, yeah, we all push each other so hard for sure."
It's a recipe for success for four drivers aiming to be the first on their team to secure their first career Indy NXT victory. If and when that time comes for Taylor, it will mean a career that started in a rather unconventional way reaches a new high point.
"I honestly had a very different start to racing, where I honestly didn’t know what racing was – Formula 1, IndyCar, motorsport as a whole – until I was about 12, maybe 11 years old. It started mostly during the pandemic; I was just bored at home."
It's one of those inevitable blessings in disguise that the pandemic brought with it, one that perhaps nobody could have actually seen coming at the time.
An unlikely rise
"I had always loved cars," he said. "I had watched the Cars movie with Lightning McQueen dozens and dozens of times! I was obsessed. So I got into racing really during the pandemic with Drive to Survive and then fell in love with it completely; Formula 1, IndyCar, all of it.
"I started just doing go-karting for my birthdays. I had all of my birthdays at a go-kart track. And I even made my sister do one of her birthdays at a go-kart track! I just fell in love with it, absolutely, because I hadn’t really been able to put everything into racing."
As for how he parlayed birthday parties at local go-kart tracks to where he is today, it all stemmed from his passion, belief in himself, and support from those around him.
"I started off in go-karting and then I found out I was pretty good," he continued. "So I went to national events in go-karting, won nationals, then started testing in cars, just kind of the natural progression. And yeah, very thankful for my family supporting me 110% the whole way.
"It started just with my love for the sport. I think that’s still what fuels me today, my passion for the sport and just the thrill of going fast. I love it. But it really is pretty incredible that I was able to get to my level from not having a racing background or anything like that. And it kind of shows with the right circumstances, the right people around you, that some kid watching Drive to Survive right now, it is possible. So it’s pretty cool."
And speaking of the pandemic, that "down time" at home also allowed him to get into sim racing.
"I’m pretty big into sim racing now and I was then," he stated. "I play iRacing all the time and it’s a very important part of being a racing driver now. Like I’ll race against Will Power all the time on iRacing. Definitely really important in the sim.
"It does have to be a balance. But honestly, my pleasure time and my time away is still on the sim or at a race track. I’ve been coaching a lot at race tracks, so I get away, but I really don’t get away, because that’s just how much I love it, honestly. You do have to balance it out, having some time for yourself, having fun. But still, I love being at a race track, and that sometimes is my vacation."
Max Taylor aiming even higher
As he prepares to run the full Indy NXT schedule, Taylor is soaking in the fact that just a few short years after being unaware of motorsport, he finds himself just one level below IndyCar.
"My experience in the Road to Indy has been really great," he said. "They do an amazing job, really great championship with the scholarship as well. It’s been really great the past few years working with VRD. They’ve helped me so much to make me the driver and the person I am today. Jacob Loomis and Dan Mitchell are some of the main guys there who have really shaped me.
"I think back on those times like really, really happy memories, where, now we’re at a level in Indy NXT, right below IndyCar, where it really, really starts to get serious and it turns into more of a job. I still obviously love it so much, but it turns into more of a job. And I look back on those days in the Road to Indy and karting as well with like really fond memories, just where I could have a bit more fun sometimes! But yeah, it’s been really great."
But on the flip side of being on the top rung of the Road to Indy ladder, Taylor knows there's still another step up. And he thinks about that step up, particularly competing in the Indy 500 one day, every day.
"I think about it probably almost every day," he said. "Last year was my first year actually going to the Indy 500, and it really blows your mind how incredible it is. Such a spectacle; it’s like a religion out there, you know? It’s absolutely insane. To think that I could be there in a year or two is really pretty damn incredible.
"I’m smiling right now for sure, thinking about it."
The 2026 Indy NXT season is scheduled to begin on Sunday, March 1 on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, just ahead of the NTT IndyCar Series season opener at the same temporary street circuit.