Photo credit: Travis Hinkle | Penske Entertainment

Callum Hedge is in his second season in Indy NXT, and since the 2023 Formula Regional Americas champion has hopped to the last step before IndyCar, he has continued to improve steadily.

The same goes for the 2024 offseason, where Hedge has put in testing performances that have consistently put him near the top of the field. The ABEL Motorsports driver finished this week with his strongest one yet: a second-place finish in both a wet and dry session at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca that put him just over a hundredth of a session off of the fastest time in the final session on Thursday, when Hedge ran a 1:13.766.

These are promising signs for a driver who struggled at Laguna Seca last season. Hedge finished outside of the top ten in both races in the Golden State last June, the only times he did so over the course of a ten-race run starting at Barber and ending at Gateway.

The end of that run is where Hedge really came into his own in 2024, scoring top-fives in consecutive races at Mid-Ohio, Iowa and the aforementioned Gateway.

Nearly all of the tracks Hedge raced on in 2024 were new to him, with Mid-Ohio being an exception due to FR Americas racing there as well. Now that he has a season behind him racing in Indy NXT, Hedge feels more confident this time around.

“Coming from a completely different background, I feel a lot more complete as a driver,” Hedge said last week during Indy NXT Content Days. “I know what to expect and where I need to perform better.”

Hedge has not only performed well at Laguna Seca in testing, he has also had strong performances at everywhere else the series has tested. His fourth place at Indianapolis and his seventh place at a challenging Barber Motorsports Park are among some of his other testing highlights going into 2025.