Hailie Deegan finally cracks the qualifying mystery hampering her rookie Indy NXT season

Hailie Deegan has revealed that her HMD Motorsports team has finally identified what has been holding her back in the qualifying sessions this season. The 23-year-old is in her first season in the Indy NXT, having only competed in NASCAR's stock cars before.

Though her pace has been improving with each session, Deegan has been the slowest qualifier among the Indy NXT grid. She has started dead last for all five races so far, apart from the recent Detroit Grand Prix, where two drivers qualified behind her after crashing out.

In a recent YouTube VLOG documenting her Detroit GP weekend, Hailie Deegan shared why this has been the case.

"So, qualifying yesterday, it didn't go great," she said on the morning of the race. "I was expecting to go faster than I did in practice. Every time I hit the track, I go faster. But for some reason, in qualifying, I haven't been. I feel like I've been doing things better, but just not going quicker."

Deegan then explained how her problem was not getting the tires in the optimal temperature window before her runs.

"Well, we figured out my issue is I'm not getting up to speed quick enough to get heat in the tires. So by the time the qualifying session is over, my tires aren't even near the optimal temp yet. So I'm not getting all the grip out of it. I'm glad we figured that out, so I know how to fix it and work on it for the future. So, I'm like, 'I don't know what I'm doing wrong.' Like I'll go the quickest I have in the race, but for some reason, in qualifying, I stay stagnant."

The best aspect of Hailie Deegan's driving in her rookie Indy NXT has been her ability to keep it clean and not increase HMD Motorsports' expenses by crashing. This is something not many rookies can do. But that being said, she was collected in a 10-car pile-up at the Detroit GP.

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Hailie Deegan shares her feelings after mega pile-up at Indy NXT's Detroit GP ruins her race

Hailie Deegan driving her No. 38 car at the INDY NXT Indianapolis Grand Prix - Source: Getty

The opening lap of the Indy NXT race on the streets of Detroit had absolute carnage in Turn 4. Callum Hedge made contact with Myles Rowe, spinning him around. While Hedge and a couple of other drivers escaped, nine other cars from behind piled up around Rowe's car. Hailie Deegan was one of them.

She had nowhere to go, but reacted quickly enough to brake in time and not crash into the cars in front. However, Ricardo Escotto, who was behind her, barely reacted. He drove into the back of Deegan's No. 38 HMD Motorsports car, with the right rear part of her car going in the air and settling on his left front.

Deegan had to spend three laps on pit road while her HMD Motorsports crew repaired her car. After the race, she shared her feelings about the unfortunate race via Snapchat stories.

"Well guys, that kind of sucked,"she said. "Lap one, there was a massive wreck hogging up the track. Got absolutely smoked. I ended up getting stopped in time, barely tapped in front of me, not enough to damage, and then I got smoked by someone else from behind. It killed the front wing and also broke something in the rear."

Hailie Deegan eventually finished the race in 16th place, five laps down from the leaders, while Dennis Hauger took his fourth win of the season. She sits 18th in the standings after five races. The next race weekend is the INDY NXT by Firestone at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois, from June 14 to 15.