Hailie Deegan severely struggles at Indy NXT qualifying in Detroit; Dennis Hauger takes pole

Hailie Deegan is having an arduous weekend at Indy NXT's Detroit Grand Prix. The former NASCAR driver had a subpar outing in the qualifying session, finishing dead last in group 1, where Lochie Hughes was the quickest driver with a time of 1:05.0516.

After the session, Hughes complained of impeding on the 1.645-mile street circuit, calling it a "joke" and "frustrating". The narrow circuit has caused many such instances throughout the weekend, with Will Power and Kyle Kirkwood having a controversial incident in IndyCar's practice one on Friday (May 30).

Hailie Deegan was a mammoth five seconds slower than Andretti Global's Hughes. Her best time was a 1:10.1441, which placed her in ninth position out of 10 drivers in group 1.

Ricardo Escotto, who made heavy contact with the barriers in practice session two earlier on Saturday (May 31), put no time on the board, putting him in P10.

In group 2, James Roe suffered a heavy crash in turn 1, with just under eight minutes to go in the session. But with IndyCar qualifying scheduled immediately after Indy NXT qualifying, the session timer continued despite the red flag.

When the session resumed with around three minutes to go, there was a race on track for track position, with Myles Rowe overtaking cars to get in clear air. However, it was Dennis Hauger who shone yet again.

The Andretti driver, who has won three of four races this season, put in a scintillating lap with a time of 1:04.989, giving him pole position.

Hailie Deegan's analysis of her upward progress graph in Indy NXT stalls at Detroit

Hailie Deegan drives her No. 38 car at 10 INDY NXT's Indianapolis Grand Prix - Source: Getty

At Indy NXT's double-header at the IMS road course, Hailie Deegan finished 17th out of 21 drivers in race 1 and 18th in race 2. Her strength so far has been keeping it clean in all sessions, be it practice, qualifying, or the race. The 23-year-old hasn't suffered any crashes in her rookie season in the series.

After the weekend, Deegan shared some details about her performance with each passing race weekend. When Frontstretch asked her about how much progress she had made, the HMD Motorsports driver said:

"A lot, just by myself. Like we have a chart that goes through like percentages of how far I'm off, and every time we go hit the track, the percentage goes down, which is good. To see that we keep making strides in the right direction. Speed-wise, right now, I'm just kind of racing myself a whole lot, obviously, restarts when stuff happens, but just trying to get faster pace-wise myself and get comfortable."

Hailie Deegan will start 18th on the grid on Sunday at Indy NXT's Detroit Grand Prix. The race will kick off at 10:30 am ET, with the IndyCar race scheduled for 12:30 pm ET.