Enzo Fittipaldi returned his famous last name to Victory Lane in Detroit for the first time in 35 years, winning the INDY NXT by Firestone Detroit Grand Prix despite driving nearly the entire distance with a damaged front wing and nose cone.

Series rookie Fittipaldi won the race, originally scheduled for 45 laps but switched to a timed event, under caution in the No. 67 HMD Motorsports car after starting seventh. It was his second victory of the season and vaulted him to the championship lead in the INDYCAR development series, seven points ahead of Nikita Johnson of Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR and eight ahead of HMD teammate Tymek Kucharczyk.

SEE: Race Results

The victory also was the first by the legendary Fittipaldi name in Detroit since his grandfather and two-time Indy 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi won INDYCAR SERIES races on a different downtown street circuit in the Motor City in 1989 and 1991.

“I just pushed as hard as I could,” Enzo Fittipaldi said. “I found pace. I was really, really fast. Just so happy to get the win. I love to race; I’m a racer.”

Series veteran Myles Rowe finished a season-best second in the No. 99 Abel Motorsports with Force Indy machine, with rookie Kucharczyk rounding out the podium finishers in the No. 71 HMD Motorsports entry.

Rookie Max Garcia tied his season-best finish by placing fourth in the No. 12 Abel Motorsports machine, with veteran Seb Murray rounding out the top five in the No. 27 Megatron car of Andretti Global.

Frenzied action started from the drop of the green flag on Lap 1, as Lochie Hughes made an aggressive move into the Turn 3 hairpin with his No. 26 Andretti Global car, punting pole sitter Alessandro de Tullio into a spin from the lead in the No. 14 AJ Foyt Racing entry. Hughes received a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact.

Fittipaldi nudged another car in that chain-reaction melee, which damaged the right side of his front wing and punched a large hole in his nose cone. Kucharczyk took the lead from that point, keeping it on the restart on Lap 8.

Kucharczyk built a lead of 3.324 seconds over Fittipaldi by Lap 13, with Rowe climbing to third by Lap 18. Rowe dove under Fittipaldi for second on Lap 20 and started to chase down Kucharczyk.

By Lap 21, Rowe pulled to within .5477 of a second of leader Kucharcyzk, slicing 1.6 seconds from the Polish driver’s lead in just three laps. But the complexion of the race changed on Lap 26 when the second of four full-course yellow flags in the race were unfurled for debris on the nine-turn, 1.645-mile temporary street circuit.

The restart came at the end of Lap 27, with Rowe trying to dive under Kucharczyk for the lead immediately after the green flag, in the Turn 3 hairpin. But the move forced both cars wide, leaving an opening along the inside curb for Fittipaldi.

He took it, squeezing past Rowe and Kucharcyzk and never trailing thereafter. Fittipaldi stayed out front on another restart on Lap 34 after Niels Koolen nosed his No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing machine into the barrier in Turn 8.

“I got it done,” Fittipaldi said. “I knew Myles was going to go for a lunge there, and I just prepared my mid-(corner) to exit of Turn 3, and he went on the lunge on Tymek, and I was able to do the crossover and got the lead. I had the pace to stay there, and I was actually pulling away.”

The decisive move was one of 141 on-track passes, including 124 for position, in the exciting race – both INDY NXT records for any circuit on which the series has competed in the Motor City.

Fittipaldi expanded that gap to nearly six-tenths of a second when Andretti Global’s Max Taylor also nosed into the barrier in Turn 1 in his No. 28 Susan G. Komen car with about four minutes, 20 seconds left in what had become a timed race, triggering the final caution. Taylor’s car could not be cleared in time to restart the race, with the field finishing under yellow.

“I was losing quite a lot of time through (Turns) 6 and 7,” Fittipaldi said of the damage to his car. “It was quite difficult. Down the straight, I could feel the air coming through my legs and I said: ‘Man, this is not good. We’re definitely dragging a lot on the straight.’ It was hard to keep that lead and keep up with the guys.”

The next INDY NXT by Firestone event is Sunday, June 7 on the 1.25-mile oval at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois, in the shadow of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. It’s the first of three oval races this season.