Ireland's James Roe in confident mood after maiden Indy NXT podium

Irish driver James Roe is confident that more landmark results are on the cards for him after claiming his first ever podium at the most recent round of the Indy NXT series.

The Naas, Co Kildare native is in his second season in the US feeder series which is the final step on the ladder towards the presitigious IndyCar series.

Five days after achieving what was then his best ever Indy NXT result of fourth in the Music City Grand Prix in Nashville on the first Sunday of August, Roe got on the podium for the first time with a second-place finish at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis last Friday.

The Andretti Autosport driver qualified second behind team-mate Hunter McElrea - his best qualifying result in the series to date - and after climbing up from third, managed to finish less than half a second behind the New Zealander.

With three events and four races to go this season, Roe told RTÉ Sport that momentum was building in his favour after claiming his best series results to date in consecutive races.

"Things have started clicking really since Detroit onwards and for various different reasons I didn't get to show (the progress) with some bad luck and now we've just started executing the last few events and that's really what it's about," he said.

"The team have been working very hard in the background and are starting to really gel with engineers and crew and that takes a while to happen in a big organisation as well.

"So we're just starting to find our stride and that's what's starting to happen here. The championship is competitive, there are 20 cars on the grid. If you're a tenth and a half slower in qualifying, instead of starting on the front row, you're starting on the sixth so that gives you an idea how close it is and how