This week’s Mazda Road to Indy presented by Cooper Tires Spring Training test is in the books. Here’s a look through the times across the board.
The Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires series ran on Homestead-Miami’s 1.485-mile oval on Monday and the 2.21-mile, 14-turn road course on Thursday. Meanwhile the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires and Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda ran solely on the road course both of Tuesday and Wednesday.
INDY LIGHTS
Andretti Autosport had two banner days, on both layouts.
Nico Jamin, a Pro Mazda graduate, leading the way in session 2. Note series veterans Kyle Kaiser and Juan Piedrahita did not run the oval, but both of them, plus newly confirmed Pato O’Ward, did test on the road course on Thursday.
Meanwhile on Thursday, Jamin’s teammate Colton Herta in the Andretti Steinbrenner Racing entry led the day of road course testing. It made for an impressive start for the 16-year-old, who turns 17 later this month.
“It’s the best way to finish, especially with St. Pete right around the corner,” Herta said. “It’s important that we’re on top here. We came, and we bossed it, really – the whole team has been super quick. Nico has been right there with me, one-two both days. And we were the quickest no-tow time on the oval last Monday. But today was even more important because this was on the road course, and with St. Pete next week, we set ourselves up well.”
There were 1,514 incident free laps turned on Monday while on Thursday, that number was 1,271 on the road course.
PRO MAZDA
Despite the low car count, there was still good variety atop the timesheets as all three of Team Pelfrey’s drivers - Nikita Lastochkin, Carlos Cunha and TJ Fischer - led a Tuesday session before Cape Motorsports’ Anthony Martin and Fischer led the Wednesday sessions. Martin, the USF2000 champion, led the combined timesheets.
USF2000
Mazda Motorsports Advancement Scholarship driver Oliver Askew, this year’s Team USA Scholarship winner, paced all but one of the sessions in USF2000. Most others were just trying to keep pace.