Corry edges Costello in USF2000 testing at Sebring

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Pabst Racing’s Sam Corry was fastest in USF2000’s post-season test at Sebring this week.

Action began on Monday with a surprise name at the top of the times: former IndyCar and IMSA racer Matheus Leist.

The 25-year-old Brazilian was driving for DEForce Racing, and set a 1m03.714s to lead Corry by 0.081 seconds and his Pabst team-mate Max Garcia by 0.325s. Nicolas Giaffone took over the car driven by Leist for the rest of the test.

In session two, Corry lowered the pace to 1m03.220s and led Garcia once again. Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing junior Elliot Cox was third fastest, 0.338s off the pace.

Corry and Garcia were the drivers to beat again in the day’s final session, and Garcia improved his pace to 1m03.378s to get closer to Corry’s session two benchmark.

Jay Howard Driver Development’s Michael Costello got within 0.001s of that benchmark when he topped Tuesday’s opening session, going 0.093s faster than a continually improving Garcia and 0.143s faster than Velocity Racing Development’s Nico Christodoulou.

Corry returned to the top in session five of the test, setting a 1m03.186s. He was fastest by 0.131s over Garcia, and this time JHDD’s Michal Boyiadzis was in third place.

Pabst skipped the final session, which was interrupted by red flags. Christodoulou led the way prior to the stoppage, and although he got faster once action resumed he was still beaten to top spot by 0.048s as Cox set a 1m03.442s. Jut 0.334s covered the session’s top six, with Cox and George Feghali – the test’s slowest driver – the only ones to improve their pace.

Only eight drivers participated in USF Juniors testing, with DEForce Racing’s Leandro Juncos – son of Juncos Racing team boss Ricardo Juncos – topping the first session with a 1m06.645s lap.

His team-mate Bruno Ribeiro lowered the pace to 1m06.460s in session two, and improved by a further 0.005 seconds in session three.

VRD’s Jimmie Lockhart came to the fore on Tuesday, having only set 32 laps of Sebring’s 1.7-mile Club layout in the 125 minutes of track action on Monday, setting a 1m06.055s in session four.

That stood as the test benchmark after he topped the times with a slower 1m06.105s in session five and then JHDD’s George Argyros III pipped him to top spot by 0.025s in session six. Ava Dobson was just 0.027s off Argyros’s session-topping 1m06.189s in third place, and it meant in the combined timesheet the top six were covered by 0.161s.

Test results