Photos: Indianapolis Motor Speedway/LLC Photography
Second year driver Carlos Cunha topped the opening 2018 Pro Mazda test on the Homestead-Miami Speedway road course, with Italian team RP Motorsport making its American debut.
Cunha topped three of the six sessions for Juncos Racing, and set his fastest time right at the end of the final session.
?I?m really happy, Juncos Racing is an amazing team,” said Cunha.
“On track, we are always improving, never going backwards and that?s very good. We have tested a lot but we still need to learn a lot about the car, though we are almost to a perfect setup. We have time to improve and we are moving forward quickly.?
Team Pelfrey’s Sting Ray Robb was second fastest overall, two tenths back, with David Malukas (BN Racing), Rafael Martins (Pelfrey) and Parker Thompson (Exclusive Autosport) completing the top five.
Euroformula Open champion Harrison Scott was sixth fastest for RP Motorsport, over half a second off the lead pace, but showed great improvement after transponder issues meant the team had no recorded lap times on the first day, and only set a representative time in two of the three sessions on the second day.
Rinus VeeKay and Oliver Askew continued their rivalry from USF2000 in eighth and ninth place, with both overcoming difficulties during the test.
VeeKay’s Juncos car was struck by mechanical issues, while Cape Motorsports signing Askew was fighting the flu.
Canadian karting graduate Antonio Seravalle completed the most laps, but was the slowest of the 15 drivers in the test, 1.8363 seconds back.
US Formula 4 champion and MRTI convert Kyle Kirkwood (pictured below) topped the USF2000 test for Cape, with Pabst Racing trio Rasmus Lindh, Lucas Kohl and Kaylen Frederick filling second to fourth. The test was contested by 21 drivers.
Pro Mazda test results
1 Carlos Cunha Juncos Racing 1m19.2017s
2 Sting Ray Robb Team Pelfrey +0.2077s
3 David Malukas BN Racing +0.3768s
4 Rafael Martins Team Pelfrey +0.4020s
5 Parker Thompson Exclusive Autosport +0.4832s
6 Harrison Scott RP Motorsport +0.5987s
7 Robert Megennis Juncos Racing +0.6821s
8 Rinus VeeKay Juncos Racing +0.7120s
9 Oliver Askew Cape Motorsports +0.7857s
10 James Raven DEForce Racing +0.8347s
11 Kris Wright BN Racing +0.9486s
12 Lodovico Laurini RP Motorsport +0.9957s
13 Andres Gutierrez Team Pelfrey +1.0478s
14 Nikita Lastochkin Cape Motorsports +1.6745s
15 Antonio Seravalle Exclusive Autosport +1.8363s