Douglas tops day one of USF Pro 2000 testing at Road America

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Pabst Racing’s Jacob Douglas was quickest on the first day of USF Pro 2000’s in-season test at Road America.

His team-mate Max Garcia was fastest in the 35-minute opening session on Wednesday, setting a 2m02.6861s on his penultimate lap to beat Douglas’s final effort by 0.2169 seconds.

Michael Costello completed a Pabst 1-2-3, but with a late improvement could only get within 0.6264s of Garcia’s pace.

Exclusive Autosport’s Mac Clark was best of the rest in fourth, 0.7765s behind and Velocity Racing Development’s Max Taylor was the only other driver within a second of the pace. DEForce Racing’s Jorge Garciarce failed to get any laptimes on the board.

Sessions two and three were penned in for a longer 40-minute period, and the pace was considerably slower when session two took place in the early afternoon. Many drivers set their best laps on their first runs, and others as they concluded their second.

Douglas was halfway through his run plan when he posted a 2m03.0807s, which beat Taylor’s early benchmark by 0.2263s. Garcia was one of the rare drivers to get faster later on, but was 0.3112s slower than Douglas. Taylor, team-mate Frankie Mossman in fourth and FatBoy Racing!’s Charles Finelli were the only drivers to improve on their session one pace.

A 2m03.0649s from Taylor stood as session three’s fastest lap until the final eight minutes when others began to improve while he was in the pits. Douglas beat him by 0.0176s with just over seven minutes to go, while Jay Howard Driver Development’s Michael Boyiadzis got within 0.1783s of him around the long lap.

On his next lap, Douglas usurped Garcia’s session one benchmark with a 2m02.6369s and Garcia demoted Taylor to third in the session.

Costello squeezed ahead of Garcia by 0.0242s with six minutes to go, 0.3169s off Douglas, and a minute later Garcia reduced Douglas’s advantage to 0.0654s.

Douglas responded by lowering the pace to 2m02.2573s, and with three-and-a-half minutes remaining Clark got into third by posting a 2m02.7696s. The inactive Taylor was demoted to fifth.

There was a little more pace in Douglas’s pocket, and on his next lap he made a marginal gain to what would be an unbeatable 2m02.2382s.

Garcia was not going to respond, having already joined Taylor in the pits, Boyiadzis could not improve in sixth and Mossman’s late again only put him a very distant seventh. Garcia and Garciarce were the only drivers not to set personal bests.

Boyiadzis was making a return to the cockpit, having more recently been racing in karting. He has a long history with JHDD, having driven for them in United States Formula 4 in 2022, in both that and the YACademy Winter Series in 2023, then USF Juniors in 2024.

Day one results