Escorpioni grows USF Juniors lead by passing Fisher for fourth win

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Zanella Racing’s Leonardo Escorpioni extended his USF Juniors points lead with victory in the first race of the series’ second Mid-Ohio round.

Oliver Wheldon was fastest at first, topping both test sessions on Thursday but with only a 0.1535-second gap to Velocity Racing Development team-mate Joao Vergara in second.

Escorpioni, Rodrigo Gonzalez (DEForce Racing) and Ty Fisher (Zanella) were also within a 0.3s of the pace.

The slowest driver was Jay Howard Driver Development’s debutant Chase Fernandez. The 2024 Ginetta Junior runner-up is currently 14th in British Formula 4 with a win and one other podium.

Fisher moved to the front in practice on Friday morning, setting a 1m24.7677s on his final lap to deny Escorpioni by 0.166s. Vergara and Wheldon were both less than 0.2s slower than Fisher, then there was a big gap to Gonzalez in fifth who trailed the pacesetter by 0.7377s.

Qualifying was unpredictable, with some drivers setting their fastest laps relatively early while others improved later on. Fisher posted a 1m25.0836s on his fifth lap of 13, which ended up being enough for pole by a tiny 0.0097s over Escorpioni.

Wheldon and Vergara were just 0.026s and 0.0548s off pole respectively in third and fourth, and Gonzalez was 0.2952s behind in fifth. There was 0.0419s between sixth and eighth place, the spot occupied by JHDD’s Liam Loiacono. He won in the previous Mid-Ohio round a month ago.

There were wheel-to-wheel battles for first and third on race one’s opening lap, and squabbles further back to led several drivers going off. Loiacono got into sixth ahead of Zanella’s Diego Guiot and DEForce’s Vilho Aatola, then fights settled down until racing was neutralised entirely on lap three as a caution period was brought about by two drivers going off.

Fisher nailed the lap seven restart, and Vergara passed Wheldon by forcing him deep at turn two. Another caution period came on lap eight though due to a car stopping, at which point Loiacono was into fourth. Aatola had got past Guiot, but dropped back behind before racing resumed on lap 11.

This time Escorpioni did the far better job returning to racing speeds and was alongside Fisher down the pit straight. However he could not get a move done at turn one, nor around the outside at The Keyhole, turn three or turn four where Vergara made it three-wide.

Fisher tried squeezing Escorpioni out at the exit but they remained side-by-side through the next three corners before Escorpioni finally got ahead.

Wheldon attempted overtaking Vergara at The Carousel, but went off exiting the final corner and fell to eighth.

Vergara demoted Fisher to third with relative ease on the inside of turn four on lap 12, and Fisher only fought back briefly before settling in behind. The top three ran closely in the last laps, but Escorpioni had pace in hand to finish 0.7921s clear. His closest title rival Wheldon recovered two places to come home sixth.

Race results (20 laps)