Photo: Gavin Baker Photography/Road to Indy
Jagger Jones just edged the debuting Alex Quinn and Thomas Nepveu to take pole for the first USF2000 race of the weekend on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course.
The sole qualifying session was split into two by a red flag stoppage caused by Jay Howard Driver Development’s Jorge Garciarce, and it was Legacy Autosport’s Simon Sikes who was on top after the first flying laps.
He was edged by Jones and then Cape Motorsports’ Michael d’Orlando, with Thomas Nepveu and Nicky Hays slotting into third and fourth in the opening five minutes.
Pabst Racing’s Jace Denmark was next to go the top by becoming the first driver to lap in the 1m25s and just pipping an improving d’Orlando, then Velocity Racing Development’s Quinn showed his ominous free practice pace by sneaking in a 1m25.7735s lap to go fastest before red flags came out.
There was a break of five minutes before qualifying restarted, and another four minutes before improvements were posted as Pabst’s championship leader Myles Rowe rose to third. He was quickly knocked back down the order as Jones set a 1m24.4479s to go fastest ahead of Nepveu, d’Orlando, Quinn and Bijoy Garg.
Jones got even faster after, meaning when Quinn posted a 1m25.4910s with a minute to go he was still on provisional pole by 0.0656 seconds.
Nepveu couldn’t find any more laptime with his final effort and so Jones was guaranteed pole and with the top three covered by less than a tenth of a second. The top 20 were within a second, with JHDD’s Danny Dyszelski the last of those cars. In addition to Garciarce’s issue, his other team-mate Yeoroo Lee spun at turn one shortly after the restart.
An impressive 11th was the camoeing Chase Gardner, who is debuting with DEForce Racing this weekend then doing a test-only programme ahead of a planned campaign in 2023, and two positions ahead of him was fellow first-timer Joey Brienza.
The fastest laps from qualifying set the grid for race one, while drivers second-best laps will be used to set the race two grid unless they set a faster lap during the opening race. The same applies for setting the race three grid.
Qualifying results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jagger Jones | Cape Motorsports | 1m25.4254s | 13 | |
| 2 | Alex Quinn | Velocity Racing Development | 1m25.4910s | +0.0656s | 12 |
| 3 | Thomas Nepveu | DEForce Racing | 1m25.5169s | +0.0915s | 13 |
| 4 | Jace Denmark | Pabst Racing | 1m25.5500s | +0.1246s | 13 |
| 5 | Michael d’Orlando | Cape Motorsports | 1m25.6898s | +0.2644s | 13 |
| 6 | Bijoy Garg | DEForce Racing | 1m25.8164s | +0.3910s | 12 |
| 7 | Myles Rowe | Pabst Racing | 1m25.8174s | +0.3920s | 13 |
| 8 | Simon Sikes | Legacy Autosport | 1m25.8652s | +0.4398s | 10 |
| 9 | Joey Brienza | Exclusive Autosport | 1m25.9057s | +0.4803s | 12 |
| 10 | Billy Frazer | Exclusive Autosport | 1m25.9945s | +0.5691s | 13 |
| 11 | Chase Gardner | DEForce Racing | 1m26.0771s | +0.6517s | 12 |
| 12 | Jackson Lee | Cape Motorsports | 1m26.0838s | +0.6584s | 13 |
| 13 | Spike Kohlbecker | Turn 3 w/ Ignite Autosport | 1m26.1216s | +0.6962s | 11 |
| 14 | Christian Weir | Turn 3 Motorsport | 1m26.1368s | +0.7144s | 11 |
| 15 | Dylan Christie | DEForce Racing | 1m26.1560s | +0.7306s | 13 |
| 16 | Trey Burke | Joe Dooling Autosports | 1m26.1715s | +0.7461s | 12 |
| 17 | Viktor Andersson | Velocity Racing Development | 1m26.2077s | +0.7823s | 9 |
| 18 | Nicky Hays | Cape Motorsports | 1m26.2253s | +0.7999s | 13 |
| 19 | Jacob Douglas | Exclusive Autosport | 1m26.2816s | +0.8562s | 12 |
| 20 | Danny Dyszelski | JHDD | 1m26.3871s | +0.9617s | 12 |
| 21 | Frank Mossman | JHDD | 1m26.8917s | +1.4663s | 12 |
| 22 | Yeoroo Lee | JHDD | 1m27.2405s | +1.8151s | 5 |
| 23 | Jorge Garciarce | JHDD | 1m28.4680s | +3.0426s | 3 |