Photo: Gavin Baker Photography
Pabst Racing’s Max Garcia claimed a double pole position for the USF Pro 2000 races at Mid-Ohio.
The championship leader was comfortably clear of Ariel Elkin and Alessandro de Tullio.
Garcia started the Mid-Ohio weekend by topping the times in the first Thursday test. He was the only driver to go quicker than 1m18s in the session, but there was plenty of time to be found.
USFP2000’s latest winner Max Taylor proved that to be the case by topping the second practice session. It was a much closer session, with just 0.0109s separating Taylor and de Tullio, while Garcia was almost 0.9s back in fourth.
Pabst Racing driver Garcia bounced back to top Friday practice. He set the pace early in the session and, despite being briefly supplanted by Mac Clark, ended the session on top too. He had now lowered the benchmark to 1m16.9113s, becoming the only driver to enter the 1m16s range.
His strong performance continued into qualifying. After the first set of laps, Garcia was quickest ahead of de Tullio and Clark.
He continued to improve on his best lap throughout qualifying. It wouldn’t be until the closing stages of the session that he improved on his practice time, however. A lap of 1m16.8023s put him 0.4255s clear of the next fastest driver. His second quickest lap time was also faster than anything anybody else managed during the session.
A last lap improvement from TJ Speed Motorsports’ Ariel Elkin knocked de Tullio off the front row of the grid, and bumped Clark back to fourth. Clark’s second fastest lap time was second quickest.
It was a relatively clean session, although George Garciarce ran into problems after just two laps. The DEForce Racing-run driver came to a stop on a strip of tarmac in the middle of the track, having pulled off somewhere between turns three and four. The car was clear of the track and the session resumed without any stoppage.
Cooper Becklin managed fifth quickest over all ahead of Jacob Douglas, who was running at the sharp end of the field early in the session. Taylor took seventh as Nicholas Monteiro, Joey Brienza and Frankie Mossman completed the top 10.
Jay Howard Driver Development’s line-up featured the debuting Nick Gilkes, who will also drive for the team in Toronto. The 20-year-old Canadian came 14th in GB3 with one win in 2022, then spent the last two years racing in Eurocup-3 with a best finish of fifth.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Max Garcia Pabst Racing 1m16.8023s
2 Ariel Elkin TJ Speed +0.476s
3 Alessandro de Tullio Turn 3 Motorsport +0.507s
4 Mac Clark Exclusive Autosport +0.529s
5 Cooper Becklin Turn 3 Motorsport +0.565s
6 Jacob Douglas Pabst Racing +0.618s
7 Max Taylor VRD Racing +0.656s
8 Nicholas Monteiro Turn 3 Motorsport +0.678s
9 Joey Brienza Exclusive Autosport +0.815s
10 Frankie Mossman VRD Racing +0.823s
Race 2 grid
1 Garcia 1m17.0150s
2 Clark +0.399s
3 Becklin +0.471s
4 Elkin +0.488s
5 de Tullio +0.503s
6 Mossman +0.637s
7 Brienza +0.685s
8 Douglas +0.692s
9 Monteiro +0.702s
10 Taylor +0.726s