Papasavvas earns his first USF2000 win as Johnson goes on charge

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Jay Howard Driver Development’s Evagoras Papasavvas earned his first USF2000 win in the Friday race at Mid-Ohio.

Papasavvas was fastest in qualifying earlier in the day but got a two-place grid penalty, putting Simon Sikes on pole ahead of Ethan Ho.

However Papasavvas was able to pass both on the opening lap and was half a second clear when the pace car was called on lap two after Avery Towns went off at The Keyhole.

Racing resumed on lap five and Sikes tried to regain the lead as Mac Clark tried to pass Hughes for third. Neither succeeded, and then there was another caution period as Jacob Douglas crashed into Elliot Cox and spun arond Max Garcia at turn six.

Douglas and Cox went into the gravel, and therefore retirement, while Garcia was able to get going again at the back of the field and even stayed on the lead lap despite making multiple trips to the pits like Towns.

The next restart was on lap 10 of 20, and Clark made his move on Hughes. The pair kept with the top two, who were never more than half a second apart and split by less than 0.3s for several laps late on Sikes really piled on the pressure.

On the last lap he went for the lead around the outside of turn four and got ahead, but they banged wheels and he also had a compromised line for turn five which meant Papasavvas had the inside line and the lead once more at turn six.

Papasavvas hugged the inside line through the remaining corners to hold on for his maiden win, with the top four covered by less than a second and Sikes taking the points lead from Hughes.

A remarkable fifth was Nikita Johnson, who qualified sixth but had an opening lap off that dropped him to 20th. He made it up to 17th before the first caution period, but then lost a spot. On the second restart he jumped several places to 11th, then picked off a driver almost every lap with his final victim being Ethan Ho. His fastest lap was coniderably quicker than anybody else’s.

Chase Gardner was set for seventh but dropped to 10th on the last lap, while debutant Thomas Schrage (who missed qualifying) went from 22nd to 15th on lap one, gained three spots on the first restart and went on to finish 13th.

Race result (20 laps)