Photo: Carlos Prieto Photo
The opening round of the YACademy Winter Series for USF Juniors cars took place at Homestead-Miami Speedway last weekend.
Four practice sessions took place on Friday, with two more on Saturday followed by qualifying and race one. The second and third races filled Sunday’s schedule.
Velocity Racing Development’s Oliver Wheldon moved to the top of the times in FP6, setting a 1m22.957s to beat team-mate Joao Vergara’s FP5 benchmark by 0.239 seconds.
Andretti Global junior Wheldon had also been quickest in FP3, by just 0.001s over DEForce Racing’s Rodrigo Gonzalez and 0.054s over VRD team-mate Matan Achituv, but did not lower the pace in that session.
Connor Aspley, driving for new team Pole Position Motorsports, was 0.395s behind Wheldon in third overall and close to his pace were Zanella Racing’s Ty Fisher and Leonardo Escorpioni, who topped FP1.
Exclusive Autosport’s Evan Cooley topped FP2 and FP4, but his personal best lap came in FP2 and he was sixth fastest overall. Half a second covered the top eight, and 17 drivers were within a second of Wheldon.
Qualifying was split into two segments, and in Q1 the driver to beat was Aspley. He set a 1m23.043s, to be fastest by half a second. Wheldon was second, pipping Vergara by 0.02s and Cooley by 0.062s. Escorpioni, Exclusive’s Kaylee Countryman and International Motorsport duo Emma Scarborough and Hudson Potter also progressed to Q2.
The pole shootout was shorter, and Vergara handled the pressure best. He took pole with a 1m23.864s, and on his last lap Aspley went second fastest with a 1m24.143s.
Cooley was 0.011s slower than that, with Wheldon trailing by a further 0.017s and Scarborough qualifying 0.334s off pole in fifth. Potter beat Countryman to sixth by 0.01s, and Escorpioni only got one lap in at an unrepresentative pace.
Fisher failed to make Q2, yet won race one. He remained outside the top eight through the first third of the race, and was only sixth two thirds of the way through. But progress came easier after that, helped by Vergara going off and dropping down the field.
The last two drivers to get past were Escorpioni and Cooley, and he snuck by both in a photo finish. Escorpioni lost out by 0.025s, and Cooley was 0.132s behind.
Vergara finished fifth in another photo finish further back, and had redemption in the reversed-grid race two. Escorpioni led the way from pole at first, chased by Scarborough and Cooley, then a mid-race caution period bunched the field up. Profiting most from that was Vergara, who took the lead with three laps to go and held off Wheldon and Escorpioni in yet another photo finish.
Race three was interrupted by a lengthy red flag periods. Aspley caused the first stoppage. There was a multi-car crash on the restart, so red flags waved again. Eventually racing restarted, and Fisher darted past Wheldon into the lead.
On the final lap, the lead group were five-wide on the run to the line. Cooley triumphed by 0.001s, Wheldon was 0.018s behind and Fisher was just 0.041s off victory.
Results round-up
Race 1 (18 laps)
1 Ty Fisher Zanella Racing 25m37.405s
2 Leonardo Escorpioni Zanella Racing +0.025s
3 Evan Cooley Exclusive Autosport +0.132s
4 Patricio Gonzalez DEForce Racing +6.119s
5 Joao Vergara VRD +6.160s
6 Matan Achituv VRD +6.169s
7 Hudson Potter International Motorsport +7.818s
8 Vilho Aatola JHDD +11.639s
9 Rodrigo Gonzalez DEForce Racing +11.644s
10 Justin Di Lucia JHDD +11.678s
Pole: Vergara, 1m23.864s
Fastest lap: R Gonzalez, 1m23.689s
Race 2 (18 laps)
1 Vergara 34m56.015s
2 Oliver Wheldon VRD +0.037s
3 Escorpioni +0.763s
4 E Cooley +3.746s
5 Brendan Cooley Exclusive Autosport +4.444s
6 P Gonzalez +5.405s
7 Achituv +7.032s
8 Fisher +7.038s
9 Cooper Shipman VRD +8.029s
10 Diego Guiot Zanella Racing +8.041s
FL: Fisher, 1m23.585s
Race 3 (18 laps)
1 E Cooley 48m08.046s
2 Vergara +0.001s
3 Wheldon +0.018s
4 Fisher +0.041s
5 Escorpioni +0.058s
6 B Cooley +0.272s
7 P Gonzalez +2.518s
8 Emma Scarborough International Motorsport +2.534s
9 Achituv +2.795s
10 Atola +4.636s
FL: Achituv, 1m23.772s
Championship standings
1 Vergara 22 2 E Cooley 21 3 Escorpioni 17 4 Fisher 15 5 Wheldon 13 6 P Gonzalez 9 7 B Cooley 6 8 Achituv 4 9 Potter 2 10 Aatola 1