Photo: Gavin Baker Photography
IndyCar’s lower level support series are looking competitive again this year, and there are established and new names to keep an eye on. Here’s 10 drivers in USFP2000, USF2000 and USF Juniors who should shine
USF Pro 2000
Four drivers from last year’s grid have headed up to Indy Nxt for 2025, and a week before the season began it looked like the highest placed returnee would be Jorge Garciarce. He came 10th in the 2024 standings with one top-five finish.
That all changed last Saturday as Jace Denmark got a late deal done with TJ Speed. The 20-year-old joins the Australian team after four years at Pabst Racing, and following a failed attempt to step up to Indy Nxt for this year.
Denmark came 11th and third in his two USF2000 campaigns with Pabst, winning four races and claiming six poles, then was seventh and third in his two USF Pro 2000 seasons with them. Three podiums and a pole were the highlights of his rookie year, then last season he was on the podium nine times but failed to win.
While outpaced by the championship’s top two, he was also clear of the rest of the field so should be a title contender with a team that is becoming ever more competitive. On off-weekends he will also shadow an Indy Nxt team to boost his learning.
Garciarce’s place in last year’s top 10 came at the expense of DEForce Racing team-mate Mac Clark, who missed a round. While it was an underwhelming 2024 for the Canadian, he can be considered a 2025 title favourite with Exclusive Autosport.
Clark was a dominant Formula 1600 champion back in 2020, was United States Formula 4 runner-up in 2021 and had momentum behind him until last year. The 20-year-old also had a knack of starting very strongly prior to 2024 as he won or claimed a pole position on his debut weekends in USF Juniors, USF2000, Formula Regional Americas and USFP2000.
Mac Clark
His victorious first FRegional outing in 2022 didn’t turn into a title attack, but it did in USF Juniors as he stormed to the title with DEForce. At the end of the season the team handed him a chance to race in USF2000, and he won on his second start.
That also proved representative, as when he stepped up to the series full-time in 2023 he took two wins, four other podiums and two poles. But after a disastrous opening weekend left him 17th in the points, he could only climb to fifth in the standings, less than a win’s worth of points away from the championship runner-up spot.
Again, DEForce provided the opportunity for an experience-building cameo, and Clark made his USFP2000 debut at Circuit of the Americas. He claimed pole at his first attempt, and set the fastest lap in both races which he came second and third in.
Expectations of what was possible for 2024 were not met. There were five top-five finishes, but no podiums, and being one of the stronger qualifiers was countered by his finishing record including a weekend at IMS that featured three retirements. The paddock knows what Clark’s capable of, and will be expecting him to show that level of competitivity in 2025.
Max Garcia [pictured below] has had a considerably shorter single-seater career since he is only 15, but it’s been productive. Pabst Racing signed him when he was 13 to race in USF2000, but he could not make his debut until round two of the 2023 season when he finally met age requirements. He picked up two podiums and came ninth in the standings, just behind Garciarce, and remained in the series and with Pabst for 2024.
The outcome of that decision was going unbeaten in the first three races, taking another two wins later in the year and seven poles to romp to the title by 73 points despite only converting two of his poles into wins and being off the podium in eight out of 18 races. As he steps up to USFP2000 with Pabst, there are clear areas where Garcia needs to improve on track.
The most intruiging prospect to watch this year will be Max Taylor, another driver whose career has been closely aligned to one team. The 17-year-old has raced for Velocity Racing Development in USF Juniors, US F4 and USF2000, and its partner team Arden in GB3, and his recent success has led to an ambitious programme that means he takes two steps up this year.
Max Taylor
As a single-seater rookie two years ago, Taylor came sixth in USF Juniors and 18th in USF2000 in a half-season. He doubled up again in 2024, and became USF Juniors champion with three wins and was third in USF2000 with four victories. The increased downforce of the latter’s car suited him more, and that could make him even more competitive in USFP2000.
He remains with VRD for that move, but is also going to be racing further up the ladder in Indy Nxt with HMD Motorsports. Taylor has signed to contest five rounds, and you can read more about his career plans on Formula Scout very soon.
USF2000
Nobody who came in the top 10 of last year’s championship is confirmed to return this year, and the highest-placed returnees are two part-timers. It is the second of those, Thomas Schrage, who looks more likely to shine this year.
The 20-year-old has plenty of experience but not in winged cars. He first came under the spotlight in 2022 when he won the F1600 Championship Series at home then also starred in the UK as a Team USA scholar. He took pole on debut in Castle Combe FF1600, was fourth in the Formula Ford Festival and 17th in the even more competitive Walter Hayes Trophy.
Schrage has just over a season’s worth of USF2000 experience, with two outings in 2023 that peaked with a fourth place and an incomplete 2024 campaign split between Exclusive Autosport and VRD. Once he joined the latter his form improved, taking three poles, two podiums and two fastest laps to complete a rise from 19th to 12th in the standings. Taking just the three rounds he did with VRD, which he continues with for 2025, Schrage was the seventh-highest scoring driver.
G3 Argyros got stronger over the course of his first year in cars, starting 2024 in the YACademy Winter Series with one podium, picking up three in USF Juniors and then ending his year with a USF2000 victory. The 15-year-old learned with the support of JHDD, but a statement of his title ambitions this year is his switch to serial title winners Pabst.
Liam McNeilly
Competing for the best USF2000 cameos of 2024, and possibly for wins all season in 2025 are Evan Cooley and Liam McNeilly. Cooley, 18, drove for Exclusive at IMS and was rapid, starting on pole for both races and setting the fastest lap in them too. But he met the chequered flag in third and 15th. He appeared again in Toronto and took a fourth place finish.
McNeilly was also on track that weekend with JHDD, and in race two he started on pole and finished second. The pair continue with their 2024 teams for this season after also battling each other in USF Juniors last year.
A triple win in the final round left McNeilly just five points short of the title, an impressive feat for a 18-year-old Briton who was a newcomer to the US racing scene. The first of his five poles came on debut, and he also claimed two podiums when he returned to GB4 for a cameo outing. He had come third in the F4 series in 2023.
Cooley arrived in USF Juniors after previously racing Radical sportscars, and he came 13th in the points with three top-five finishes. Had he not missed a round, he would certainly have been in the championship’s top 10, and he has come third and second in the past two seasons of the YACademy Winter Series for USF Juniors cars.
USF Juniors
Pipping Cooley to the 2025 YACademy title by one point a week ago was 15-year-old Brazilian Leonardo Escorpioni. He had an up-and-down karting career before switching to cars at the start of 2024 via YACademy, where he claimed a win and one other podium from the two-round series en route to fourth in the points.
The Zanella Racing driver found it tougher in USF Juniors but was competitive, making the podium once and having a strong weekend at Road America. He came ninth in the standings, and got two podiums in a Ligier JS F4 Series cameo at COTA.
To win the six-race 2025 YACademy season, he took one race victory, a second place and twice finished third.
Photo: YACademy Winter Series
Just ahead of him in USF Juniors last year was countryman Joao Vergara, who was driving for Exclusive and has switched to VRD for 2025. The 17-year-old was runner-up in Lucas Oil School of Racing’s Formula Car Race Series in 2023, and was fifth in the 2024 YACademy season.
Consistency was the name of the game for him in USF Juniors. He finished every race, was in the top 10 for more than half of them and was very close to taking seventh in the standings, yet only twice finished higher than seventh and had an average race position of 10.88. He proved he has pace, and is working well with VRD, in the 2025 YACademy season as he put his car on pole in round one and came fourth in the standings with a win and two second places, four points shy of Escorpioni.