Mazda Road to Indy arrives home

All three series in the Mazda Road to Indy will be racing as support races for the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis and all three have had very different paths to this point. Let’s take a brief review of all three championships.

Indy Lights

The Indy Lights championship has been a tale of two drivers. The start of the season was dominated by Carlin’s Ed Jones, as he won the first three races of the season at St. Petersburg and at Long Beach.

However, his points lead dissipated after the double header at Barber Motorsports Park as Spencer Pigot won both races while Jones could only muster a fourth and an 11th, giving Pigot the points lead by seven points.

Behind Pigot and Jones, 2014 series runner-up Jack Harvey has earned four second place finishes this season to land him third in points, just 20 behind Pigot.

Opening practice was paced by Jones with Harvey, Chilton, Pigot and Sean Rayhall rounding out the top five.

Pro Mazda

The Pro Mazda championship has had an interesting mix of winners in the five races it has held this season. Neil Alberico leads the points with three wins over Santiago Urrutia’s single win and the two have eight points between them.

Behind them, Pat O’Ward occupies the third spot while Weiron Tan is fourth over 2014 and USF2000 champion Florian Latorre is fifth.

O’Ward, Tan and Latorre are trying to climb back up in the standings after being involved in an accident at the second race in the season, and Tan’s comeback has been remarkable given that after St. Pete he was last in points.

Pro Mazda will be racing three times this weekend as they will be making up the race that was cancelled at NOLA Motorsports Park due to inclement weather.

The first Pro Mazda session was dominated by Juncos Racing as Timothe Buret, Will Owen and Jose Gutierrez were on top of the standings. Their teammate, Garett Grist, was fifth. Tan was fourth in the session.

USF2000

Four drivers have been fighting hard for the USF2000 points lead this season but that fight has been dropped to three after Barber Motorsports Park.

Jake Eidson leads the standings over teammates Nico Jamin and Aaron Telitz, the trio having won all but one race this season. Eidson has been the only driver to finish on the podium in every race this season, winning the two races at St. Petersburg and then finishing third in the four races after St. Pete.

Jamin, the 2015 USF2000 Winterfest champion, finished on the podium in every race except for the first round at Barber after he had an incident with Victor Franzoni. Franzoni, the other driver to have won in USF2000 this season before the aforementioned trio, will not be running at the Indianapolis rounds in USF2000 because his team was penalized for an infraction at Barber and will not be running in the next two races as punishment. Franzoni will be running the three Pro Mazda races this weekend instead.

Aaron Telitz, the winner at the first race at Barber, is third in points, just 21 behind Eidson. Telitz was the 2014 USF2000 rookie of the year and has started the season with three second place finishes.

The first USF2000 practice was paced by Jamin, with Eidson, Telitz, Yufeng Luo and Garth Rickards in the top five.