All three of the Mazda Road to Indy stepladder series are in action on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course this weekend. Each series will run two races in support of the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis for the Verizon IndyCar Series.
Urrutia keeps on fast pace in Indy Lights
Santiago Urrutia’s sudden positive uptick continued Thursday as he set the fastest lap of the day in Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires practice on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
The Schmidt Peterson Motorsports with Curb-Agajanian driver clicked off a lap of 1 minute, 15.997 seconds (115.567 mph) in the first of two practice sessions. It was 0.1256 of a second ahead of series points leader Ed Jones of Carlin.
The afternoon session was shortened by heavy rain, so all 16 drivers’ fast times from the first session held up.
“Today, our plan was to concentrate on race setup, but then it started raining so we didn't get to do that,” Urrutia said. “Either way, the car is ready for tomorrow and we're going for the win. I think we have the pace and the car, so it's going to be all right."
Urrutia’s teammate RC Enerson was third quickest and was followed by Felix Rosenqvist and Kyle Kaiser.
Indy Lights will conduct qualifying and the first of two weekend races on Friday.
Team Pelfrey continues Pro Mazda dominance
Team Pelfrey’s early season dominance continued as Aaron Telitz topped the charts in both sessions of practice for the Pro Mazda Championship presented by Cooper Tires. Telitz was clocked at 1 minute, 23.671 seconds during the morning session and nearly replicated that pace in the afternoon with a lap of 1:24.432.
“We rolled off the trailer with a great baseline, so that’s obviously good,” said Telitz. “Over the course of the day, we made a few small changes. Just rubbing on the setup that we had in order to make the car better.”
Series points leader Pato O’Ward, also from Team Pelfrey, logged the second-fastest lap overall at 1:23.778. He was nearly a tenth of a second quicker than Juncos Racing’s Garrett Grist.
Pro Mazda runs races both Friday and Saturday.
Luo leads USF2000 practice
Pabst Racing’s Yufeng Luo paced the field during Thursday’s practice for the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda doubleheader weekend.
Luo set the quick lap of 1 minute, 26.825 seconds during the cooler practice session held in the morning. Luo feels that a good run is in store for him this weekend, given how well he ran at the IMS road course last year.
“The Pabst cars are real good, as it shows last year we were real good, I was P4 the entire time,” he said. “This year as a second-year driver, I’m more familiar with the track and such. We’ve just put it together really well.”
Second quick on the day was Luke Gabin at JAY Motorsports, followed by Barber Motorsports Park winner Parker Thompson from Cape Motorsports with Wayne Taylor Racing.
The first of the two USF2000 races this weekend is set for Friday.