At exactly 9am the heavy South Florida air was filled with the buzz of Mazda MZR 2.0L power plants powering a swarm of brand new Tatuus USF-17s that took to the 2.21-mile, 14-turn Homestead-Miami Speedway road course.

One of the big question marks entering the first season of USF-17 competition is which team will have the early advantage in developing the new car. For the past five years, the series has been dominated by drivers from the Cape Motorsports stable, and it was a rookie driver from their two car effort that led the first official 2017 USF2000 session.

MRTI $200K Scholarship Shootout winner and Team USA Scholarship winner Oliver Askew and his No. 3 Cape Motorsports Mazda/Tatuus turned the quickest lap of the session at 1:24.8257. Askew has not officially signed as of today, but TSO fully expects to see Askew’s Soul Red machine in the St. Petersburg, Florida based team’s stable.

It was two other unsigned drivers, Kaylen Frederick (Team Pelfrey) and Rinus Van Kalmthout (Newman Wachs Racing) that fell second and third on the time sheet, and Frederick’s Team Pelfrey teammates Ayla Agren and Robert Megennis who rounded out the top five.

Five different teams were represented among the top seven lap times, with Pabst Racing and Exclusive Autosport joining Cape Motorsports, Team Pelfrey and Newman Wachs Racing.

The majority of the session was led by the 16 year-old Van Kalmthout, but when the teams went to fresh rubber in the final fifteen minutes of the session, he fell down the time sheet.

The entire one hour session ran clean and green and the 21 drivers representing 10 different teams turned a total of 487 laps with Van Kalmthout’s 30 circuits representing the most laps turned.

Complete USF2000 time sheet:

RANK CAR NO. DRIVER TEAM QUICKEST LAP GAP TOTAL LAPS
1 3 Oliver Askew Cape Motorsports 1:24.826 0.000 22
2 81 Kaylen Frederick Team Pelfrey 1:25.095 0.2689 26
3 38 Rinus VeeKay Newman Wachs Racing 1:25.172 0.3464 30
4 82 Ayla Agren Team Pelfrey 1:25.203 0.3770 27
5 80 Robert Megennis Team Pelfrey 1:25.236 0.4098 25
6 22 Calvin Ming Pabst Racing 1:25.240 0.4140 31
7 90 Parker Thompson Exclusive Autosport 1:25.937 1.1117 12
8 23 Lucas Kohl Pabst Racing 1:26.020 1.1945 27
9 37 Andre Castro Newman Wachs Racing 1:26.130 1.3044 22
10 2 Ricky Donison Cape Motorsports 1:26.385 1.5593 24
11 36 Dakota Dickerson Newman Wachs Racing 1:26.462 1.6363 26
12 31 Kyle Kirkwood Benik 1:26.573 1.7476 22
13 34 Kris Wright John Cummiskey Racing 1:27.023 2.1975 27
14 12 Moises de la Vara DEForce Racing 1:27.181 2.3552 25
15 20 Chandler Horton RJB Motorsports 1:27.638 2.8125 21
16 11 Kory Enders DEForce Racing 1:27.668 2.8428 22
17 91 Luke Gabin Exclusive Autosport 1:27.719 2.8933 16
18 9 Victor Franzoni ArmsUp Motorsports 1:28.579 3.7534 27
19 92 Dev Gore Exclusive Autosport 1:29.606 4.7799 12
20 8 Bruna Tomaselli ArmsUp Motorsports 1:30.180 5.3538 23
21 7 Devin Wojcik ArmsUp Motorsports 1:30.476 5.6506 20

Newly signed Team Pelfrey Pro Mazda presented by Cooper Tire driver Nikita Lastochkin led the seven Pro Mazda drivers who completed a total of 182 laps in the one-hour session that ran green the entire time.

Complete Pro Mazda time sheet:

RANK CAR NO. DRIVER TEAM QUICKEST LAP GAP TOTAL LAPS
1 80 Nikita Lastochkin Team Pelfrey 1:24.471 0.000 29
2 8 Anthony Martin Cape Motorsports 1:24.652 0.1813 31
3 82 TJ Fischer Team Pelfrey 1:24.924 0.4535 31
4 13 Bobby Eberle World Speed Motorsports 1:26.332 1.8613 29
5 14 Sting Ray Robb World Sport Motorsports 1:26.817 2.3456 23
6 81 Carlos Cunha Team Pelfrey 1:27.570 3.0994 11
7 5 Jeff Green Green Racing 1:31.279 6.8084 28

The schedule for the remainder of the day is:

  • 12:15pm – 1:15pm — Cooper Tires USF2000 Powered by Mazda test session #2
  • 1:30pm – 2:30pm — Pro Mazda presented by Cooper Tire test session #2
  • 2:45pm – 3:45pm — Cooper Tires USF2000 Powered by Mazda test session #3
  • 4pm – 5:15pm — Pro Mazda presented by Cooper Tire test session #3