Reigning USF2000 champion Braden Eves was the only driver to turn a lap of the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street circuit in the 68-second range, a full half-second quicker than any other drivers. Behind Eves, it was that same half-second that covered the next eight drivers.

Drivers representing four different teams made up the top-four spots, with Kory Enders (DEForce Racing), Sting Ray Robb (Juncos Racing), and Lucas Petersson (RP Motorsport) and Parker Thompson (DEForce Racing) rounding out the top five.

The 14 Indy Pro 2000 Championship Presented by Cooper Tires drivers were the second series to take to the track.

The session was only 150 seconds old when the red flag came out for an incident involving Artem Petrov in Turn 4. Drivers had only been able to complete a single lap.

Petrov was able to get back on track completing 14-laps, which was the 6th fastest lap of the session.

The green flag came back out five-minutes later with 23-minutes remaining, and the track was immediately busy with the drivers heading back out on-track.

Braden Eves was the quickest driver at the half-way point of the lone practice session for the middle rung of the Road To Indy Presented by Cooper Tires with a lap timed at 69.225 seconds. He was followed closely by Thompson, Enders, Denes, and de la Vara in the top five.

With just under 10-minutes remaining, the red flag came out for the second time. This time it was de la Vara and the No. 6 DEForce Racing PM-18 that had an issue.

At that time, it was Eves, with a lap of 69.116 seconds that was on top of the timing screens. He was followed by Thompson, Denes, Enders, and Sulaiman rounding out the top five. The first 12 drivers were all within two-seconds of Eves.

The green flag came back out with only four-and-half minutes remaining, and a dozen cars were quickly back on track. Veteran Robb was the first driver to improve on his lap time, but it didn’t take long for the timing screen to light up green as drivers improved on their lap times.

The first driver to turn a sub-69 second lap was Eves, who accomplished that on his 14th lap of the session, the Meyer-Shank Racing affiliated driver was able to go faster on his next and last lap of the session.

The Indy Pro 2000 drivers will be back on track at 1:25 pm for their lone qualifying session of the event.

Indy Pro 2000 Grand Prix of St. Petersburg Presented By Cooper Tires/Allied Building Products.

RANK CAR NO. DRIVER TEAM QUICK LAP DIFFERENCE TOTAL LAPS
1 1 Braden Eves Exclusive Autosport 1:08.599 –.—- 15
2 7 Kory Enders DEForce Racing 1:09.182 0.5835 18
3 2 Sting Ray Robb Juncos Racing 1:09.236 0.6378 15
4 4 Lucas Petersson RP Motorsport USA 1:09.283 0.6846 16
5 9 Parker Thompson DEForce Racing 1:09.307 0.7085 17
6 42 Artem Petrov Juncos Racing 1:09.580 0.9817 14
7 8 Manuel Sulaiman DEForce Racing 1:09.638 1.0397 17
8 19 Colin Kaminsky Pabst Racing 1:09.671 1.0724 15
9 5 Phillippe Denes RP Motorsport USA 1:09.712 1.1129 16
10 37 Sabre Cook BN Racing with Team Benik 1:09.944 1.3453 17
11 3 Lucas Kohl Turn 3 Motorsport 1:10.019 1.4199 15
12 6 Moises de la Vara DEForce Racing 1:10.679 2.0802 11
13 18 Hunter McElrea Pabst Racing 1:11.121 2.5221 15
14 83 Charles Finelli FatBoy Racing No Time