With their reputation as track “dew sweepers” and with a 7:30am Friday morning practice in St. Petersburg, an 8am test session is good practice for the Cooper Tires USF2000 Powered by Mazda field.

Maybe he’s still on Australian time, but the early start certainly didn’t slow down reigning USF2000 rookie of the year Anthony Martin (Cape Motorsports with /WTR) who’s lap at 1:23.843 was the quickest of the morning. Team Pelfrey rookie James Munro, who had the second quickest time, was the only rookie in the top five. He was joined by Parker Thompson (Cape Motorsports with /WTR), Ayla Agren (John Cummiskey Racing) and Garth Rickards (Pabst Racing).

Unfortunately, it was only a few minutes into the session when Rickards spun in Turn 2. The Pabst Racing sophomore required help getting his No. 22 extracted from the gravel causing a ten minute delay to recover his car and clean the track of gravel. The early off-track excursion certainly didn’t hurt Rickards, who ended up with the 5th quickest time of the session.

Complete Cooper Tires USF2000 Powered by Mazda time-sheet:

P No Name FTime Diff
1 8 Anthony Martin 1:23.843 0.000
2 83 James Munro 1:23.862 0.0185
3 2 Parker Thompson 1:23.926 0.0828
4 33 Ayla Agren 1:23.956 0.1130
5 22 Garth Rickards 1:24.109 0.2655
6 3 Nikita Lastochkin 1:24.267 0.4236
7 82 TJ Fischer 1:24.301 0.4577
8 80 Robert Megennis 1:24.397 0.5538
9 21 Jordan Lloyd 1:24.479 0.6358
10 34 Lucas Kohl 1:24.563 0.7204
11 92 Cameron Das 1:24.953 1.1103
12 81 Jordan Cane 1:25.215 1.3721
13 72 Tazio Ottis 1:25.345 1.5016
14 23 Yufeng Luo 1:25.373 1.5295
15 18 Dakota Dickerson 1:25.459 1.6155
16 19 Michai Stephens 1:25.831 1.9877
17 20 Clint McMahan 1:26.064 2.2210
18 17 Felipe Ortiz 1:27.483 3.6398

For the third of four Pro Mazda presented by Cooper Tire sessions, it was the trio of Team Pelfrey drivers that led the way. Aaron Telitz’s top lap of 1:20.722 was just ahead of his teammates Pato O’Ward and Weiron Tan. Juncos Racing rookie Nicolas Dapero and reigning USF2000 champion Nico Jamin, made up the remainder of the top five.

Complete Pro Mazda presented by Cooper Tire time-sheet:

P No Name FTime Diff
1 82 Aaron Telitz 1:20.722 0.000
2 80 Pato O’Ward 1:20.757 0.0348
3 81 Weiron Tan 1:21.004 0.2817
4 31 Nicolas Dapero 1:21.123 0.4008
5 2 Nico Jamin 1:21.186 0.4639
6 5 Garett Grist 1:21.238 0.5158
7 0 Jake Parsons 1:21.300 0.5781
8 23 Will Owen 1:21.523 0.8012
9 3 Jake Eidson 1:21.641 0.9194
10 19 Jorge Cevallos 1:22.485 1.7625
11 37 Jay Horak* 1:24.136 3.4144