St. Petersburg Grand Prix ProMazda Race #1 Results and Notes

By Patrick Stephan (TSO_Patrick)

The first race of the final season for this ProMazda hardware got started just a bit late, as we’ve been fighting to stay on schedule all weekend.

The field led by Anthony Martin went cleanly through Turn 1, and by the end of the first lap, Martin was leading Franzoni half a second, with TJ Fischer in third, followed by Carlos Cunha and Nikita Lastochkin.

Unlike the USF2000 race, this one would stay pretty stable for the early running and we had the same Top-5 through the first half of the race. Martin and Franzoni were able to get out to a big gap on third place who was 7 seconds behind the front duo.

First and second were tight though, as Franzoni was just 0.6 back of Martin on that same lap.

A pair of Team Pelfrey cars, Fischer and Cunha in third and fourth were themselves quite close, with Cunha taking several “looks” to get on the podium, but so far that spot was still Fischer’s.

Lap 19 and Martin has opened up his biggest lead as he’s now 1.7 seconds behind Martin. The gap shrinks to 1.2 on Lap 20.

With Franzoni close on the final lap, the duo caught Matt Machiko as they approached the final corners. Martin handled it very well and went around the outside of Machiko through Turn 14. That let him keep his lead, and he beat Franzoni to the line by half a second. Cunha was also unable to get by his teammate for the third spot, keeping TJ Fischer on the podium.

Ok, back with more a bit later. This one wasn’t quite as exciting as the USF2000 race, but hey, that happens. Franzoni likely needed a mistake to take this one today, and he pushed Martin quite a bit, but no mistakes were made, giving the Australian Martin the first win of the season.