MRTI Update #6 – Saturday – Kaylen Frederick grabs his first career USF2000 pole and goes a full second under the track record

By Steve Wittich

A chaotic final five minutes of USF2000 qualifying ended with series sophomore Kaylen Frederick’s first pole and a new track record of 70.770. It is also the first Toronto pole for Pabst Racing.

Joining Frederick on the front row with his best start of the year is Mazda Road to Indy USF2000 $200K Scholarship winner Keith Donegan.

Rasmus Lindh, who ended up in the tires at the exit of the tricky Turn 8 on his final flying lap, had the third quickest lap time.

Starting outside of Lindh is the pole sitter for today’s race, Dakota Dickerson.

Points leader Kyle Kirkwood will start fifth, making this the first USF2000 event on the 1.786-mile, 11-turn Exhibition Place street circuit that a Cape Motorsports pilot will not start on pole.

Qualifying for Sunday’s Cooper Tires USF2000 Grand Prix of Toronto Presented by Allied Building Products Race #2 served as a wake-up call for the residents of Liberty Village.

On his first flying lap, DEForce Racing’s Jose Sierra made contact with the right side of his No. 12 in the Turn 9-10-11 complex. The Mexican driver was able to limp his car to an out of the way spot, keeping the track green, but will start 18th on Sunday.

At the halfway point of the 20-minute session, the top ten were: Rasmus Lindh, Kaylen Frederick, Kyle Kirkwood, Dakota Dickerson, Igor Fraga, Keith Donegan, Darren Keane, Lucas Kohl, Kory Enders, and Julian Van der Watt.

With five minutes remaining, Pabst Racing rookie Lindh held the provisional pole with a lap of 71.2700 seconds, surpassing Rinus VeeKay’s 2017 track record and improved his provisional pole on his next two laps.

Dickerson, Kirkwood, Donegan, and Frederick all made runs at Lindh, but it was Donegan who moved to the top of the timesheet just before time expired.

When Frederick crossed the timing lap for his final lap, the timing screen showed the American pipped the Irish rookie by eight-thousandths of a second.

Donegan was on his last lap flyer but was forced to bail out when he came across the yellow flags preceding Turn 8 for Lindh’s incident.

Cooper Tires USF2000 Grand Prix of Toronto Presented by Allied Building Products Race #2 Unofficial Qualifying Results

The first race for the bottom rung of the Mazda Road To Indy Presented by Cooper Tires rolls off at 11:45 AM this morning.