Christian Brooks was fastest in qualifying for USF2000 Race 1 from St. Pete. Photo credit: Gavin Baker Photography/Road to Indy

By Tony DiZinno

Exclusive Autosport teammates Christian Brooks and Matt Round-Garrido have locked out the front row for Saturday’s first Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship race of the weekend on the streets of St. Petersburg.

The pole is Brooks’ second of his career in his No. 44 Tatuus USF-17 – both at the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street course – and puts him in excellent position to break the series’ current run of four first-time winners in its last four races dating to the last time the series was at St. Petersburg in October. Brooks, Kiko Porto, Yuven Sundaramoorthy and Prescott Campbell have all secured debut wins in the last four events.

For this session, the two October 2020 winners, Porto and Brooks, were immediately within a tenth of each other on their first two flying laps at 1:12.8259 and 1:12.8489, respectively.

Brooks, the qualifying record holder at St. Pete, then jumped ahead on his third lap ahead of his Exclusive Autosport teammate Round-Garrido in the No. 92 car. Porto briefly fell to third. Both got faster as they continued to work in their sets of Cooper Tires, at 1:12.3460 and 1:12.4504 respectively on their fourth laps.

Just seven minutes into the session, the red flag flew again after it came out twice in practice. Barber race one polesitter and race winner Sundaramoorthy spun in Turn 1 in his No. 22 Pabst Racing entry. The University of Wisconsin – Madison freshman lost his best lap of the session for causing the red flag, but his second best lap was good enough for an inside third row start.

After the session restarted, Brooks lowered the mark to 1:12.1657 before Round-Garrido and Green slotted into second and third.

On his 11th lap, Brooks came within two hundredths of his own qualifying record from last year but came up just shy. His pole time today was 1:11.9887, just off his October time of 1:11.9662.

Round-Garrido came up 0.2924 of a second behind, with Michael d’Orlando third in the No. 4 Cape entry.

Similar to practice, veterans dominated the qualifying charts. Josh Green, Sundaramoorthy, Porto and Josh Pierson completed the top seven all within 0.4306 of a second before the first Florida freshman entered the grid. Billy Frazer, in Exclusive’s third of four cars, slotted in eighth and just 0.7246 off the pace. Myles Rowe in the Force Indy car and Campbell completed the top 10 in qualifying.

 

 

The series qualifies for Race 2 later this afternoon at 3:30 p.m. ET.

USF2000 Grand Prix of St. Petersburg presented by Andersen RacePark Race 1 Qualifying Results

P No Name Team FTime Diff Laps
1 44 Christian Brooks Exclusive Autosport 1:11.9887 0.0000 13
2 92 Matt Round-Garrido Exclusive Autosport 1:12.2811 0.2924 13
3 4 Michael d’Orlando Cape Motorsports 1:12.3252 0.3365 10
4 33 Josh Green Turn 3 Motorsport 1:12.3489 0.3602 12
5 22 Yuven Sundaramoorthy Pabst Racing 1:12.4032 0.4145 13
6 12 Kiko Porto DEForce Racing 1:12.4039 0.4152 14
7 24 Josh Pierson Pabst Racing 1:12.4193 0.4306 14
8 91 Billy Frazer Exclusive Autosport 1:12.7133 0.7246 12
9 99 Myles Rowe Force Indy 1:12.7203 0.7316 13
10 11 Prescott Campbell DEForce Racing 1:12.7218 0.7331 13
11 5 Spike Kohlbecker Cape Motorsports 1:12.7596 0.7709 10
12 23 Jace Denmark Pabst Racing 1:12.8011 0.8124 13
13 6 Bijoy Garg Jay Howard Driver Development 1:12.8576 0.8689 12
14 2 Thomas Nepveu Cape Motorsports 1:12.8923 0.9036 13
15 42 Michael Myers Michael Myers Racing 1:13.0002 1.0115 13
16 19 Andre Castro Legacy Autosport 1:13.0777 1.0890 12
17 9 Peter Vodanovich Jay Howard Driver Development 1:13.1024 1.1137 12
18 34 Dylan Christie Turn 3 Motorsport 1:13.1045 1.1158 12
19 29 Erik Evans Velocity Racing Development 1:13.1348 1.1461 13
20 1 Ely Navarro DEForce Racing 1:13.1450 1.1563 13
21 3 Evan Stamer Cape Motorsports 1:13.3613 1.3726 13
22 63 Trey Burke Joe Dooling Autosports 1:13.5235 1.5348 13
23 8 Jackson Lee Jay Howard Driver Development 1:13.6172 1.6285 7
24 16 Kent Vaccaro Miller Vinatieri Motorsports 1:14.0816 2.0929 12
25 90 Grant Palmer Exclusive Autosport 1:14.1652 2.1765 8
26 10 Nolan Siegel DEForce Racing No Time