Mid-Ohio Pro Mazda: Martin wins but results unofficial
Anthony Martin won his fifth race in his last six tries at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course but Andersen Promotions has impounded the cars of the top-three finishers to conduct a more robust technical inspection.
Anthony Martin, Cape Motorsports
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
The cars of podium finishers Martin, Victor Franzoni, and Carlos Cunha will be transported to Indianapolis, Ind. for that process, and official results will not be official until later in the week.
Motorsport.com has learned that all three teams with a car within the top three, Cape Motorsports, Juncos Racing and Team Pelfrey, have at various times during the season, accused each other of various forms of malfeasance. By subjecting all three teams cars to a vigorous inspection, series officials hope it will put those accusations to rest.
Martin, the reigning USF2000 champion, beat the points leader coming into the race, Victor Franzoni, to the checkered flag by a vast 13.9957 seconds. The Australian led all 23 laps from the pole, and his quickest lap of 79.833 seconds was an unheard of 0.8sec faster than any of his competition.
With the maximum of 33 points scored, Martin has grabbed a four point lead in the championship with three races remaining. But for now, of course, unofficially?
After a tidy two-by-two start, Martin pulled a slight gap, with Franzoni took a look inside of Cunha in Turn 1. The points leader heading into the race, wisely thought better of it and tucked in behind the No. 81 of Cunha on long run up the hill to The Keyhole. Fraznoni was a able to get inside of Cunha and had the preferred inside line through the off-camber 180 degree Turn 2, completing the pass and slotting in behind Martin.
At the end of the first lap, Martin had already been able to build a 1.2 second gap over Franzoni. The remainder of the top 10 were Cunha, Nikita Lastochkin, TJ Fischer, Sting Ray Robb, Bobby Eberle, Kris Wright, Bob Kaminsky, and Max Hanratty.
The three bright yellow Team Pelfrey cars visually appeared as one as they ran nose-to-tail on the long run up to The Keyhole. The No. 82 of Fisher was able to get by the No. 80 of Lastochkin for fourth.
On Lap 8, World Speed Motorsports rookie Sting Ray Robb, split up the Team Pelfrey trio when he made a daring pass around the outside of Lastochkin in Turn 4.
Martin steadily built on his early lead and by the half-way point of the half-hour race, the Australian’s lead over Franzoni had grown to over four seconds.
For the first 20 minutes of the race, Franzoni had a fairly comfortable one second lead over fellow Brazilian Cunha, but not long after, the rookie began to make inroads on the veteran.
Cunha was able to quickly cut the veteran’s lead to under half of a second, and spent a number of laps stalking Franzoni, before making made a daring move to get by Franzoni in Turn 5 and 6, but falling just short.
Report by Steve Wittich
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