O'Ward seals pole for St. Pete opener

The 16-year-old Mexican, who has only secured a seat for the first two races of the season so far, led most of the session and kept first at the flag, despite being unable to improve in the final minutes.

O'Ward will share the front row with Team Pelfrey teammate and top rookie Aaron Telitz, who will start ahead of his former USF2000 rivals Jake Eidson and Nico Jamin.

Weiron Tan ended up fifth, followed by the Juncos trio of Jake Parsons, Will Owen and Garett Grist.

Former Formula Renault 2.0 driver Jorge Cevallos was ninth, while Brazilian F3 graduate Nicolas Dapero completed the top 10.

Qualifying times:

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Patricio O'Ward	Team Pelfrey	1:11.572
2	Aaron Telitz	Team Pelfrey	1:11.648
3	Jake Eidson	Cape Motorsports w/WTR	1:11.719
4	Nico Jamin	Cape Motorsports w/WTR	1:11.838
5	Weiron Tan	Team Pelfrey	1:11.930
6	Jake Parsons	Juncos Racing	1:11.939
7	Will Owen	Juncos Racing	1:12.000
8	Garett Grist	Juncos Racing	1:12.234
9	Jorge Cevallos	JDC MotorSports	1:12.385
10	Nicolas Dapero	Juncos Racing	1:12.760
11	Bobby Eberle	World Speed Motorsports	1:14.076
12	Jay Horak	M1 Racing	1:14.770

Jordan Lloyd on top of USF2000 qualifying

The first USF2000 qualifying of the season featured a veritable statement of intent from 2015 runner-up squad Pabst Racing.

Series returnee Jordan Lloyd picked up a maiden pole on his first outing with a new team, while squadmates Yufeng Luo and Garth Rickards were third and fourth.

Only Cape's Parker Thompson denied the Pabst team a front row sweep, taking second with the exact same laptime as Luo.

Pelfrey's James Munro was the top-placed rookie in fifth.