Jamin, Franzoni, Megennis lead Mazda Road To Indy test

Thirteen drivers representing five teams piloted Indy Lights cars today, with Nico Jamin setting top time for Andretti Autosport. The Frenchman, who won the 2015 USF2000 title and finished third behind the dominant Pelfrey cars in Pro Mazda this year, set a time of 1min15.0702 (116.963mph). Andre Negrao, who raced for Schmidt Peterson Motorsport this year, drove a Juncos Racing entry to second fastest time, 0.12sec behind.

The new Pro Mazda champion Aaron Telitz took a Schmidt Peterson Indy Lights car to third, a quarter second behind Jamin, with Juan Piedrahita fourth in his familiar Team Pelfrey machine and Neil Alberico continuing his season with Carlin Racing.

Slovakia’s Richard Gonda was sixth in a second Andretti entry, ahead of Zachary Claman De Melo who was testing for Carlin, after a season with Juncos.

In Pro Mazda, Victor Franzoni showed well, hot on the heels of a strong USF2000 season in which the Brazilian and ArmsUp Motorsports finished third, and ran the Cape Motorsports cars very close in the points standings. Today at IMS, he took a Juncos Racing Pro Mazda car around the 2.439-mile 14-turn road course in 1min23.0975sec lap (105.664mph) during his 75 laps on track. That put him well over half a second clear of Jorge Cevallos (also Juncos) and 1.3sec clear of TJ Fischer in a Team Pelfrey machine.

The new USF2000 car, the Tatuus USF-17, made its multi-car test debut today and proved only 2.3sec slower than the Pro Mazda cars. Robert Megennis used a Team Pelfrey car to lap in 1min25.3194sec a few hundredths ahead of Mazda Road To Indy veteran Matthew Brabham who was shaking down Cape Motorsports’ new #3 car.

Pabst Racing were third and fourth quickest thanks to Neil Verhagen and Dakota Dickerson who were three tenths off the ultimate pace, while Kaylen Frederick (Pelfrey) and Brendon Leitch (Newman Wachs Racing) were fifth and sixth.

Fastest of the old Van Diemen cars was karting sensation Oliver Askew who was nonetheless only 1.5sec off the ultimate pace for Cape Motorsports, and 10^th overall of the 17 cars that took part in the session.

Action resumes tomorrow at 8.30am ET.