STEAM CORNERS, Ohio — Leonardo Escorpioni is on a roll in USF Pro 2000 Presented by Continental Tire.
The 16-year-old Brazilian, based in Windermere, Fla., thoroughly dominated this morning’s second leg of the USF Pro Patriot Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio tripleheader for Turn 3 Motorsport to take his third win of the season and second in as many days.
Escorpioni finished more than 6.3 seconds clear following an all-green 30-lap race around the challenging 2.258-mile 13-turn Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Andres Cardenas, from Lima, Peru, had a lonely run to second place for JHDD powered by ECR as Michael Costello, from Naples, Fla., rounded out the podium aboard a second Turn 3 Motorsport entry.
The grid for this morning’s race was determined either by each driver’s second-fastest lap in qualifying on Friday or their fastest lap during yesterday’s opening race of the weekend. Escorpioni’s qualifying lap was good enough for his third Continental Tire Pole Award of the year, comfortably clear of Cardenas, G3 Argyros (Pabst Racing) and Costello.
Escorpioni left everyone firmly in his wake from the get-go. He was almost a second clear of Cardenas after the opening lap and continued to increase his pace as track conditions improved and the fuel load lessened.
Argyros held onto third in the early stages, but was clearly struggling for pace and was no match for Costello, who slipped past on the sixth lap and immediately pulled away.
Behind, VRD Racing’s Frankie Mossman, from Newport Beach, Calif., muscled his way past both teammate Teddy Musella, from Orlando, Fla., and Thomas Schrage (TJ Motorsports), from Bethel, Ohio, on the opening lap, but also soon began to struggle with a lack of grip. Championship leader Jack Jeffers (Exclusive Autosport), from San Antonio, Texas, also was in the mix after lining up a disappointed eighth on the grid.
Jeffers quickly sliced through the field, despite being held up in the opening laps, and once clear of Mossman, he really began to show his speed. It took Jeffers until Lap 15 to find a way past Argyros into fourth, and by that stage Costello was already more than 10 seconds up the road. No matter. After trading fastest laps with Escorpioni, Jeffers eventually finished hot on Costello’s tail.
Jeffers also eclipsed current IndyCar Series driver Rinus VeeKay’s eight-year-old race lap record with a new benchmark of 1:15.8307, an average speed of 107.197 mph, on Lap 27. It was enough to assure him of pole position for the final race of the tripleheader weekend and retain a much-reduced margin of only four points over Escorpioni.
Argyros retained a distant fifth despite intense pressure from Schrage. With overtaking notoriously difficult among closely matched cars on the undulating road course, Schrage twice opted to ease his pace considerably in order to claim some clear track. He used the ploy magnificently to post the second fastest lap of the race on the final lap and ensure himself a place on the outside of the front row for the finale.
