STEAM CORNERS, Ohio — Is there no stopping Leonardo Escorpioni? Last year’s USF Juniors Presented by Continental Tire champion started third in this afternoon’s final leg of the USF Pro Patriot Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio, but lost no time in taking the lead and then took off for his third win in two days.
The Florida-based Brazilian’s impressive performance for Turn 3 Motorsport has vaulted him into the lead of the USF Pro 2000 championship, chasing a scholarship valued at almost $600,000 to make the step next year into Indy NXT.
Jack Jeffers, from San Antonio, Texas, posted another solid drive for Exclusive Autosport, finishing second, and now trails Escorpioni by a mere two points with 10 of 18 races now complete.
Andres Cardenas, from Lima, Peru, finished third – his fourth podium appearance for the JHDD powered by ECR team in the last five races.
Perfect conditions for this morning’s race, allied to fresh Continental tires for most of the field, proved conducive to fast lap times. They also ensured that every position on the starting grid for this afternoon’s weekend finale was set by each driver’s best lap, rather than their second-fastest lap set during qualifying, which was appreciably slower. Thus did Jeffers claim his series-leading fourth Continental Tire Pole Award of the season.
After this morning’s all-green 30-lap race, the weekend finale didn’t start so well with several cars tangling at the exit of Turn One and a couple more sustaining damage and heading for the pit lane for repairs.
Jeffers still led at the restart from Pabst Racing’s G3 Argyros, from Newport Beach, Calif., who came out of the blocks like a rocket to jump from fifth to second at the initial start, but Escorpioni also was on the move. He displaced Argyros immediately at the restart, with four laps completed, and a couple of laps later drove cleanly around the outside of Jeffers at Turn Two to take the lead both in the race and the provisional standings.
Moments later, Michael Costello, from Naples, Fla., a podium finisher this morning for Turn 3 Motorsport, made contact with another car while battling over eighth and ended his race in the gravel trap. Yellow again.
The race was recommenced after nine laps, and Escorpioni immediately began to edge away from Jeffers. The talented 16-year-old posted a sequence of laps faster than the preceding one to extend his advantage to over two seconds after just 12 laps and to more than four seconds with 26 laps in the books. Just for good measure, Escorpioni set a new fastest lap – worth another championship point – with three laps remaining. Impressive.
Jeffers instead had to heed his mirrors in the closing stages as Cardenas put on a charge which brought him to within a second with a handful of laps remaining. Jeffers, though, was up to the task and held on for his fifth podium finish.
Cardenas had to be content with third after an excellent day’s work, while Argyros finished a distant fourth, well clear of TJ Speed Motorsports’ Thomas Schrage, from Bethel, Ohio, who extended his sequence of top-six finishes to six.
After starting 14th, Brady Golan, from Austin, Texas, briefly nosed ahead of Schrage after the restart before settling back into sixth aboard his Turn 3 Motorstports Tatuus.
