Mazda Road to Indy Tag

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG, Florida — Zach Veach is ready. After racing on all three steps of the Mazda Road to Indy presented by Cooper Tires ladder system, the Stockdale, Ohio native will begin his first full season in the Verizon IndyCar Series on Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Veach has driven the track in all three MRTI championships, winning in 2014 in Indy Lights. For 2018 he’s competing for Andretti Autosport, a team he drove for in all three MRTI championships. The weekend started offRead More

By Aaron Bearden, Contributing Writer Ahead of each Verizon IndyCar Series race weekend, Motorsports Tribune offers an in-depth look at the details and storylines going into the weekend’s event(s). Verizon IndyCar Series Race(s): Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg (110 laps, 198 miles) Circuit: Streets of St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg, Fla.) Track Details: Clockwise – 14 turns, 1.80 miles Track Record: 107.561 mph (Will Power, 2016) What Happened Last Year: Sebastien Bourdais overcame a disastrous qualifying crash to rise from last to first and claim his first win in St. Pete, establishing himself and DaleRead More

SASKATOON, SK – Exclusive Autosport is excited to announce that Igor Fraga will join the team for the 2018 Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda. The 18-year-old Japanese-born Brazilian will make his Mazda Road to Indy debut this season after starting the year in the FIA Formula 4 NACAM Championship, in which he has already produced two wins. Fraga comes to Exclusive Autosport with an impressive open wheel resume that includes being crowned the 2017 Brazilian F3 Academy Champion. “We’ve been able to test with Igor a couple timesRead More

Indianapolis, IN (February 23, 2018) – Juncos Racing announced today that Mexican Alfonso Celis Jr. will join the team for the 2018 Indy Lights Championship Presented by Cooper Tires. Celis is the second driver to commit to the reigning 2017 Indy Lights Champions. Alfonso Celis Jr. (Puebla, Mexico) joins the Indy Lights Championship after a successful season in the World Series Formula V8, where he claimed one pole and one win to finish third in the championship. Celis was also a Formula One Reserve Driver for Sahara Force India FormulaRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer To nobody’s surprise, Juncos Racing announced that Victor Franzoni would be joining the team for the 2018 Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires. After winning the 2017 Pro Mazda Championship presented by Cooper Tires with Juncos Racing, Franzoni received a Mazdaspeed scholarship to move to Indy Lights and it made sense for the Brazilian to stay with his current team as he climbs the Mazda Road to Indy presented by Cooper Tires. Franzoni won seven of 12 Pro Mazda races in 2017 and finished second inRead More

SASKATOON, SK (February 15, 2018) – Exclusive Autosport is pleased to announce that Mexican driver Manuel Cabrera will fill their second seat for the 2018 Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda. The 17-year-old will make his Mazda Road to Indy debut this year, having spent the 2017 season competing in the Formula PanAm and Formula Master Asia series. Cabrera won the Formula PanAm championship and was rewarded with a ticket to the Mazda Road to Indy $200,000 Scholarship Shootout and was he also acknowledged as the Rookie of theRead More

By Road to Indy PALMETTO, Fla. – Victor Franzoni burst onto the Mazda Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires scene in 2014, winning his first-ever race in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla. With his irrepressible grin and unfailingly positive attitude, Franzoni made fans on and off the racetrack. As the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires came down to the wire last September, with Juncos Racing’s Franzoni and Cape Motorsports’ Anthony Martin fighting tooth-and-nail for every inch ofRead More

By Road to Indy PALMETTO, Fla. (February 6, 2018) – The Mazda Road to Indy USF2000 $200K Scholarship Shootout will continue for a third successive year in 2018, extending its reach to now include 11 countries where 20 champions of junior open-wheel and karting series from around the world will join together in the December event. Drivers between the ages of 14 and 25 by September 30 of this year will be eligible to earn an invitation to the competition via a network of Official Feeder Series in both NorthRead More

By Road to Indy Nikita Lastochkin took a very different route to the Mazda Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires than many of his fellow competitors. With no motorsports background growing up in Moscow, Lastochkin did not start racing until the age of 22, after moving to the United States. Here, the now 27-year-old entering his sophomore Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires season, talks about coming to America at the age of 16, how he first got the racing bug and how taking racing cues from ColtonRead More

Newman Wachs Racing is pleased to announce its third driver for the 2018 Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda, confirming Cincinnati, Ohio’s David Osborne. The 21-year-old has been hard at work developing his skills and racecraft in the F1600 series, before testing with NWR last October at the Chris Griffis Memorial test. Osborne will now join Newman Wachs Racing’s two previously-confirmed drivers – Darren Keane and Oscar Deluzuriaga. “David tested with us in October at Indy and I was impressed by the way he went about everything and withRead More