Today, the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear wraps up its three days of pre-season testing at the Barber Motorsports Park. In their final session early this morning, JDC MotorSports’ Tristan Vautier picked up where he left off yesterday, posting blazingly fast times. Today, however, he didn’t start out with the breathing room he had during the previous sessions. Over the previous two day’s Vautier was the only racer to break into the 1:20 range. This morning, all three of the Juncos Racing drivers present for the test, Joao Horta, Martin Scuncio, and Tatiana Calderon, all made it into the 1:20s bracket along with Team GDT’s Patrick McKenna and Team Pelfrey’s Nick Andries.
The 1:20 times wouldn’t hold up, however. As the session progressed, the lap times kept dropping. Tristan was first to break into the 1:19s and was quickly followed there by Martin Scuncio. Even though Martin broke the 1:19 barrier along with Tristan, his 1:19.894 would still be about half second slower than Tristan’s 1:19.399. It’s too early to hand over the Firestone Indy Lights scholarship to Tristan right now, but there’s no doubt that he and JDC MotorSports are the clear favourite for the championship.
Sage Karam and Andretti Autosport appear to still have some work left to do. While they made good progress yesterday, this morning their times remained pretty static. While everyone else was improving by seconds, Karam only improved by tenths. Looks like the team is still trying to come to grips with the nuances of the car. We’ll see if they get things sorted by the first race in St. Petersburg at the end of the month.
| Pos | No. | DRIVER NAME | BESTIME | DIFF | LAP | LAPTIME | FL | GAP | STATUS | LSPEED | BSPEED | ELAPSED |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | Tristan Vautier | 1:19.399 | — | 31 | 1:26.695 | 27 | — | Active | 95.507 | 104.283 | 52:28.032 |
| 2 | 60 | Martin Scuncio | 1:19.894 | 0.495 | 27 | 1:20.229 | 25 | 0.495 | Active | 103.205 | 103.637 | 50:23.034 |
| 3 | 7 | J.V. Horto | 1:20.200 | 0.801 | 29 | 1:24.688 | 21 | 0.306 | Active | 97.771 | 103.242 | 1:00:05.797 |
| 4 | 48 | Patrick McKenna | 1:20.284 | 0.885 | 30 | 1:21.125 | 27 | 0.084 | Active | 102.065 | 103.134 | 1:01:14.874 |
| 5 | 81 | Nick Andries | 1:20.690 | 1.291 | 26 | 1:20.912 | 23 | 0.406 | Active | 102.333 | 102.615 | 1:01:16.425 |
| 6 | 10 | Tatiana Calderon | 1:20.903 | 1.504 | 26 | 1:27.776 | 20 | 0.213 | Active | 94.331 | 102.345 | 48:02.529 |
| 7 | 11 | Connor De Phillippi | 1:21.022 | 1.623 | 23 | 1:21.022 | 23 | 0.119 | Active | 102.194 | 102.194 | 1:01:18.220 |
| 8 | 88 | Sage Karam | 1:21.095 | 1.696 | 25 | 1:22.200 | 16 | 0.073 | Active | 100.730 | 102.102 | 1:01:40.639 |
| 9 | 39 | Richard Heistand | 1:22.569 | 3.170 | 22 | 2:38.827 | 9 | 1.474 | Active | 52.132 | 100.280 | 44:39.816 |
| 10 | 26 | Jérimy Daniel | 1:25.158 | 5.759 | 28 | 5:15.647 | 14 | 2.589 | Active | 26.232 | 97.231 | 55:15.880 |
| 11 | 20 | Carlos Linares | No Time | — | — | –.— | — | — | IN PIT | 0.000 | — | –.— |
| 12 | 23 | Walt Bowlin | No Time | — | — | –.— | — | — | IN PIT | 0.000 | — | –.— |
| 13 | 27 | Nick Mancuso | No Time | — | — | –.— | — | — | IN PIT | 0.000 | — | –.— |
| 14 | 66 | Zach Meyer | No Time | — | — | –.— | — | — | IN PIT | 0.000 | — | –.— |
| 15 | 72 | Larry Pegram | No Time | — | — | –.— | — | — | IN PIT | 0.000 | — | –.— |
| 16 | 85 | Chris Miller | No Time | — | — | –.— | — | — | IN PIT | 0.000 | — | –.— |
