It was Championship Weekend for the Star Mazda Championship Presented by Goodyear at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. As we has mentioned previously, JDC MotorSport’s Tristan Vautier had only to show up in Monterrey to win the championship. As soon as the green flag fell, Tristan was officially the 2011 Star Mazda Drivers’ Champion and will receive a scholarship to compete in the Firestone Indy Lights series in 2012, and presumably drive for Sam Schmidt Motorsports. As is common amongst any champion, the key to Tristan’s success was not just…
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Mazda Road to Indy – Preparing for the Ovals
All of the various series that are part of INDYCAR and the Mazda Road to Indy program have opened their seasons with road and street courses. Beginning next weekend, though, everyone switches to oval tracks! Racing on an oval is not as easy as going fast and turning left as those who attended the USF2000 Oval Clinic earlier this month learned. This past weekend, the Star Mazda Championship, in preparation for their coming sequence of three oval races, held an open test at the Milwaukee Mile. For many drivers in…
Read MoreStar Mazda – Familiar Teams, New Faces on the Podium
The second round of the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear was contested this past Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, AL. The race on Sunday morning turned out to be an indicator of things to come as all three races this weekend, Star Mazda, Indy Lights, and IndyCar, would all follow the same pattern. Tristan Vautier started from pole and never looked back, leading all 33 laps of the race and taking the checkers a whopping 39.586 seconds ahead of 2nd place finisher, Nick Andries. “We knew that…
Read MoreStar Mazda – Barber Testing: Day 2 Wrap-Up
Well, apparently there was an afternoon practice session! I was away on errands and wasn’t able to watch the timing and scoring develop, although after looking at the results, it looks like business as usual for Tristan Vautier. The young Frenchman claimed the fast time of the session once again for JDC MotorSports and really looks to be the easy favourite come St. Petersburg. The Juncos racing squad found their way back to the top portion of the time sheet with Joao Horta and Martin Scuncio slotting up in P2…
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