BRABHAM DOMINATES ROUND 2 AS FERREIRA RETAINS POINTS LEAD WITH SECOND
Matthew Brabham was disappointed to finish third in yesterday’s opening round of the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires at the Circuit of The Americas, especially after setting the pace consistently during pre-season testing. Last year’s winner of the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda more than made amends in this afternoon’s Round 2, run over 12 laps on the 20-turn, 3.41-mile road course, sweeping from third to first at the drop of the green flag and never being seriously challenged. Brabham, from Manalapan, Fla., found the perfect way to celebrate his 19th birthday earlier in the week by stretching out a huge lead once the race was finally underway after a melee at the exit of Turn One caused the first couple of laps to be run behind the Pace Car. The #83 Team Andretti Autosport driver stretched out an advantage of almost eight seconds by Lap 7, and even though that was negated by another full-course caution after Colombian Juan Piedrahita had an incident at Turn 15 in the #9 Petrosur/Sisolec/GFK Motors/Red Line Oil entry run by JDC MotorSports, Brabham kept his wits about him and eased clear again over the final three laps to take the checkered flag 4.771 seconds clear of his nearest challenger.