Lexington, Ohio – Frenchman Nico Jamin claimed his sixth win of this year’s Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda for three-time defending champion team Cape Motorsports with Wayne Taylor Racing, and perhaps his easiest. The 19-year-old from Rouen, France, qualified on the pole for the ninth time in 12 races and took advantage of some squabbling behind him to open up an appreciable advantage right from the start. Jamin turned a series of super-consistent laps, each of them faster than his pursuers before taking the checkered flag in Race 1 of the Allied Building Products Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio almost six seconds to the good.
Australian Anthony Martin (John Cummiskey Racing) made a sensational start from fourth on the grid, sweeping around the outside of Americans Jake Eidson (Pabst Racing), who had started second, and Aaron Telitz (Cape Motorsports) to take over second place. The maneuver earned him the RePlay XD Move of the Race Award for the third time this season.
Martin remained under pressure from Telitz and Eidson throughout the remainder of the 30-minute race to claim his fourth podium finish in an impressive rookie season.
Telitz took third, while Eidson had to be content with fourth – only the second time this year in 12 races he had failed to finish on the podium.
Canadian rookie Parker Thompson finished a distant fifth for JDC MotorSports, having held off a race-long challenge from China’s Yufeng Luo (Pabst Racing) and Australian Luke Gabin (Team Pelfrey). Luo claimed the Tilton Hard Charger Award for making up four positions from 10th on the starting grid while Gabin survived an early skirmish with teammate Garth Rickards which ended with Rickards’ car parked against the tire barriers on the exit of the Carousel.
German teenager Keyvan Andres Soori (ArmsUp Motorsports) finished eighth, narrowly ahead of USF2000 debutant Sennan Fielding, from Chesterfield, England, who made an impressive debut for Afterburner Autosport. Fielding’s effort netted him the Staubli Award, while the PFC Award went to the winning car owners, brothers Dominic and Nicholas Cape.
The Allied Building Products Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio will continue with two more races tomorrow, scheduled to start at 10:00 AM and 6:10 PM EDT.
Nico Jamin (#2 Synova Automotive/Eco-Plastics-Cape Motorsports with Wayne Taylor Racing): "We had a lot of confidence going into the race. Since qualifying, my car has been just perfect, I couldn’t ask for anything better. Once I got through the first corner, I knew I had a car that could win the race. I just had to keep my head down and put good laps together. It’s very difficult to set up a car here, because the track changes so much between sessions. It was very slippery for the race, where it wasn't slippery at all for qualifying. But I really love this track. We struggled a bit here last year but we put everything together this year. It’s a very technical track and it’s very exciting to drive. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow!”