HARTSDALE, NEW YORK – Big development and big challenges for Nicholas d’Orlando in 2022. Since his record breaking year in 2021, claiming the Formula Race Promotions F1600 series championship in record-breaking fashion, and moving up to Road To Indy’s pre-step earlier this year, d’Orlando proves to be ready to take another step up.
The 19-year-old Hartsdale, NY native will make a move climbing the ladder in the Road to Indy driver development program from the USF Juniors Presented by Cooper Tires series to the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship starting this weekend at Road America in Elhkart Lake, WI. Not only does this check the box on his career plan, but it adds an interesting twist to the USF2000 series. He will now compete against his older brother, Michael.
d’Orlando began his 2022 season in the Road to Indy’s inaugural year of the USF Juniors series. After the first two weekend events, showing potential and promise, it was decided that he would move up to the USF2000 Championship to garner valuable experience in the new Tatuus USF-22 machine with the Mazda MZR 2-ltr engine powered by Elite Engines, in preparation for a planned full season campaign in 2023.
The Road to Indy’s Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship is one of the most competitive junior development series in the world. d’Orlando will join his older brother on the grid but not the same team. He will join forces with two-time F4 US Championship winning power-house and 2022 USF2000 Indy GP weekend-sweeping team Velocity Racing Development (“VRD”), under the direction of chief-engineer and team owner Dan Mitchell.
“It was a pleasure working with the DC Autosport with Cape Motorsports crew for the beginning of the USF Juniors season and it was a great learning experience,” explains d’Orlando. “I’d like to thank Don Conner for his help and will definitely carry over the experience to the rest of my year. Now I’m pretty excited to have this opportunity to work with Dan [Mitchell] and the entire VRD team and am looking forward to getting started this weekend. We want to focus on learning and to develop the skills I need to be competitive at this level, and to prepare to race a full season of USF2000 next year.”
The d’Orlando duo and Mitchell have joined forces before. Mitchell lead elder brother, Michael, in a partial USF2000 season in 2018 with a very new team, Team Benik, and again in the latter half of 2019 to help Mitchell develop Velocity Racing Development in it's inaugural year in a partial season of the F4 US Championship. Nicholas d’Orlando and Mitchell have spent a few testing days together prior to the younger d’Orlando’s debut in USF Juniors and now look to build on the team’s and driver’s previous successes.
“Nick is a very talented driver and I have had the opportunity to work with him in the past,” explained VRD Racing’s Dan Mitchell. “He has worked his way through the karting ranks and into open-wheel with success along the way. I am confident that he will be up to speed quickly and will challenge for podium results as we roll through the season.”
Partners are an important part of Nicholas d'Orlando's development and would like to continue to thank our current partners at DB Collaborative, Focused Project Management, Rising Star Racing, MotorMedia USA, Pierpont Mechanical, MG Engineering, Dino Energy Drink, UFC Gym - Mamaroneck NY, Signature Elevator Maintenance, AME Inc and Celtic General Contractors.
Stay tuned to Nicholas d’Orlando social media and website (www.dorlandoracing.com) for continued updates and more information. Follow him on Instagram (dorlandoracing, nickdorlando), Facebook (Nicholas d'Orlando Racing) and Twitter (dorlandoracing and nickdorlando) for all the latest information.