Brazilian Victor Franzoni rose from second on the grid to take his first win of the young season for Afterburner Autosport.

Frenchman Nico Jamin scored an emphatic maiden victory this afternoon when the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda made its first visit to NOLA Motorsports Park for the Cooper Tires Grand Prix of Louisiana.

Drivers from two of the three steps that comprise the Mazda Road to Indy, a scholarship laden development ladder which leads from the grassroots of the sport to the Verizon IndyCar Series and the Indianapolis 500, will be on stage this weekend at the inaugural Grand Prix of Louisiana. Both the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires and the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda, which kicked off their 2015 campaigns two weeks ago on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla., will continue with two more races this weekend, April 10-12, at the 2.74-mile NOLA Motorsports Park road course situated just across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS, La. – The opening rounds of the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Presented by Mazda did not go quite as planned for Afterburner Autosport and their highly talented Brazilian driver Victor Franzoni. A communication miscue after qualifying sent them to the tail of the field for Race 1 at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, forcing Franzoni to knife his way through the pack to a stellar sixth-place finish after starting 17th. The team was focused on another big recovery for Race 2 on Sunday, but a coil failure ended Victor’s race on lap one after he had made a strong start to the event.

This weekend, Nico Jamin returns to New Orleans for Rounds 3 and 4 of the 2015 Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda. After two rounds at St. Petersburg, Florida two weeks ago where he scored two third-place finishes, Jamin is ranked third in the 2015 championship and is looking to improve on his qualifying so that he can start at the front of the pack and, hopefully, claim his first 2015 championship victory.