St. Petersburg, Fla. – Turn 3 Motorsport showed good pace at this weekend’s Grand Prix of St. Petersburg Presented by Cooper Tires/Andersen RacePark/Andersen Interior Contracting though the race results were mixed for the Road to Indy team.
In USF2000 Qualifying 1, Josh Green qualified P4 while teammate Dylan Christie ended up P18 for the first race of the weekend. Race 1 started with a multi-car pileup on Lap 1, a spectacle that Green and Christie were fortunate to avoid. However, when the race resumed, Green was involved in an incident with the #4 car of Michael d’Orlando and had to return to the pits for repairs. The team worked expeditiously to get him back out just four laps down, putting the #33 JHG/Mark Green car back to a P18 finish.
Christie had a great charge through the 26-car field on the opening lap, gaining several positions and quickly adapting to his first race experience on the downtown street course. The #34 DCR driver continued to challenge for positions during the 20-lap showdown and finished ninth, claiming his first top-ten finish of the year.
USF2000 Qualifying 2 resulted in another P4 starting position for Green, this time only 0.1556 seconds off from the pole position, indicating a highly competitive slew of drivers in the championship. Christie improved his performance once again in Q2, putting in his best qualifying time on his last lap and ending up P14.
In Race 2, Green sought a solid finish after his DNF in Race 1, holding his ground and ultimately crossing the start/finish line in fifth. Christie strove for another top-ten finish, pushing to overtake his competitors and ending up with a 13th place result.
“The Grand Prix of St. Petersburg may not have been the weekend we’d hoped for, but it was one that showed a lot of promise,” said Green. “We showed ourselves as one of the quickest cars on track and recovered quickly from any adversity that came our way. I’m super confident for the coming weekends and know we will be a force to be reckoned with for every remaining event this season.”
“I accomplished all my goals this weekend,” said Christie. “I got faster each session, stayed off the walls both days, and as a result, I moved forward a number of spots. A massive thank you goes out to the team for getting me up to speed. I expect some great results in the future if we can keep improving at this rate.”
“Overall I was happy with the performance of the team throughout the weekend,” said Team Owner Peter Dempsey. “I feel like we made a step forward from Barber Motorsports Park which was our objective. I think our pace with Josh was very solid, and he was unfortunate in the first race to be caught up in an incident which hurt him from challenging for a podium.”
“Dylan did a great job to move up from 18th to ninth his first time on a street course,” continued Dempsey. “It was great for him to get the experience of getting through his first trouble-free race of the year in Race 1, and he showed maturity in Race 2 to get another solid finish and gain valuable experience heading into the Indy GP next month.”
The Road to Indy season continues at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course May 13-15 for a triple header weekend with Rounds 5/6/7 taking place at the historic venue.
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