RTI Update: Kirkwood Leads Practice, USF Juniors Debuts on Track

The final round of the 2021 Road to Indy season kicked off in Lexington, Ohio on Friday, with Indy Lights and Indy Pro 2000 practice. Indy Lights practice kicked off among a run of silly season news and driver moves.

David Malukas, the HMD driver who sits second in the standings is heavily rumored to be moving up to IndyCar along with HMD. Carlin, the British team with connections in every junior racing category, has been having a rough time in IndyCar and is looking not only for money but for a second driver. Malukas can provide both, and has stated in interviews that he is 90% sure the deal is done. Kyle Kirkwood, the young phenom who leads the Indy Lights standings, has been searching for a ride. but doesn’t appear to have a seat open for him at Andretti. He was rumored to join several teams, but Michael Andretti has said that he wants to keep Kirkwood on board. Several options are open for Kirkwood at Andretti, like IMSA and Formula E. Kirkwood is also primed to earn the scholarhsip that provides for an Indy 500 run and several other races in an Andretti entry. Kirkwood’s teammate at Andretti, Devlin DeFrancesco, is lined up to graduate into the seat currently occupied by James Hinchcliffe, taking the last open full-time Andretti seat from Kirkwood. Manuel Sulaiman left Juncos in Indy Pro 2000, and has joined up to run the last part of the season with HMD, competing against Juncos one series up.

Friday practice went smoothly, with only Rasmus Lindh spinning out exiting the Keyhole. Kirkwood stayed clear of the field, spending the entire session on top of the timing screens. Sting Ray Robb came in P2, almost 2 tenths clear of Kyle Kirkwood, followed by Lindh, Pedersen, and Malukas six tenths back. Kirkwood swept the July weekend at Mid-Ohio, and looking at today’s practice, he seems prepared to sweep the whole year. With Robb and Lindh in P2 and P3, this is a better turn for the Juncos team that has suffered after the pandemic and during the start of their IndyCar program. Artem Petrov led the last session of the day, as the Indy Pro 2000 drivers took to the track to close out Friday. Petrov narrowly beat Reece Gold for the fastest time of the day, beating the Juncos driver by only a hundreth of a second. Points leader Christian Rasmussen finished third, nearly two tenths off Petrov’s pace. Rasmussen was followed by McElrea and Roe rounding out the top five. Christian Brooks made his Indy Pro 2000 debut for Exclusive Autosport.

At noon track time, the USF Junior car made it’s first laps with Prescott Campbell behind the wheel, for a tire test to see how the Ligier chassis would handle Cooper Tire’s. The USF Junior car is a Ligier F4 chassis with a Honda power unit, strikingly similar to the combination used by the F4 US Championship, also powered by Honda. The USF Junior series will run six rounds at different road courses.