Sam Schmidt Motorsports dominate Open test

Josef Newgarden finished top of the pile today at the Firestone Indy Lights open test at Barber Motorsports Park but it was Sam Schmidt Motorsports who made the biggest statement by occupying the top 3 positions.

First out on track for session 2 was Duarte Ferreira. The Bryan Herta Autosport driver completed a 7 lap run with a quickest time of 1'18"92. As the session settled down after an hour of running Josef Newgarden picked up from where he left off in the morning session by being the man to catch setting a benchmark time of 1'16"57 which was 3 tenths faster than series returnee 21 year old Brit Stefan Wilson. who is younger brother of IZOD IndyCar Series driver Justin Wilson. With 2 hours remaining Newgarden led the way with Wilson, Philip Major, Victor Carbone, and Victor Garcia completing the top 5.

For an hour there was no real noticeable improvements by any driver with everybody seeming unable to match the times they set at the start of the session.
With about an hour to go until the end of play for the day drivers started to make their move for the top as Team Moore Racings lead driver Gustavo Yacaman set about a string of personal best laps culminating with a time of 1'16"70 just 0.15s slower than Newgarden who was stil at the top.

Experienced Irishman and winner of many star mazda races Peter Dempsey set the 4th quickest time with 45minutes to go in his Racing Technology car on an impressive debut.
1'16"18 was the new benchmark set by Esteban Guerrieri with 30 minutes remaining on the clock. The Argentinian, winner of 9 World Series by Renault races, making a big impression on his first apprearance in America.
There was 15 minutes left when Newgarden retook top spot being the first and only driver to breach the 1'16 barrier posting a time of 1'15'89 and creating a cushion of 3 tenths to the chasing pack. On track at the same time was Victor Carbone in his Sam Schmidt Motorsports prepared car jumping up to 3rd place.
An incident at turn 7 involving Esteban Guerrieri, whilst on a quick lap, brought out the yellow flags with just 7 minutes to go bringing a premature end to the session leaving Newgarden top of the pile.

"It was a strong day for all of Sam Schmidt Motorsports,” Newgarden said. “We’ve had a good form over all of testing, and this kind of reassured us that we are in good form and not sort of guessing.  It’s still early. We have a lot of work to do. We have a couple more test days to run before the first race at St. Pete, so we just need to keep it up"

1. Josef Newgarden - Sam Schmidt Motorsports - 1'15"89   (38)
2. Esteban Guerrieri - Sam Schmidt Motorsports +0.29   (27)
3. Victor Carbone - Sam Schmidt Motorsports +0.66   (57)
4. Stefan Wilson - Andretti Autosport +0.71   (55)
5. Gustavo Yacaman - Team Moore Racing +0.80   (35)
6. Connor Daly - Sam Schmidt Motorsports +1.21   (41)
7. Philip Major - Andretti Autosport +1.21   (50)
8. Peter Dempsey - Racing Technology +1.23   (30)
9. Victor Garcia - Team Moore Racing +1.63   (17)
10. David Ostella - Jensen Motorsport +1.71   (29)
11. Duarte Ferreira - Bryan Herta Autosport +2.07  (52)
12. Juan Pablo Garcia - Jensen Motorsport +2.08   (35)

( ) number of laps completed