ALTON, Va. – Alessandro De Tullio vaulted himself into contention for the inaugural USF Juniors Presented by Cooper Tires championship title following a weekend sweep of the Cooper Tires VIR Grand Prix for Velocity Racing Development at VIRginia International Raceway.
A couple of weeks shy of his 16th birthday, De Tullio, from Miami, Fla., made hard work of winning the second race earlier this morning, recovering brilliantly after an early error dropped him to the back of the pack, but he led the majority of this afternoon’s finale and held off points leader Mac Clark by less than three tenths of a second.
Titus Sherlock and Alan Isambard both claimed their maiden podium finishes following a dramatic race, while De Tullio’s teammate, Sam Corry, finished third in a thrilling, all-green 15-lap weekend finale.
The race began seemingly with a sense of normality as Clark lined up at the head of the nicely formed starting grid. Clark, having won each of the first four races of the season, secured his fifth Cooper Tires Pole Award by virtue of posting the fastest second-best lap among the field during the lone qualifying session on Saturday morning.
It didn’t stay that way for long. A hectic beginning to the race included a couple of full-course cautions, plus a brief red-flag stoppage while damaged cars were removed from the scene of an incident in Turn 15. Clark maintained his position in front through the opening dramas but was unable to break away from an array of challengers once the race was restarted for a four-lap uninterrupted run to the checkered flag.
Positions changed regularly during a thrilling denouement which had begun with De Tullio at the back of the pack after he had slipped off the road in Turn One earlier in the race. Remarkably, De Tullio made up eight positions in just three laps and was running fifth as the leading pack of cars began their final trip around the challenging 3.27-mile road course. Even more remarkably, De Tullio somehow managed to outmaneuver all of his rivals to emerge with a sensational victory.
De Tullio’s task was eased by an incident at the end of the long back straightaway between Clark, who had held the lead, Corry and Nikita Johnson, from Gulfport, Fla., aboard another VRD Ligier JS. Corry crossed the line in second place but later was relegated to 12th after being served with a 30-second penalty for avoidable contact following an earlier clash with Jeremy Fairbairn (Crosslink Kiwi Motorsport), from Wellington, Fla. A disappointed Clark recovered to finish 10th, while Johnson, who fell to the back of the field, also was issued a penalty from Race Control for his part in the final-lap contretemps.
Sherlock and Isambard were credited with second and third, while Jake Bonilla, Elliot Cox and Andre Castro also were within one second of the race winner at the checkered flag.
This afternoon’s race was rather less dramatic but no less exciting as Clark, who once again started from pole position, waged a race-long battle with VRD teammates De Tullio, Corry and Johnson. Once again it came down to the final lap. This time it was relatively clean, although Johnson found himself on the grass at the exit of the Roller Coaster section of track less than a half-mile from the finish line which resulted in him falling from second to fourth.
Isambard produced another strong result to finish fifth, well clear of Sherlock who narrowly headed Bonilla, Castro and Ethan Ho.
Another solid finish from Clark enabled him to stretch his points to 37 over De Tullio, whose hat-trick catapulted him from sixth to second in the standings. Seven of 16 races are now in the books. At stake is a scholarship valued at $220,000 to graduate onto the first official step of the Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires open-wheel development ladder, the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship, in 2023.