ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Australian rookie Lochie Hughes romped to a conclusive victory in Saturday afternoon’s Cooper Tires Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, the opening round of the USF2000 Presented by Cooper Tires season.
Hughes — a native of the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia — clearly took a shine to the bayfront street circuit and under a gloriously sunny sky, swept a flag-to-flag debut victory for Jay Howard Driver Development.
Teammate Evagoras Papasavvas capped a tremendous day for former USF2000 and Indy NXT champion Jay Howard by fighting his way past local driver Nikita Johnson to capture second position just five laps from the finish. Johnson completed the podium in third.
Hughes, the winner of last year’s F4 United States Championship powered by Honda, set the scene for his triumphant debut by posting the fastest lap during qualifying yesterday to capture the Cooper Tires Pole Award. Johnson, the youngest driver in the field at 14 years old, started alongside on the front row for today’s 20-lap race with VRD Racing teammate Sam Corry and Papasavvas sharing row two.
The 21-car field made it cleanly through the tight and often tumultuous Turn 1, with Hughes maintaining his lead. A quarter-mile later in Turn 3, both Zack Ping and Avery Towns clipped the tire barrier at the exit of the corner and retired moments later with badly damaged suspension.
After four laps behind the pace car, Hughes leapt away in the lead and immediately pulled out a small gap over Johnson, Corry and Papasavvas. Next time around, Papasavvas executed the first of two impressive passes as he scythed cleanly past Corry under braking for Turn 1.
Hughes edged away gradually in the lead, finally taking the flag with a margin of victory of 2.4846 seconds.
Behind him, there was still action aplenty. One slight slip from Johnson was all it took for the inspired Papasavvas to sneak through into second place, leaving Johnson to complete a memorable day in front of a throng of local supporters by finishing third.
Simon Sikes earned the Tilton Hard Charger Award by recovering from a 15th-place start and finishing fourth. Corry held on for fifth at the finish ahead of Nicholas d’Orlando, Trey Burke and New Zealander Jacob Douglas.