Junior Open Wheel Talent

Mark Pellegrini of Bridgewater, Massachusetts won a Formula BMW- Americas raffle at the recent Championship Karting International (CKI) event. Mark was competing in the IAME Junior class over the weekend, where he finished 5th, when he decided to put his name-in-the-hat for a chance to win the raffle. The winning raffle ticket, put on by Formula BMW-Americas, offers a free entry into the Formula BMW Licensing program held this summer in Tooele, Utah. Pellegrini has been driving go-karts in Rotax Juniors, the Florida Winter Tour, and the Northeast Championship for the past several seasons.

This is a story that will likely appear even better at the end of the 2009 Formula BMW-Americas season. But, the numbers are just too good right now to disregard–so I decided to publish my findings early.

Over the last few years the EUROINTERNATIONAL Group has dominated the competition in the Formula BMW-Americas series. In fact, their success can be found in many series across the globe, including Formula BMW-Europe. In order to keep things simple, I will be focusing on their Formula BMW-Americas track record over the past few seasons.

As expected, the team’s success in the FBMW-Americas series has developed over time. Their first race in the American series occurred 4-years ago this weekend. The #16 EuroInternational car was piloted by Edoardo Piscopo at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio. Piscopo and the team started off with a bang by putting their entry off-pole in their first qualifying session. Unfortunately, the race didn’t offer a fairy tale ending as the team finished 16th out of 22 cars. Arguably, their first real success came at the end of the 2006 season when Canadian Robert Wickens joined the team at Round 9 of his championship winning season. The duo’s first win together came the next day on the streets of San Jose during Round 10 on July 30th, 2006. In all fairness, Wickens was already leading the championship with Team Apex when he switched teams. Nonetheless, this seemed to be a catalyst for EuroInternational’s future success.

In 2007, another Canadian driver joined the team–Daniel Morad. Morad and EuroInternational had a tremendous season enroute to winning the 2007 championship. Other notable drivers found in the team’s paddock throughout the season were Sebastian Saavedra, Adrien Tambay, and Yannick Hofman. In 2007, EuroInternational claimed 40.5% of the podium spots available–17 podiums in 14 races. This percentage excludes the FBMW World Final.

The following season, 2008, the team improved even more. Once again, they found a very solid group of drivers and brought them to the grid. A few notables are Alexander Rossi, Ricardo Favoretto, Giancarlo Vilarinho, and Adrien Tambay. Not only did they find success with this talented group of drivers, they backed up their 2007 championship by winning once again. This time, the championship came from an American driver; Alexander Rossi. Rossi had an incredible year, with an unprecedented 10 wins (11 counting the World Final) and 12 podiums. The team found itself claiming 55.6% of the available podium spots during the 2008 season.
**Please note that Round 7 was cancelled and the results for Round 15 are not posted on the Formula BMW-Americas site.**

As stated above, the numbers for 2009 are likely to improve and look even better at the end of season. To date, the drivers have completed 7 Rounds of the 2009 championship.

In the meantime, I’ve compiled a few numbers from the current season that will likely impress anyone who views them. Thus far into 2009, EuroInternational has claimed 14 of the 21 available podium spots or two-thirds—which is an astounding 67%. To put their success into perspective all you really need to do is look at their 2009 win percentage–which is currently at 100%. Giancarlo Vilarinho, Gabby Chaves, and Michael Lewis have all stood on the podium for the team this season, but Vilarinho and Chaves are the only two drivers in the championship to win a race (so far). The future success of the team remains to be seen, but the numbers to date, are extraordinary.

Giancarlo Vilarinho capped off, no-pun intended, a perfect weekend by sweeping all three rounds of the Formula BMW-Americas stop at Miller Motorsports Park. Yesterday’s victory marked his fifth consecutive Formula BMW-Americas win, vaulting him into first place in the overall championship. Gabby Chaves remains closely in the hunt for the overall lead by claiming another second place finish. Gabby has finished on the podium in all seven races to date–the only driver to do so. Gianmarco Raimondo found his way to the podium for the second time of the weekend at MMP, by finishing third in the overall tally.

Wilson Philippe is the Hard Charger of the race by improving 4 positions. He started the race in 12th and crossed the stripe in 8th. This was Wilson’s second hard charger title of the weekend–and his third of the season.

Formula BMW-Americas
Full Results: Round 7 Miller Motorsports Park

Today at Miller Motorsports Park, Giancarlo Vilarinho won his fourth consecutive Formula BMW-Americas race. The win moves him into a tie for first place with Gabby Chaves after six rounds. Michael Lewis put in a strong run, challenging Vilarinho throughout the race, to finish 2nd on the day. Gabby Chaves continued his string of podium finishes with a third place result. The top-three drivers have one thing in common–they all drive for the Formula BMW powerhouse Eurointernational.

There was a three-way tie for the hard charger title—-if you want to call it that—- as the three drivers improved a mere two positions. For the sake of my race coverage and driver promotion–we will go with it. Joao Horto (9th-7th), Barrett Mertins (10th-8th), and Wilson Philippe (11th-9th) all managed to improve two positions during the 15-lap race.

Full Results: Round Six

The drivers return to action tomorrow morning for Round 7. Stay tuned.

The Formula BMW-Americas series completed Round 5 earlier today at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah. Giancarlo Vilarinho put in a solid race to cross the stripe first–2.994 seconds ahead of Gabby Chaves. Gianmarco Raimondo finished third, just 4.013 seconds behind the leader. The victory by Vilarinho marked his third win of the season, as well as his third consecutive win. Today’s event was the first race of a three race weekend for the Formula BMW drivers, so stay tuned for more updates.

The “hard charger” for Round 5 is James Kovacic. He improved the most positions of the race– a mere two! That said, the rules are pretty simple–improve the most positions and you will be noted as the “hard charger”.

Full Results: Round 5

For any aspiring drivers looking to make the move to Formula BMW- Americas in 2010… it was announced today that the series will be offering licensing programs at Miller Motorsports Park. The two courses will be held; July 8-10 and August 17-19 at Tooele, Utah.

This is a nice move by the series– which should help them qualify more drivers for competition in 2010. Not to mention, spark some home-grown interest in the FB02 race car.

Giancarlo Vilarinho capped off a perfect weekend at Virginia International Raceway by sweeping Round Three and Four of the Formula BMW-Americas championship. Gabby Chaves finished second, falling short of the victory by a mere 0.510 seconds in today’s race. Chaves set the fast lap of the race with a 1:56.293. Gianmarco Raimondo had a great run to finish 3rd.

The hard charger of the day is Gianmarco Raimondo who improved 5 positions; finishing 3rd after starting back in 8th place. Honorable mention should go to James Kovacic who qualified 2nd and set the third quickest lap of the day–unfortunately he dropped back in the race to finish 8th. Regardless, it was still a great run by the 15-year-old Australian, who seems to be getting quicker every time out.

Full Results

The Formula BMW-Americas just completed Round 3 at Virginia International Raceway. Brazilian driver Giancarlo Vilarinho took the win by just under a half-second ahead of points leader Gabby Chaves. This is Giancarlo’s first Formula BMW victory after spending time in both the Formula BMW- Europe and Americas in 2008. His best finish last season was 2nd at Montreal after starting 10th. Alex Ellis had a great run to finish 3rd, just behind Chaves, after starting seventh.

The hard chargers of Round 3 are Alex Ellis and Wilson Philippe as both drivers managed to improve four spots. Alex Ellis had an impressive drive, as stated above, by moving from 7th to 3rd in the 12 lap race. Wilson Philippe improved from 11th to 7th–which also marks his best finish of 2009.

I’m looking at some new options for race coverage in 2009. Obviously there are plenty of sources out there offering race results, most of which have better resources available than I do, and most of the series have their own live timing available as well. Your typical Internet race report provides you with the winner (rightly so), but you don’t always get the details of who had a great weekend. So, in an effort to separate the coverage at Junior Open Wheel Talent from that of several other racing websites and to help promote drivers showing improvement, I’ve decided to try a weekly “hard charger” section featuring the driver/s who advanced the most positions over the race weekend.

We will kick off this segment with the “hard-charger” or most improved drivers from Sebring. I sifted through these results fairly quickly, so feel free to correct me if I missed something, but here are the numbers I came up with….

Most Improved Driver/s: (Positions Improved in Parenthesis)

Skip Barber National
Race 1: Mike Vincec (5), Sage Karam (5)
–Race Winner: Connor De Phillippi
Race 2: Felipe Polehtto (8), Mike Vincec (8)
– Race Winner: Connor De Phillippi

Formula BMW
Race 1: Joao Victor Horto (4) — Race Winner: Gabriel Chaves
Race 2: Gianmarco Raimondo (5) — Race Winner: Gabriel Chaves

Star Mazda
Conor Daly (13) **Hard Charger of the Week**
– Race Winner: Adam Christodoulou

Atlantic Championship
James Winslow (5) — Race Winner: John Edwards

Once again, we have a few roster updates to announce…

Indy Lights
Canadian driver Jesse Mason is scheduled to return to the Indy Lights series this year, driving a third car for Guthrie-Meyer Racing. The 24-year-old driver has some European racing experience, running in the British F3 and German F3 ranks in 2003. His last year of racing full-time was 2004 when he made the move to the Infiniti Pro Series (Indy Lights), running 10 races for Brian Stewart. He managed to find the top-ten in all but one start, finishing 6th in the overall championship.

Formula BMW-Americas
As expected, Freddy Zebede and Barrett Mertins have signed with Jensen Motorsport. Zebede was the most improved driver (based on lap times) at the Carolina Motorsports Park test last week. Mertins is also showing signs of improvement as he adapts to the car.

Daniel Vela has signed with Eurointernational and will partner Michael Lewis, Wilson Phillippe and Giancarlo Vilarinho under the team tent. Vela has looked pretty solid in pre-season testing. He was also a Formula BMW Americas scholarship winner.