After a few weeks of rumors and testing, it was made official this week that British karting standout Josh Fielding will join Cape Motorsports for the 2010 USF2000 National Championship.
Josh has spent the last two seasons competing in the KF2 division of the karting ranks. This will be his first full-season in cars. The 20-year-old race driver was originally planning to compete in the UK Formula Renault 2.0 championship in 2010, but decided to enter the USF2000 National Championship instead.
Fielding will be teamed up with Irish driver Patrick McKenna, who signed with Cape Motorsports early last week.
Andretti Autosport announced today that they have signed 15-year-old Sage Karam to pilot their F2000 car in the 2010 USF2000 National Championship.
Sage, of Nazareth, PA., will be an excellent addition to Andretti Autosport’s ‘Road to Indy’ program. The 15-year-old phenom has performed remarkably in both karts and cars— competing full-time in both disciplines last season via the Skip Barber National Championship and the World Karting Association. I’ve been following Sage for quite awhile now and I’m confident in saying that he will be a driver to watch in 2010.
Michael Andretti- President of Andretti Autosport- has a similar opinion of Sage’s potential.
“We look forward to bringing Sage on board as Andretti Autosport’s first USF2000 National Championship driver and hope to make him the first driver to go all the way through the ‘Road to Indy’ program – all the way to the IZOD IndyCar Series. I’ve watched him grow to become an accomplished young driver, and I think his experience in karting and Skip Barber will serve him well this year in the USF2000 series. I’m very confident Sage will be successful with Andretti Autosport,” Michael stated in a release.
In 2008, Sage was awarded the prestigious Skip Barber Karting Scholarship after winning the annual shoot-out. At 13, he was the youngest driver in history to win the overall prize of a fully-funded ride in the Skip Barber National Championship.
Sage had a great inaugural full-season in the car ranks during 2009 that included 2 wins, 2 pole positions, 3 podiums, 2 fast laps, 32 laps lead, 1 hard charger award and 1 track record (LRP). He continued to develop and improve throughout the season and I expect we will see much of the same this year in USF2000 competition.
It was made official this morning, after nearly a month of rumors, that Patrick McKenna has signed with Cape Motorsports for the 2010 USF2000 National Championship.
McKenna, 22, won this year’s prestigious Motorsport Ireland “Dunlop Young Driver of the Year” award which is valued at approximately €50,000. Last season, McKenna competed in the ultra-competitive MSA Formula Ford Championship of Great Britain where he finished 10th in the final standings (1 pole position, 5 podiums, 12 top-ten finishes) driving for the UK based Jamun Racing. In 2008, he finished runner-up to USA’s Josef Newgarden in the Formula Ford Festival-Kent Class.
McKenna will be testing with Cape Motorsports in the coming weeks at Roebling Road in Savannah, Georgia prior to making his North American debut on the Streets of St. Petersburg for the 2010 USF2000 opener on March 27-28.
Last week I wrote a brief post on the upcoming Palm Beach International Raceway Rookie Challenge:
Team PBIR recently announced that they will aim to fill two seats for 2010 through their “Rookie Challenge Program”. This is a really exciting opportunity for any up-and-coming driver. It’s great to see Kane Williams, Ron Dixon and all the PBIR staff working together (along with numerous key sponsors) to make this program a reality.
Earlier this week, I spoke to Kane Williams—who is heading-up this year’s competition— and he stated that the momentum is really building and they have a lot of interested drivers set to take part. At this time, they are working on simply preparing the cars so every driver will have an equal opportunity to stand-out during the evaluation. It looks like a solid opportunity and it will be real interesting to see which drivers take part in the inaugural challenge.
I will post additional updates and lineup notes as I receive them.
Andersen Racing recently tested two kart racers in a USF2000 car at their test track (Andersen RacePark). Bryson Schutte (Junior Rotax) and Taylor Gates (Senior Rotax) each won their respective championships in the 2009 TRAK (Toronto Racing Association of Karters) series. Andersen Racing is a series sponsor for TRAK and subsequently offered a USF2000 test to the up-and-coming drivers.
According to the official press release, two other karters received a wild-card prize and will test with Andersen Racing next month. Dalton Kellet (Rotax Junior) and Andrew Waring (Rotax Junior) are the wild-card recipients.
It’s always great to see race teams offering top karters a formula car test and exposing them to the world of junior formula racing. Let’s hope this sort of prize continues for years to come.
Michael Furfari will return to Star Mazda competition in 2010 with AIM Autosport. His younger brother, Anthony Furfari, will drive for AIM in the USF2000 National Championship.
Michael Furfari
Michael, 16, drove for Juncos Racing in the 2009 Star Mazda championship. He finished inside the top-ten on 8 occasions. His best qualifying position was 5th in Race-2 at Autobahn in Joliet, Illinois. Perhaps more impressive than his actual end-results were his in-race performances. He had several notable drives in 2009. For example, at Milwaukee he drove from 20th to 10th in the race. At Iowa Speedway in Newton, IA, he drove from 21st to 8th. In Race-1 at Autobahn, he drove from 15th to 9th. In the series finale at Laguna Seca, he drove from 20th on the grid to finish 10th. Clearly he has race craft and if he can improve his qualifying efforts in 2010, I expect him to be a consistent front-runner.
Anthony Furfari
Anthony Furfari, 15, has spent the last few years in the karting ranks. Away from karting he has put in a fairly rigorous testing program in full-size cars. Having sampled both an F2000 car and a Star Mazda car as well as running a few Skip Barber Regional events, the younger Furfari plans to enter the USF2000 National Championship in 2010 with AIM Autosport. He recently tested a Star Mazda car with Mundill Racing and had many wondering if he would just continue testing until he turned 16 and then enter the Star Mazda Championship. His decision to run the USF2000 National Championship is probably the right step. It will be fun to watch his progress this season.
In an effort to help bridge the gap between junior formula racing and the IndyCar series, the IRL has created a new Driver Development Ladder entitled “Road to Indy”.
The new ladder system is designed to help drivers progress from the USF2000 National Championship to Star Mazda and then to Indy Lights prior to making the final step to the IRL IndyCar Series. Both the USF2000 National Championship and the Star Mazda Championship include road courses and ovals—similar to the IndyCar Series—which will help drivers hone their skills as they progress up through the ranks.
This is great news for young drivers who are looking to develop their racecraft for a future career in the IRL. Here is the official Road To Indy Release. I’m hopeful that the new program will bring in more attention and media coverage for today’s up-and-coming junior formula stars… which, in theory, should create more sponsorship opportunities.
As expected, based on a post I wrote in October, Mazda will be expanding their presence in the junior formula world by adding a rung to the already existing MazdaSPEED Driver Development Ladder.
In 2010, Mazda will power the USF2000 National Championship-which is sanctioned by the IRL.
The new MazdaSPEED Ladder System, at this time, will ideally see drivers progress upwards through the open-wheel ranks in the following order: karting, Skip Barber National Championship, USF2000 National Championship, Star Mazda, and the Atlantic Championship.
It’s great to see Mazda continuing to offer so much support for today’s up-and-coming drivers. The IRL is expected to make an announcement later today at PRI about their own ladder system.
**Update** IRL’s ‘Road to Indy’
USF2000
The USF2000 National Championship released their 12-race 2010 schedule earlier today. The breakdown looks like this:
- 75% permanent road courses
- 16.67% ovals
- 8.33% temporary street circuits
The schedule looks good. The drivers will run alongside the likes of Star Mazda, the Atlantic Championship, Indy Lights, ALMS, and IndyCar- among others during the 2010 season. Dan Andersen has set out to make this a “Pro” series and the schedule reflects that.
Make the jump for the full 2010 USF2000 schedule:
[More]
After months of rumors about an IRL sanctioned F2000 Pro Series, … Dan Andersen announced today that he will in fact re-establish a U.S. F2000 National Championship.
The series, which will be sanctioned by the IRL, is scheduled to feature a mixture of road courses, street circuits, and ovals. You can read the official press release here.
Just over a month ago, I wrote an article highlighting the “pros” and “cons” of creating a USF2000 National Championship. Feel free to post your feelings on the issue via the comment section.
