The opening round of the Formula Race Promotions season is in the books. Qualifying Friday afternoon was wet after several dry practice sessions. Mateo proved to be quick in both wet and dry conditions, putting the Team Pelfrey #80 into P2, just 0.062 seconds off the pole without the benefit of the draft.
Race 1 might have been one of the strangest races ever. In damp but drying conditions first thing in the morning, most of the field took to the grid on slick tires. On the formation lap one car spun causing the safety car to stay out. The official time for the race started when the field came around to the yellow flag, but the field continued to lap under caution. A couple of laps later, the car which had started in P1 pulled off track with mechanical issues thereby extending the caution. At that point Mateo inherited the lead. Another spin later, the time allowed for the race was running out while the cars were still lapping behind the safety car. It was determined that with the damp conditions and several new drivers (or those racing for the first time since last fall), a one lap sprint wasn’t really in anyone’s interest so the checker was thrown. Since the green flag was never shown during the race, the race was scrubbed, effectively making it a 20-race season instead of 21 races.
Race 2 on Saturday afternoon reverted to the official qualifying times since no fast laps were set in Race 1. Due to the mechanical issues in Race 1, the fastest qualifier was unable to resume racing for the weekend. Mateo inherited pole position for the start of Race 2. Mateo jumped out to an early lead, opening up a gap of just over 3 seconds before the safety car came out in lap 7. Due to the challenges of retrieving the cars that had gone off track, the race was ended early after 9 laps under caution. Mateo finished in first ahead of Jonathan Lee and Timothy Steele.
Formula Race Promotions uses the fastest lap time from the previous race to set the grid for subsequent races over the same race weekend. F1600 is a heavy drafting class and during races the fastest laps often come as the car is in the draft of other cars. It is hard to be fastest on your own. As a result, Mateo had the 4th fastest lap in Race 2 which was the position he started Race 3.
Race 3 on Sunday started at 2:05 pm giving the team a lot of time to sleep in, get packed up and generally wait around for the race to start. You can watch the Sunday race at SpeedTourTV below.
Mateo was patient at the start entering turn 1 still in 4th position. He was able to pass each of the 3 drivers starting ahead of him by the time he reached turn 10 A/B. From the lead, Mateo was able to build a gap to the field, effectively breaking the draft for the cars behind him in just 2 laps before a safety car bunched up the field again. After the restart, Mateo slowly build up a gap of over 1 sec over the next 4 laps, effectively breaking the draft again. There was a lot of great racing going on behind Mateo, as the competition for the other two steps on the podium was fierce. Simon Sikes, who DNF’s Race 2 and therefore started from the back in Race 3, passed the field to finish 2.6 seconds behind Mateo.
Mateo now has 6 consecutive FF/F1600 victories a Road Atlanta dating back to November 2023’s ARRC races. He won both of those races, the 2 SCCA Hoosier Super Tour races and the 2 Formula Race Promotions races. The additional seat time and competitive laps at Road Atlanta really set the stage for a strong result in the opening weekend of the FRP season. Now we have a little break until the next FRP race weekend at Mid-Ohio April 26-28.