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| July 22, 2012 News |
| Star Mazda: Hawksworth Adds to Championship Lead with Edmonton Win |
 | Jack Hawksworth extended his championship advantage with a lights-to-flag victory in race two of the Edmonton doubleheader
(Photo: Star Mazda Championship - Eric McCombs) |
With a return of the sun, and P1 starting spot, English racer Jack Hawksworth won his sixth race of the 2012 season, leading from green to checkered in Round 10 on Sunday (July 22) at the Edmonton City Centre Airport circuit.
Piloting the No. 82 Team Pelfrey/TORGOEN Swiss Watches/EXA Networks Mazda, Hawksworth got away cleanly from the traditional standing start, holding off the advances of Sage Karam's No. 88 Andretti Autosport/Comfort Revolution Mazda and Gabby Chaves' No. 19 JDC MotorSports/CLARO/Marca Colombia/Tecpro Mazda.
The first full-course yellow of the race came late, on lap 15, when Toronto racer Zach Meyer tore the left rear corner off his No. 66 AIM Autosport/Damis Partners III Mazda. While the car wound up in the grass, debris littering the track forced the track safety crew to roll. The race went green on lap 20, and Martin Scuncio almost made himself the hero of the race with a daring - but ultimately unsuccessful - charge for the lead in his the No. 22 Juncos Racing/Pullman Bus/Gobierno Regional del Bio-Biol Mazda. On the first lap of the re-start, Zach Veach hit the turn nine wall in his No. 77 Andretti Autosport/K12/Zakosi Data Backup Mazda, bringing out yet another full-course yellow. Green-flag racing resumed on lap 23 with just a few minutes left in the race, but Scuncio, a hero just a few laps earlier, had a coming-together with two of his Juncos racing teammates in the entry to turn one that took them all out and triggered a spin by surprise race one winner Camilo Schmidt who was on his way to a top-five finish.
The end result was Hawksworth adding to his 2012 win tally and extending his championship lead with the victory over Karam and Chaves.
"This is more like it," said the jubilant Englishman, celebrating his fifth win, sixth pole, and eighth fastest lap of the season. "I got out front and was able to stay there during the re-starts, which is important, and could run the race the way I wanted to. Yesterday was a bit of a mess with the rain, but we were leading on the last lap re-start before my teammate Gustavo Menezes and I got together. My car was damaged a bit, but we still managed to finish seventh and turned the fastest lap, which gave me the pole for today's race. So overall, not quite as good a weekend as Toronto where we won both from the pole, but those kind of weekends don't come along very often, so I'm happy with what we achieved."
Notable drives included Finnish racer Petri Suvanto, knocked out on the first lap on Saturday, and thus starting from the rear of the field on Sunday, slashed his way up to finish fourth in the No. 81 Team Pelfrey/Mazda Road to Indy Mazda, despite clouting the turn one wall on lap 10, an encounter that knocked his right-side suspension far out of alignment. Suvanto's Pelfrey teammate, who destroyed his No. 83 Team Pelfrey/ TrueCar.com/Oakley Mazda in the last-lap melee in race, drove a strong race in a car borrowed from Team GDT, finishing fifth.
The other happy ending was young Edmonton native Stefan Rzadzinski who had a coming-together with Suvanto on the first lap on Saturday. Starting from 18th on the grid, he raced his No. 93 JDC MotorSports/PoweredByAlberta.com Mazda up through the field to finish sixth. Fellow Alberta driver, Blair Robertshaw, a 53 year-old businessman/racer making his professional open-wheel racing debut, won the Expert Series for drivers 30 and older in both races one and two as the lone class entrant. He finished 15th overall.
The hard-luck story of the race, the weekend, and indeed the last couple of races, belongs to Californian Connor De Phillippi driving the No. 2 Juncos Racing/ModSpace Racing/One24 Mazda. After a disastrous weekend in Toronto two weeks ago, he came to Edmonton hoping for a change of luck to get his championship hopes back on track. A fifth-place finish in race one seemed to hold out some hope, but he turned only the 14th-fast lap, and so started race two buried well in the field. A first-lap encounter with the wall on the last turn right before the pit entrance tore the nose completely off his car and he re-joined the field a lap down. With his car still running but wounded, he finished 14th and dropped from second in the championship points to fourth.
With the provisional results, Hawksworth expands his his points total to 243. Chaves moves up to second with 194, Karam is in third with 191, and De Phillippi drops to fourth. The team championship changed hands this weekend, as Juncos Racing came in leading, but leaves with Team Pelfrey on top 261 points to 244.
The Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear completes its Canada swing on August 4-5, with Rounds 11 and 12 on the historic Trois-Rivieres street circuit in Quebec.
Star Mazda Championship cars all carry two Replay XD1080 cameras to provide exciting driver POV footage for races that are broadcast tape-delayed on Discovery's Velocity Channel and globally on ESPN International. In the U.S., the Toronto race will air on Velocity at 12 Noon on Saturday, August 4. For international dates and times, please visit http://www.StarMazda.com and click the Star Mazda TV logo on the home page; or go to http://intltv.espn.com/
The top-three will be posted following every session on the EFCN Facebook page, and EFCN Twitter page.
Star Mazda Championship
Round 10 - Race Results
July 22, 2012
Edmonton City Centre Airport Circuit - Edmonton, Alberta
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Diff. | Fast Time| 1. | Jack Hawksworth | Team Pelfrey | - | 1:29.412 | | 2. | Sage Karam | Andretti autosport | 0.688 | 1:29.741 | | 3. | Gabby Chaves | JDC MotorSports | 2.832 | 1:30.152 | | 4. | Petri Suvanto | Team Pelfrey | 7.329 | 1:29.926 | | 5. | Gustavo Menezes | Team Pelfrey | 8.882 | 1:30.211 | | 6. | Stefan Rzadzinski | JDC MotorSports | 9.999 | 1:29.991 | | 7. | Ashley Freiberg | JDC MotorSports | 10.278 | 1:31.084 | | 8. | Andres Mendez | Team GDT | 11.838 | 1:31.475 | | 9. | Carlos Linares | Linares Racing | 13.375 | 1:31.609 | | 10. | Camilo Schmidt | Linares Racing | 14.607 | 1:30.962 | | 11. | Ryan Tveter | Team GDT | 15.578 | 1:31.666 | | 12. | Diego Ferreira | Juncos Racing | 54.284 | 1:30.096 | | 13. | Bruno Palli | Juncos Racing | 1 Lap | 1:30.694 | | 14. | Connor De Phillippi | Juncos Racing | 1 Lap | 1:30.512 | | 15. | Blair Robertshaw | Robertshaw Racing | 1 Lap | 1:35.392 | | 16. | Martin Scuncio | Juncos Racing | 2 Laps | 1:29.874 | | 17. | Juan Piedrahita | JDC MotorSports | 3 Laps | 1:59.293 | | 18. | Zach Veach | Andretti Autosport | 6 Laps | 1:29.962 | | 19. | Zack Meyer | AIM Autosport | 11 Laps | 1:30.059 | |
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