RACE CONTROL • 73himself known right from day 1 that he had arrived and was keen to show his
skills on track in 2019.
After one exploratory outing at the end of last year, and then joining forces
over the winter with eight-time defending champion team Cape Motorsports,
Braden Eves began the new Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship season with
one goal and one goal only: to win. The 19-year-old from New Albany, Ohio,
did just that in the season opening St. Petersburg Grand Prix.
Eves, who secured the pole position, was never seriously challenged during
a crash-marred 40-minute race. He held off another equally impressive rookie,
Manuel Sulaiman (DEForce Racing), from Puebla, Mexico, by just 0.4372 of
a second following a one-lap dash to the checkered flag. Another rookie,
New Zealander Hunter McElrea, from Gold Coast, Australia, rounded out the
podium for Pabst Racing.
The race began in somewhat messy fashion when one of the pre-race
favourites, Frenchman Alex Baron, found his Legacy Autosport Tatuus USF-17
pointing skyward even before Turn One. Baron, who won at St. Petersburg last
year but qualified a disappointing seventh this time around, was caught out in
the braking area and launched off the back of one of his rivals’ rear tires.
Miraculously, while several contenders were forced to take evasive action,
including outside front row qualifier McElrea, as Baron’s car cartwheeled into