MRTI: Entry lists released for St. Petersburg - MotorSportsTalk

The entry lists for the three rungs on the Mazda Road to Indy presented by Cooper Tires are out today, ahead of the season-opening weekends at St. Petersburg.

More than 50 drivers from 14 countries are present across the board; more previews for these series will come throughout this week.

Quick notes from the three series and the entry lists are below:

Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires (15 entries)

The 15 drivers entered are the same as at the Spring Training test at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where Andretti Autosport led both the oval and road course portions of the test.
That 15-driver entry is broken down between seven returning drivers (Santiago Urrutia, Kyle Kaiser, Neil Alberico, Dalton Kellett, Shelby Blackstock, Zachary Claman De Melo, Juan Piedrahita) and eight rookies (Aaron Telitz, Nicolas Dapero, Matheus Leist, Garth Rickards, Nico Jamin, Colton Herta, Ryan Norman, Pato O’Ward).
Carlin has won three of the four races at St. Petersburg the last two years. Ed Jones swept in 2015 on both the team and driver’s U.S. debut; Felix Serralles won race one last year before Belardi Auto Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist won race two.
The Indy Lights races from St. Petersburg have a 2 a.m. ET air time on March 18 on NBCSN.

Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires (14 entries)

A better than expected field of 14 cars will feature all participants from the Spring Training test at Homestead-Miami Speedway and a bunch of extras that didn’t test there last week.
Young guns Phillippe Denes (World Speed Motorsports), Max Hanratty (ArmsUp Motorsports) and Matt Machiko (FatBoy! Racing) add a bit of extra interest to the field. Hanratty had previously been announced with Leading Edge Grand Prix, but that team’s entry has not materialized.
Look for Juncos Racing to make an interesting driver announcement on Wednesday as Ricardo Juncos’ team, which wasn’t originally planning to run Pro Mazda this season, now is set to return after all with two cars.
Team Pelfrey swept last year’s St. Petersburg races with Pato O’Ward and Aaron Telitz winning one race each. Neil Alberico (Cape Motorsports) swept 2015, Spencer Pigot (Juncos Racing) swept 2014, and Matthew Brabham (Andretti Autosport) swept 2013. It’s been since 2012, when Connor De Phillippi (Juncos) and Jack Hawksworth (Pelfrey) made it two different teams that won in a weekend at St. Petersburg.

Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda (22 entries)

Six returning drivers (Parker Thompson, Luke Gabin, Ayla Agren, Robert Megennis, Dakota Dickerson, Lucas Kohl), 15 rookies and one TBA make up the field of 22 cars for the USF2000 season opener, with all cars but one the new Tatuus USF-17 that makes its race debut. One National Class entry still fields the previous generation Van Diemen.
Rinus Van Kalmthout switches from Benik, where he was initially announced, to Pabst Racing in a third car. He has also tested for Newman Wachs Racing.
Pabst has swept the weekend here the last two years with Jordan Lloyd and Yufeng Luo winning once apiece last year and Jake Eidson winning both races in 2015. In 2014, Victor Franzoni (Afterburner Autosport) and RC Enerson (Team E) split the wins. It’s been since 2013, when Scott Hargrove swept for Cape Motorsports, that the six-time defending champion team has won at St. Pete.

Race schedule

Indy Lights: Race 1, Sat., 5:10-6 p.m. ET; Race 2, Sun., 9;45-10:45 a.m. ET
Pro Mazda: Race 1, Sat. 11:50 a.m.-12:40 p.m. ET; Race 2, Sun. 4:30-5:20 p.m. ET
USF2000: Race 1, Sat., 8:40-9:20 a.m. ET; Race 2, Sat. 2-2:40 p.m ET

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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