Franzoni Tops USF2000 Palm Beach Test

Italian Victor Franzoni resides in Brazil

The official 2015 season is now underway for the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda, as a number of teams and drivers rolled off their trailers for an official test day on the road course at Palm Beach International Raceway on Sunday, January 25. Brazilian Victor Franzoni may have only just confirmed his return to Afterburner Autosport squad last week, but the series sophomore looked as though he'd never left the seat of his car as he topped two of the three sessions run on the 2.21-mile circuit on Sunday. Afterburner's focus for the test was simply to get Victor re-acclimated with his #17 entry, ahead of the Cooper Tire Winterfest that is set to kick off the pre-season at NOLA Motorsports Park and Barber Motorsports Park in late February. The team ran through system checks and gave Franzoni the opportunity to the shake off the winter cobwebs.

"I'm feeling very good being back to the track and driving again," Franzoni confirmed. "I was missing driving so much and the atmosphere we have at the race track as well. I'm very excited for these tests because they'll be the last before Winterfest. It will be a great chance to see where we compare with the other drivers. Afterburner and I ended off the year strong in 2014, so I think we'll be competitive all the time in 2015."

Franzoni ran all three sessions at Palm Beach, turning a total of 85 laps with a fast time of 1:14.6508.

Having loaded up the trailer following the outing, Afterburner Autosport has now arrived at Homestead-Miami Speedway for the next test session, which will be run on Wednesday, January 28. The USF2000 teams will be joined by the Pro Mazda Championship squads to run on the facility's 14-turn, 2.21-mile road course. For the Homestead test, fellow Brazilian Bruna Tomaselli will test alongside Franzoni, as the young lady has graduated from her country's Formula Junior series and will likely join Afterburner Autosport for 2015. On Tuesday, the team's crew was also busy fitting two of their race cars for a pair of nationally-ranked kart racers – Florida's Oliver Askew and California's Christian Brooks – who were awarded USF2000 tests through the Mazda Road to Indy / MAXSpeed Driver Advancement Program.