USF2000 Sonoma preview
Latorre has a slim championship lead heading into this weekend.
R.C. Enerson
Richard Sloop
The Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda ends its season at Sonoma Raceway with two races on August 23rd/24th. The series championship battle is nearly a lock-up for Florian Latorre, but anything can happen that could take Jake Eidson or RC Enerson back into the championship hunt.
The season has been one of ups and downs for many of the championship contenders. Enerson started off the season with three wins from the first four races, but suffered a mid-season slump that included a 16th place finish at Lucas Oil Raceway thanks to a bad setup and a 17th place finish at the second Toronto race thanks to a drivetrain failure. Enerson is 33 points behind Latorre in the standings.
Eidson is only three points ahead of Enerson in the standings and 30 behind Latorre. This season has been a bit of a feast or famine season, with eight finishes in the top four and the remaining four races being eighth and ninth place finishes.
Latorre, however, has been the model of consistency with only a seventh and sixth place finishes as his worst of the season. Every other race has had a top-five finish with only three of those races being outside of the podium. If Latorre wins the first race at Sonoma or if he finishes ahead of both Enerson and Eidson, he will win the championship.
Others to look out for include Aaron Telitz and Victor Franzoni. Telitz is fourth in the championship standings and although he doesn't have a win this season outside of Lucas Oil Raceway, he will be looking to finish the season strong after two seventh place finishes at Mid Ohio bookending a second place result in the second Mid-Ohio race.
Franzoni is fifth in the standings and won the season opening race at St. Petersburg. With five other top-five finishes this season, he has been a consistent driver to look out for.
The USF2000 series will race on the 2.385 mile road course for the first time since the Mazda Road to Indy was launched in 2010. Previous season finales were at Road Atlanta, the Streets of Baltimore, Virginia International Raceway and Reliant (now NRG) Park in Houston.
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