TORONTO, Ont., Canada – Indy Pro 2000 Championship Presented by Cooper Tires driver Josh Green earned another podium finish at the L&W Supply Grand Prix of Toronto this past weekend, taking a third-place finish in Saturday’s Race 1 around the 1.786-mile street circuit after starting in fifth. The podium marked the fourth of the season for the #3 driver, adding more championship points and accolades to his 2022 campaign.
In Qualifying 2, Green was among the top three fastest times throughout most of the 20-minute session, ending up third after crashing on the final lap and spraining his wrist in the process. Still, the qualifying effort put him in the position to go for a win in the second race, pushing to overtake on Lap 1 before being tapped from behind, sending him into the #8 car of Nolan Siegel and creating a multi-car incident that took out several drivers on the opening lap, scoring Green P13 instead of another podium to round out the weekend.
Though a weekend of ups and downs, Green still came away from the weekend fifth overall in the championship with 239 points.
#3 Josh Green // Indy Pro 2000 SessionGuardian / Zimperium / Lionfish Tech Advisors / Mark Green / JHG Investments
“Toronto is awesome,” said Green. “Everyone at T3M did such an amazing job giving us great race cars, and we produced results because of it. Starting P3 in Race 2, I know we would’ve had some fight for our second win this season, but that’s how racing goes sometimes. One thing I keep being reminded of is I LOVE street fighting.”
Teammate Jonathan Browne showed excellent pace over the weekend, finding the speed in Qualifying 2 to best some of the top championship contenders and put his #2 car just .2 seconds off of P4, qualifying P9 overall.
Browne started Race 1 in P12 and was ready to charge up through the field on the opening lap; however, his eagerness matched with a chain reaction of brake checkups in front of him saw him hit the car ahead and damage his front wing, calling him into the pits for a replacement on Lap 1. With a yellow flag being thrown, Browne was able to get back out on the lead lap but didn’t quite catch up with the field before the race went green again, putting him in a difficult spot to gain positions but ultimately finishing the first race in P10.
In Race 2, Browne once again found trouble while fighting for position, tapping the wall on the narrow circuit and spinning out, resulting in a P11 finish. Despite the results, the Irishman showed some of his best pace of the season thus far on the challenging circuit, showing continued progress heading into the next round.
#2 Jonathan Browne // Indy Pro 2000 Human Centred Movement / CRPS Awareness
“What a cool experience to drive on such an exciting street circuit,” said Browne. “It was an up and down weekend with both high and low points. I struggled in the first qualifying session but managed to hook it up better for the second qualifying. Race 1 started on the back foot; after I tried to get a jump on the field, I clipped the car ahead and lost my front wing. From there, I drove back from last to 10th. Race 2 started well; I got up to sixth then got caught on the dirty side of the track while battling for position which forced me to tap the wall and damage my car, unfortunately. Disappointed with how the races panned out as we had a good race car. Thanks to the team for their continued faith in me. We are getting there, just need to piece it all together.”
COOPER TIRES USF2000 CHAMPIONSHIP
Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship drivers Christian Weir and Spike Kohlbecker came out of the gate strong in Friday’s practice, consistently placing themselves in the top two positions throughout the 30-minute session before ending up second and fourth overall, respectively. Qualifying for Race 1 once again put the pair in the first and second positions for the majority of the session, but the final minutes saw Weir end up P6 with Kohlbecker right after him in P7.
Qualifying 2 was another good session for Kohlbecker, putting him P8 for the second race. Unfortunately, Weir suffered slight damage to his car in the first stint, parking him for the second half of the session and placing him P15 for Race 2.
Race 1 consisted of green to checker racing with not a lot of changes, resulting in a seventh-place finish for Kohlbecker and an eighth-place finish for Weir. Race 2 was much more eventful; with Weir knowing he had the pace to be in the lead pack, he took off at the start and gained two positions from the get-go. The 15-year-old continued to battle until the end and got the #32 car all the way up to seventh before losing the car into the tire barrier at Turn 8 while going for P6 with just one lap to go, scoring him P9.
#32 Christian Weir // USF2000 ProFlo / Ferguson / eComfort.com
“Toronto is definitely a tricky track, but it is awesome,” said Weir. “We had good pace in practice and qualifying, and even though we didn’t get the results we wanted this weekend, it was great to earn two more top-10 finishes. Overall, Toronto was a great experience, and I’m looking forward to returning next year!”
Kohlbecker had a great start to Race 2 and was working his way forward before a Lap 6 incident ahead left him nowhere to go, causing him to lock up the #33 car and be collected by the spinning #92 car of Billy Frazer, prematurely ending his race.
#33 Spike Kohlbecker // USF2000 Ignite Autosport / Margay Racing / TierPoint / PSL / RSolution / TrueTitle / Ruckus Racing / Messmer Cares / Alvear / Cfx
“The streets of Toronto was such a great event,” said Kohlbecker. “It definitely was a cool experience to be there. Even though the second race didn’t go as planned, I was happy with the qualifying efforts and one of our best finishes of the year in Race 1. I can’t wait until the next race in Portland.”
“Street courses like Toronto are always challenging weekends,” said Team Owner Peter Dempsey. “Overall, the performance of the team was very good across both series. We showed good pace with all of the drivers throughout practice and qualifying, but unfortunately we didn’t get the results we feel both the team and drivers deserved.”
“I’m very proud of Josh’s efforts in Race 1 following his crash in Q2,” continued Dempsey. “He really dug deep for Race 1 and managed to bring home a podium finish while challenging for second place with an injured wrist. Unfortunately, none of the drivers really got to show what they were capable of in Race 2 due to unfortunate circumstances. We will shift our focus to Gateway and Portland now and try to finish the season as strongly as we possibly can.”
Up next for the Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires is the oval at World Wide Technology Raceway for Indy Pro 2000 August 18-20 followed by the season finale for both USF2000 and Indy Pro 2000 at Portland International Raceway September 1-4.