A RED-HEADED ROCKET WITH A WILL TO WIN -- CONOR DALY TAKES THE 2010 STAR MAZDA CHAMPIONSHIP WITH A VICTORY FROM THE POLE IN ROUND 12 AT THE MOBIL 1 PRESENTS THE GRAND PRIX OF MOSPORT
Mosport Raceway (August 28, 2010) – Conor Daly has won the 2010 Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear with a win from the pole in this afternoon's Round 12 at the Mobil 1 Presents the Grand Prix of Mosport. Driving the #22 Juncos Racing / INDECK / The College Network / Merchant Services Ltd. Mazda, Daly to a record-breaking streak of nine poles and seven wins, the Indianapolis native had such a points lead that he technically became the champion the moment the race started, but rather than play it safe and cruise to the checkered, Daly led every lap to cross the finish line 0.764 seconds ahead of the 2nd-place finisher, Venezuelan racer Jorge Goncalvez who started from the outside of the front row in the #9 Team Apex / Wabash Capital Investments Mazda.
"Even though I wasn't worried about the championship I still wanted to win for the Juncos Racing team and it was still a fairly tough race with Jorge right behind me for the first ten laps and I knew it was going to be tough to pull any kind of a gap," said Daly, who graduated from High School earlier this season. "And with the yellow flag right at the end leaving us with a green/white/checkered situation I knew I had to be careful because the track was really slick by that point and I kind of tiptoed through the first turn and got a run while the guys behind me slid wide and that gave me a little bit of breathing room to bring it home. The Juncos team has put forward a tremendously professional effort all season and I can't thank them enough. I'll be going into the last race at Road Atlanta with the same attitude I've had all season; put it on the pole and win the race, but I will be thinking about how I can help my teammates get on the podium so we can wind up the season in style."
Rounding out the top-3 after moving up from his 6th-place qualifying position was California racer Connor De Phillippe. This was his second podium in a row driving the #11 JDC Motorsports / MAZDASPEED Motorsports / Skip Barber Mazda. He also turned the quickest lap of the race, 1:17.055 on Lap 11. De Phillippi, the 2009 Skip Barber Pro Series champion, is racing in the Star Mazda Championship this season with backing from the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Driver Development Ladder. As a side note, Conor Daly was the 2008 Skip Barber champion and competed in his rookie Star Mazda season in 2009 as the MAZDASPEED Ladder driver.
Frenchman Tristan Vautier, winner of two races this year and starting from 3rd on the grid brought his #38 Andersen Racing / Moulin TP / Cecibon / Circuit du Laquais / Fontanel Mazda home in 4th. Norwegian racer Anders 'The Viking' Krohn, the only driver who, before the start of the 45-minute race, still had a mathematical chance – however slim – of denying Daly the championship, qualified and finished 5th in #47 Andersen Racing / Norse Cutting & Abandonment / Trallfa / Colosseum Mazda. Like Daly, he built his season on consistency, finishing every race in the top-5; Daly, however, finished every race but one on the podium, and in that one 'off' race he finished 4th. Looking at the points, Daly has 502, Krohn is still second with 420, Goncalvez is third with 381, Connor De Phillippe is fourth with 372 and Grenier is tied for 5th with Vautier at 366.
The other championship that was decided here today is the Master Series for drivers 45 and older. Although the Master Series race-within a race was won by Gerry Kraut in the #55 JDC Motorsports / Dougherty & Co. / Dougherty Funding LLC Mazda, Carlos Conde, an investment banker from San Juan, Puerto Rico and New York City had scored six in-class wins so far this year racing his #31 Team GDT / Pronto-GMT / Olympus Securities Mazda and, like Daly, became the champion as soon as the race started. His teammate and owner of Team GDT, Texan J.W. Roberts, has already clinched the Expert Series championship for drivers 30 to 44 years old with eight in-class wins driving the #65 Team GDT / General Data Tech Mazda.
Of the four Canadians in the field, young Quebec racer Mikael Grenier, who won from the pole in Round * at Autobahn, qualified 4th and finished 6th in his #17 Andersen Racing / Slow Cow / April Super Flow / NAPA Auto Parts / HS Telecom / Desharnais Mazda. He is 5th in the championship with two poles, one win, eight top-6 finishes and 366 points. David Ostella of Maple, Ontario qualified 9th and finished 10th in the #16 AIM Autosport / GP Global Precast Mazda. He is 10th in the championship with 306 points, two top-4 and seven-top-10 finishes.
Mikhail Goikhberg, a 22 year-old Russian racer from St. Petersburg now living in Toronto, is a full-time racer in the USF2000 National Championship Powered by Mazda and made his Star Mazda debut with JDC Motorsports, which also fields his USF2000 effort. He qualified 16th in the #78 Chetverg / Red Line Oil / JDC MotorSports Mazda. He slid off into the tire wall in Turn 1 with about 6 laps to go and brought out the full-course yellow that set up the final-lap shootout. He completed 28 of 34 laps and was scored 19th. Zack Meyer, a Canadian karting champion and Skip Barber racer also made his debut, driving alongside David Ostella for AIM Autosport, the only Canadian team currently competing in the series. He qualified 18th in the #44 AIM Autosport Mazda and raced his way up to a 14th-place finish.
While the overall series championship and the Master Series championships have been settled, there is one remaining prestigious title to be won in the season finale -- the inaugural VISITFLORIDA Cup, a 7-race championship-within-a-championship sponsored by the series' television partner, VISIT FLORIDA, the official tourism and marketing organization for the state of Florida. The live HDnet broadcasts and global syndication package made possible by the VISITFLORIDA partnership brings Star Mazda Championship racing to more than 150 million households worldwide. The prize, a custom 'dream vacation' provided by VISIT Florida goes to the driver scoring the most points in the seven races that are part of the Cup, including this weekend's Mobil 1 Presents the Grand Prix of Mosport and the season finale at the 13th Annual Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, September 29 – October 2. For information about where and when you can see the Mosport race (and other Star Mazda VISITFLORIDA races) on television, visit www.MazdaRacing.tv.
Conor Daly also leads this competition with 237 points scored in races, and Anders Krohn is in second with 211 VISITFLORIDA points. But with 45 points remaining to be won in the final race, that leaves three additional drivers still in contention, including Tristan Vautier, Mikael Grenier and Brazilian racer Caio Lara who scored his first Star Mazda victory in round 6 at New Jersey Motorsports Park driving the #19 JDC Motorsports / MLD / ATW / Molecule Mazda and finished 7th at Mosport.
| Pos | No. | Name | Laps | Diff | Gap | Best Tm | Sponsor |
| 1 | 22 | Conor Daly | 34 | 1:17.234 | INDECK, The College Network, Merchant Services Ltd. | ||
| 2 | 9 | Jorge Goncalvez | 34 | 0.764 | 0.764 | 1:17.195 | Wabash Capital Investments |
| 3 | 11 | Connor De Phillippi | 34 | 2.005 | 1.241 | 1:17.055 | Mazdaspeed Motorsports, Skip Barber |
| 4 | 38 | Tristan Vautier | 34 | 3.559 | 1.554 | 1:17.334 | Moulin TP, Cecibon, Circuit du Laquais, Fontanel |
| 5 | 47 | Anders Krohn | 34 | 5.087 | 1.528 | 1:17.333 | Norse Cutting and Abandonment, Trallfa Industries, Colosseum |
| 6 | 17 | Mikael Grenier | 34 | 6.210 | 1.123 | 1:17.575 | Slow Cow, April Super Flow, NAPA Auto Parts, HS Telecom, Desharnais |
| 7 | 19 | Caio Lara | 34 | 7.371 | 1.161 | 1:17.890 | MLD/ATW/Molecule |
| 8 | 85 | Chris Miller | 34 | 8.378 | 1.007 | 1:18.145 | Miller Milling, Red Line Oil |
| 9 | 66 | Rusty Mitchell | 34 | 8.845 | 0.467 | 1:17.993 | Motorola, Petro Comm. |
| 10 | 16 | David Ostella | 34 | 10.132 | 1.287 | 1:17.876 | GP Global Precast |
| 11 | 81 | Nick Andries | 34 | 10.307 | 0.175 | 1:17.743 | Indy 500/ American Icon Team Pelfrey |
| 12 | 18 | Joao Horto | 34 | 10.412 | 0.105 | 1:18.449 | Wabash Capital Investments, BomBril - Programa LeiLoes |
| 13 | 20 | Carlos Linares | 34 | 12.485 | 2.073 | 1:18.834 | Instituto Nacional De Deportes |
| 14 | 44 | Zack Meyer | 34 | 13.187 | 0.702 | 1:18.313 | AIM |
| 15 | 28 | Juan Piedrahita | 34 | 14.567 | 1.380 | 1:17.997 | Petrosur, GFK Motors |
| 16 | 25 | Tatiana Calderon | 34 | 14.826 | 0.259 | 1:18.799 | JAC Motors |
| 17 | 55 | Gerry Kraut | 33 | 1 Lap | 1 Lap | 1:19.538 | Dougherty and Co. /Dougherty Funding LLC. |
| 18 | 31 | Carlos Conde | 33 | 1 Lap | 7.637 | 1:19.791 | Pronto-GMT, Olympus Securities |
| 19 | 78 | Mikhail Goikhberg | 28 | 6 Laps | 5 Laps | 1:18.790 | Chetverg Motorsport |
About Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear
For 2010, the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear will feature an 11-weekend, 13-race schedule, most on major race weekends with American Le Mans and the Indy Racing League. Rising stars from around the world will compete for prizes valued at $1.5 million and benefit from two driver development programs, including the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Driver Development Ladder and the Indy Racing League's 'Road to Indy' program. Series alumni include Indy Car stars Marco Andretti, Graham Rahal and Raphael Matos, rising NASCAR drivers Michael McDowell, Scott Speed and Colin Braun and prototype racers Dane Cameron and Guy Cosmo. Drivers 16 and older are welcome to compete and the Star Mazda Championship also features Expert (30 to 44) and Master (45 and older) classes for more mature racers. The Star Mazda Championship features standing starts, wheel-to-wheel racing at 150 mph and budgets a fraction of other top open-wheel ladder series. For more information on the Star Mazda Championship please visit www.starmazda.com.
For more information on the Star Mazda Championship and its drivers, as well as the Mazda Motorsports ladder system, please visit www.starmazda.com and www.mazdausa.com. For information, interviews and photos, contact Star Mazda Communications Director Peter Frey at (818) 398-5733 or StarMazdaPR@aol.com.
On any given weekend, there are more Mazdas on the road-race tracks of America than any other brand of vehicle. At the track, you'll see MX-5 Miata, RX-8, MAZDA3, MAZDA6, RX-7 and other vintage Mazda models competing, because every Mazda has the Soul of a Sports Car. For more information on the various Mazda spec series, visit:
www.usf2000.com www.skipbarber.com www.mx-5cup.com
Dean Case / Communications Officer / MAZDASPEED Motorsports
(310) 318-4582 / E-mail: MAZDASPEED@MazdaUSA.com
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