Kyle Kaiser Claims Two Podium Finishes at Road America
Kyle Kaiser picked up two more podium finishes for Juncos Racing in the 2017 Indy Lights Championship Presented by Cooper Tires this weekend at Road America. Kaiser leads the championship after posting a third in Round 8 and second in Round 9 of the Mazda Indy Lights Grand Prix Presented by Allied Building Products.
The Indy Lights series reached the midway point of a very competitive 2017 season at Road America this weekend. Juncos Racing started off the weekend setting the pace with Kyle Kaiser (Los Gatos, California) leading the only practice session on the 4.014 mile, 14-Turn road course located in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Teammate Dapero (Buenos Aires, Argentina) finished inside the Top-10.
Qualifying for Round 8 took place later that day. Kaiser, driving the #18 Juncos Racing car, took the second row starting position, qualifying fourth. Dapero, driving the #31 American Brokers/Juncos Racing car took the ninth starting position.
The next day qualifying for Round 9 would almost mirror the session before for Juncos Racing. Kaiser would improve to the third starting position and Dapero took the ninth position on the highly competitive grid.
Round 8 had one of the most intense starts of the season with multiple cars battling for the lead. Kaiser would go on to battle for the second position throughout the race and set the fastest lap with a best time of 1:54.4115. The American would settle for a third place finish, giving him the necessary points to hold onto the championship lead. Dapero finished 14th.
Round 9 finished off the weekend for the Indy Lights series. Kaiser earned his second podium of the weekend, finishing second. Dapero finished 12th.
Kaiser extends his championship lead to 27 points going into the second half of the season.
Kaiser said “I’m so happy with another great race weekend! The team did an amazing job from the start of the weekend, we had a fast car in both qualifying sessions and even better race cars. We’re leaving the weekend with a larger points lead than we came in with, so I’m ready to go to Iowa and keep up this momentum.”
Team Principle Ricardo Juncos said “Kyle (Kaiser) had one of the best race weekends of his career. He took his driving to the next level at Road America. We were fast all weekend starting with the first practice session. In the first qualifying session, we had a strong run for the pole, but a tire issue led to a fourth starting position. In the second qualifying session times were so close, we only missed the pole by a tenth of a second qualifying third. Kyle drove two perfect races, finishing third and second. I am really proud of him and the team for their great effort. We must put everything we’ve got on the table now for this championship. Every point counts as we have seen in the past the champion winning by only one point.”
“I always like to take positive things from all my race weekends and I think that we learned a lot in this one,” said Dapero. “We were fast all weekend, but were not able to put it together. We had a lot of improvement since the last road course race at Indianapolis even though our results did not show that. As I always say, we have to keep our heads up and work harder to be in the front row. I want to thank American Brokers Assistance for giving me the chance to be racing and to the entire Juncos Racing crew for their great job!”
Juncos said “Nico (Dapero) has improved so much since the start of the season. He drove one of his best races since moving into the Indy Lights series. I have no doubt that he will start getting the results he deserves soon because he is doing everything he needs to be doing at this point. We had an unfortunate issue with a flat tire in the first race or he would have finished seventh. In the second race, he had contact with another car causing damage to the front wing, so he had to pit for a new front wing. Even though he faced these issues he was able to post some of the fastest times running in the Top-3 of the fastest cars on track. Nico will only continue to improve as we make our way into the second half of the season and I am confident he will be on the podium before the season wraps up.
The 2017 Indy Lights Championship continues July 9th with Round 10 at Iowa Speedway.
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