McNeilly has a solid start in the States

BRENTWOOD teenager Liam McNeilly left the Barber Motorsports Park’s USF Juniors rounds in a solid third position in the championship standings.

The two-day event started last Thursday with two test sessions, followed by one practice. For qualifying, the 27 cars field was split into two separate groups; McNeilly qualified in group two, obtaining a commendable fourth position with a time of 1:25.8797, which positioned him seventh for the start of Race 1 the next day.

The 17-year-old showed a strong paced for Friday’s early warm-up session, placing him 1st in the time tables.

For Race 1, he continued displaying pace and consistent laps which quickly moved him from seventh to sixth within only two laps. By lap five, he was up to fifth position and closing in on fourth.

However, the second half of the race was peppered with incidents, including a big crash soon after a restart with 17 laps in the books when third and fourth place had a contact while fighting for position.

Thankfully, the state-of-the-art safety systems of the Tatuus JR-23 ensured no one was hurt. The race was flagged shortly after with 19 of the 20 laps completed; McNeilly finished fourth.

The grid for Race 2 was set according to each driver’s secondfastest lap during Thursday’s qualifying, which put McNeilly starting fourth. However, an early contact took McNeilly out of the race.

McNeilly said: “A solid Weekend at Barber. We struggled with a bit of pace in qualifying but managed to dial the car in for warmup on Friday morning, and set the fastest lap over the two days.

“So the pace was there. We picked up some good points in race one finishing P4 but had an unfortunate DNF in race two.

“Big thanks to Jay Howard Driver Development they worked so hard to get the car in the window throughout the 2 days. A couple months off now, we reset and go again at VIR.”

Next on the schedule for McNeilly is an open test at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on May 15-16, followed by a tripleheader race event at Virginia International Raceway on June 14-16.