All three championships will have dual races at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg next weekend

A mix of seasoned veterans and fresh young faces will gather in St. Petersburg, Fla., on March 9-11, all intent on claiming a Mazda Motorsports scholarship to move to the next rung on the Mazda Road to Indy. They all hope to follow in the footsteps of Spencer Pigot and 2018 Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires champion Kyle Kaiser to the Verizon IndyCar Series.

“It feels just like yesterday we were at Watkins Glen crowning three incredible Mazda Road to Indy champions and putting the cap on a spectacular 2017 MRTI season,” says Kyle Kimball, Mazda Motorsports Operations Manager. “However, as exciting as that weekend was, nothing beats the anticipation and promise that a new season brings.”

Several of those drivers that will be at St. Pete are already Mazda scholarship winners. Victor Franzoni moves to Indy Lights on the strength of winning the 2017 Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires. He’ll run with Juncos Racing, the team that he joined at the last minute for Pro Mazda last season.

“If there has ever been a racer that embodies Mazda’s ‘Never Stop Challenging’ attitude, that racer is Victor Franzoni,” says Kimball. “Victor will take his $700,000 scholarship back to Juncos Racing, whom he won the 2017 Pro Mazda championship. Victor’s journey through the Mazda Road to Indy has been anything but easy, but it is through his perseverance that will make him a real contender for the 2018 Indy Lights championship.”

Franzoni will face a tough test against returning Indy Lights drivers Santiago Urrutia, Aaron Telitz and Colton Herta, all of who are proven winners in the category.

Pro Mazda has its first new car since 2004, marking the completion of a process to update all the Road to Indy series with fresh machinery that began with Indy Lights in 2015.

“Just as 2017 ushered in a new era in the Cooper Tires USF2000 powered by Mazda series with the introduction of the USF-17, 2018 sees the debut of the PM-18 in the Pro Mazda presented by Cooper Tires series. Andersen Promotions has done an incredible job preparing a world-class race car and we cannot wait to see the talented drivers in the Pro Mazda series put the car through its paces and maybe, just maybe, break some track records,” says Kimball.

The car, which shares the basic chassis with the USF-17, has already seen some testing, and feedback so far has been positive. “It’s a super fun car,” says Robert Megennis, from New York, N.Y., who is stepping up from USF2000 to Pro Mazda with last year’s championship-winning team, Juncos Racing. “It’s really fast and the perfect transition up from USF2000.”

The Mazda scholarship winner in Pro Mazda will be Oliver Askew, who won the 2016 Mazda Road to Indy Shootout and dominated USF2000 in 2017 to claim the $325,000 scholarship. A stellar field of talented youngsters from at least 10 different countries is seeking to follow in his footsteps. Prime among them will be Keith Donegan, from Dublin, Ireland, who was awarded the scholarship for USF2000 following a hard-fought shootout last December at the Bob Bondurant Racing School in Arizona.

“We at Mazda could not be happier with those who earned scholarships in 2017 and will be representing Mazda in their Soul Red rides in 2018,” says Kimball. “Keith Donegan arrived to the USF2000 $200,000 Scholarship Shootout in December of 2017 and was quickly the fastest and most consistent driver of the pack. He will take his $200,000 scholarship to ArmsUp Motorsports who will be hosting their first Mazda scholarship driver since Aaron Telitz in 2014.”

Following St. Petersburg, the Mazda Road to Indy series will accompany the IndyCar Series to a variety of road courses, street courses and ovals, including Barber Motorsports Park, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course (and oval, in the case of Indy Lights), Road America, Toronto, Mid-Ohio, Gateway Motorsports Park and Portland. Pro Mazda and USF2000 will continue to be the highlights of the “Carb Night Classic” at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis on the Friday night before the Indy 500.