{"id":171640,"date":"2026-02-27T16:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/171640\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:28:09","slug":"deforces-garzon-tops-usf2000-practice-gets-extra-st-pete-team-mate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/171640\/","title":{"rendered":"DEForce’s Garzon tops USF2000 practice, gets extra St. Pete team-mate"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photo: Gavin Baker Photography<\/p>\n

DEForce Racing\u2019s Sebastian Garzon was quickest in the first practice session of the USF2000 season on the streets of St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n

He pipped Pabst Racing\u2019s Eddie Beswick by a tiny 0.0592 seconds, with a second covering the top 14 in the 24-car field.<\/p>\n

Exclusive Autosport\u2019s Evan Cooley was 0.1349s behind in third, and there was a 0.3018s gap to Jay Howard Driver Development\u2019s Liam Loiacono in fourth. Just 0.0447s thenh split Loiacono, Joao Vergara (Velocity Racing Development) and Anthony Martella (Exclusive).<\/p>\n

There was a surprise addition to DEForce\u2019s line-up, as Brady Golan was at the wheel. The 18-year-old came fifth in Formula Regional Americas last year, and was 18th in his half-season in USF2000.<\/p>\n

He has signed with Turn 3 Motorsport to step up to USF Pro 2000<\/a>\u00a0for 2026, which will rule him out of making further USF2000 appearances due to the two series racing on the same dates on IndyCar\u2019s support bill.<\/p>\n

JHDD which has partnered with IndyCar team Ed Carpenter Racing<\/a>, has a four-car line-up in USF2000 and three of its drivers were announced in the last week.<\/p>\n

Swedish racer Erik Holm starts his single-seater career with JHDD, having spent last year in shifter karting. The 20-year-old came 13th in the WSK Super Master Series\u2019 KZ2 kart class, and was 37th in the WSK Final Cup the year before. He has also tested a FRegional-based Eurocup-3 car.<\/p>\n

Liacono graduates to USF2000 after being USF Juniors runner-up with JHDD. He won five races and claimed two other podiums, and that followed the YACademy Winter Series where he was ninth in the standings. The 18-year-old Australian spent three years in his home country\u2019s Formula Ford scene prior to 2025.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s line-up is completed by Naim Saleh, who takes two steps up the road to Indy after coming third in the Skip Barber Formula Race Series last year. That uses Formula 4 cars, which he also got experience of on home soil in Brazilian F4\u2019s Formula 1-supporting non-championship round at Interlagos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2 Photo: Gavin Baker Photography DEForce Racing\u2019s Sebastian Garzon was quickest in the first practice session of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[81595,81596,81597,81598,81599,81600,81601,202,204,203,199,201,200,81602],"class_list":{"0":"post-171640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-brady-golan","9":"tag-deforce-racing","10":"tag-ed-carpenter-racing","11":"tag-erik-holm","12":"tag-jay-howard-driver-development","13":"tag-liam-loiacono","14":"tag-sebastian-garzon","15":"tag-st-pete","16":"tag-st-pete-headlines","17":"tag-st-pete-news","18":"tag-st-petersburg","19":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","20":"tag-st-petersburg-news","21":"tag-usf2000"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}