Liam McNeilly made a successful debut in USF Pro 2000 Presented by Continental last weekend as the rising British racing star scored a pair of top-five finishes on the punishing streets of Toronto.
The 19-year-old from Brentwood, Essex, battled for the podium positions throughout qualifying and both 25-lap races to return home with fifth and fourth-place finishes from the INDYCAR series support event.
The Jay Howard Driver Development (JHDD) racer had not competed since his dominant USF2000 campaign – which had started with five wins in a row – was brought to a premature halt in April over issues outside of his control.
This made things doubly challenging for the 2024 USF Juniors series runner-up as he ventured out for his first-ever laps in the USF Pro 2000 Tatuus – a car seven seconds a lap quicker than his familiar USF2000 machine open-wheeler – on Friday morning.
After belying his lack of experience of the car to set the third-best time in the sole free-practice session, he carried his natural speed and street-track discipline into qualifying to put himself fifth and fourth on the grid for the weekend’s two races.
What made this doubly impressive was that – as a newcomer – Liam, who is supported by Acclaim Contracts and Wolf International, did not have a set of ‘carry-over’ tyres available to use, unlike his rivals contesting the full season.
This meant that while most of the field had fresh rubber for each qualifying session, Liam was forced to take part in Saturday’s session on worn – and lower-performing – tyres in order to save a fresh set for Sunday’s race.
A fast getaway elevated him to third place on the opening lap of Race One, but, still chasing an ideal car set-up, he locked-up under braking for the slow Turn Three during the early stages and flat-spotted his right-front tyre.
This caused a significant in-car vibration, leading to reduced visibility on the already bumpy road surface and compromised handling. Despite this, Liam set a strong and consistent race pace.
Unfortunately, incidents elsewhere led to two safety-car periods, bunching up the field and eliminating the gap Liam had built ahead of his chasing rivals.
Once released to race again, Liam’s vibration made it impossible to hold back some of those rivals, but he still finished a strong fifth.
Equipped with fresh tyres on Sunday, Liam again climbed to third off the start and set a best lap time over half a second quicker than in Race One.
Following a hard battle over the final podium position, he was ordered to cede position by Race Control with three laps to go and finished fourth; a result that made him the fourth-highest points-scorer of the weekend.
Liam’s attention now turns to finalising plans to contest the series full-time in 2026 as well as continuing his Driver Coach role with Fox Motorsport’s Ginetta Junior team in the UK.
Liam McNeilly said: “I’m pretty pleased with the way the weekend went, but at the same time, a little disappointed to come so close to the podium on my return but not quite get it. My first lap in practice was my first time ever in the car and while it’s seven seconds quicker than the USF2000 car over a lap, the characteristics are similar so it wasn’t too hard to get my head around it.
"The JHDD team did a great job helping me get up to speed, but I think if we’d had a second practice session and a carry-over set of tyres, we’ have been able to optimise the set-up a bit more and challenge for the front row and who knows what else. I flat-spotted a tyre early in Race One – it was down to the canvas by the finish – but I learnt from that for Sunday and we were stronger and came within three laps of the podium. All in all, it’s been an enjoyable weekend and I’d love to be back for a full season in 2026.”