All three levels of the Mazda Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires open-wheel development ladder will hit the ground running in Florida this coming weekend, March 9-11, in support of the headline Verizon Indy Car Series as part of the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

The new Mazda-powered Tatuus PM-18, introduced for this year’s Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires continued to impress this weekend as 15 drivers completed a total of 1610 laps during two days of Spring Training road course testing at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

A new season of competition in the Mazda Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires is almost set to commence. All three rungs on the world’s premier open-wheel development ladder – the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda, the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires and Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires – will be in action beginning Friday, February 23, for the annual Spring Training open test which will take place over four days at Homestead-Miami Speedway in South Florida.

Drivers and teams gear up for the 2018 season

Nikita Lastochkin took a very different route to the Mazda Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires than many of his fellow competitors. With no motorsports background growing up in Moscow, Lastochkin did not start racing until the age of 22, after moving to the United States. Here, the now 27-year-old entering his sophomore Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires season, talks about coming to America at the age of 16, how he first got the racing bug and how taking racing cues from Colton Herta is a good idea.