Champ Car Atlantic graduate Rafael Matos picked up from where he left off last season by pacing the first day of Indy Pro Series testing in Homestead-Miami Speedway on Thursday [28 February].
The AFS Racing/Andretti Green Racing driver paced the field with a lap of 28.5528secs, as 20 hopefuls completed 2576 laps during six hours of track activity in the only pre-season open test before racing starts at the Florida venue on 29 March.
"Practice doesn't count, but it definitely makes you feel good, and I think it definitely makes the team work even harder," Matos said afterwards, "The team is coming along great. I'm working really, really nicely with my engineer Blair [Perschbacher] and all the mechanics are doing such an amazing job. I'm just very happy that we're able to put this great team together. I can't thank AGR and AFS enough for this great support.
"The goals today were to simulate qualifying runs and to run in traffic. I have almost no experience running in traffic on ovals, and we were able to accomplish everything that we were planning on for the test. We were able to do qualifying runs, we were able to run in the middle of traffic quite a bit, especially in the afternoon when the weather was really hot and it's really difficult. I'm very happy."
Matos headed two series veterans in Bobby Wilson and Logan Gomez, who both also recorded laps in the 28.5secs bracket for Team E and Guthrie Racing respectively. Wilson's chances of bettering Matos' time, however, were scuppered by an incident.
"What happened? A rookie driver just trying to keep his foot in it," he explained, "I was making a pass on the outside and got drove into by the car that was below me. He took out my tyre and I got very lucky. I can come away with a smile because we have minimal damage.
"We know we were fast. The team did a great job. Hats off to the guys at Team E that put in a lot of hours of hard work on the car. I'm really looking forward to the race."
Gomez, meanwhile, christened his deal to race for Guthrie by settling back into a frontrunning routine.
"I'm just getting used to being in a car again," he admitted, "I haven't been in a car since Chicago [at the end of last season], so it's getting back into the car and getting used to a new team.
