INDY LIGHTS: Urrutia sweeps Mid-Ohio, takes points lead

A crash by Ed Jones and a dominant weekend by Santiago Urrutia saw the championship lead change hands, as Urrutia pulled off a weekend sweep at the Cooper Tires Indy Lights GP of Mid-Ohio. Urrutia is the first driver this season with four wins.

Dean Stoneman finished second, and Andre Negrao came home third. Zach Veach and Kyle Kaiser rounded out the top five.

• Race 1: Urrutia dominant in Mid-Ohio win

Urrutia started from the pole for the second straight race. Serrales, who started second, was unable to gain ground on Urrutia at the drop of the green flag and tucked in behind him. Behind them, Zachary Claman De Melo went sideways after contact with Neil Alberico, leaving Alberico with a flat left front tire.

The yellow came out on lap 12 for Garrett Grist, who went off-course – all four tires off the ground – into the gravel in Turn 4 after a right rear tire blew. During the caution, second-place Serrales spun heading into Thunder Valley and fell back to ninth.

Serrales charged back through the field, passing Dalton Kellett for eighth, but on lap 20 he made contact with Carlin Racing teammate Ed Jones just after passing him in Turn 3, damaging Jones' left rear and shearing off Serrales' right-front nose wing.

But about one minute later, Jones lost steering heading into Turn 2 – he missed the right-handed turn, instead driving straight into the tire barriers and burying half the car underneath the tires. It took the Holmatro safety crew several minutes to pull Jones out from under the tires. He was able to walk to the safety vehicle.

Urrutia got off a clean restart, followed by Stoneman and Negrao. But Serrales, who tried to better his P8 spot for several laps, tried to make the pass on Kellett in Turn 1 with five laps to go and made contact. Serrales sustained damage to the nose and retired with a 10 place finish.

Urrutia, who came in to the race trailing Jones by 24 points, now leads Jones by 16 points heading into the final three races of the season. 

“I’m really happy for these two victories," Urrutia said. "It was great for me, for the team and for the championship. It was a much harder race today with the restarts and Felix pushing me very hard. I was able to use my push-to-pass and keep everyone behind me on the restarts. The Cooper tires came to me through the race and we did our pace. I didn’t expect to take the championship lead this weekend, I have to say, but I came here to win both races and we did that. The team did a great job with the car; it was so quick. But the series is so competitive and there are three long races to go.

"I made some mistakes early in the season that cost me points and we had a bad weekend in Toronto, so we have to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

The 18-round championship heads next to Watkins Glen on September 3, followed by a double-header season finale one week later at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. The Teams Championship also is up for grabs with Carlin’s lead over Schmidt Peterson now reduced to just nine points, 337-228.

Results: