Team Pelfrey's dynamic English rookie Jack Hawksworth won his sixth race of the Star Mazda season Sunday in Edmonton, leading from green to checkered. As on Saturday, Sage Karam and Gabby Chaves completed the podium. Hawksworth was only seventh in the rain-affected Saturday race.
"This is more like it," Hawksworth said. "I got out front and was able to stay there during the restarts, which is important, and could run the race the way I wanted to. Yesterday was a bit of a mess with the rain, but we were leading on the last lap restart before my teammate Gustavo Menezes and I got together. My car was damaged a bit, but we still managed to finish seventh and turn the fastest lap, which gave me the pole for today's race. So overall, not quite as good a weekend as Toronto where we won both from the pole, but those kind of weekends don't come along very often so I'm happy with what we achieved."
Yesterday's surprise winner in Race 1, Venezuelan driver Camilo Schmidt, started seventh and finished 10th in his No. 21 Linares Racing Mazda. Notable drives included Finnish racer Petri Suvanto, knocked out on the first lap yesterday and thus starting from the rear of the field today, slashed his way up to finish fourth, even despite contact that knocked his right-side suspension far out of alignment. Menezes, the third of the Pelfrey drivers, finished fifth in a car borrowed from Team GDT. Edmonton native Stefan Rzadzinski recorded the best finish of his season in the PoweredByAlberta.com Mazda in P6.
Yet more hard luck struck Connor De Phillippi as it has for the entirety of the Canadian swing. After surviving for a fifth place on Saturday, on Sunday, he had a first-lap encounter with the wall on the last turn right before the pit entrance tore the nose completely off his car and he rejoined the field a lap down. With his car still running but wounded, he finished 14th and dropped from second in the championship points to fourth.