Sebastian Wheldon, Leonardo Escorpioni and Jack Jeffers left Sebring International Raceway as race winners in the first round of the Yacademy Winter Series this Thursday.

With the drivers hitting the track for practice today in Homestead for the final three races, the series has already told us a lot about the upcoming USF Juniors season.

To quickly summarize, Wheldon, driving for VRD Racing, will have a 4-point championship lead heading into Homestead. Wheldon and Exclusive Autosport’s Evan Cooley were the only two drivers to score podiums in all races.

The first race of the day saw Wheldon win from pole, but after the top eight places in the starting grid were inverted for race two, Zanella Racing picked up their first win in a USF Juniors car when Escorpioni crossed the line in first.

After a long red flag period in race 3, Jeffers, driving for Exclusive Autosport, held off a hard-charging Wheldon in order to secure his first win of the week.

The full standings are attached below the five takeaways.

Here are five takeaways from the weekend:

1. The Skip Barber Race Series is for real

Sebastian Wheldon walking into his first race weekend and being competitive was unsurprising, but the manner in which he was competitive was truly impressive. He leads the Yacademy championship, just like how he did at the end of last year in the Skip Barber Race Series. Skip Barber has been slowly growing and Wheldon came from behind to win the 2023 title and their first-ever scholarship to advance to USF Juniors. There’s so many paths a driver can take to USF Juniors and Wheldon’s immediate success highlights how Skip Barber and its scholarship opportunity may someday produce a USF Juniors champion.

2. Exclusive Autosport has lots of depth

Ever since Jack Jeffers was announced to be returning to USF Juniors, he has rightly been a title favorite for 2024. Without a tough weekend at Barber, Jeffers would have been right in the hunt last season. Jeffers had a race win in Sebring this week and is in the fight for the Yacademy title this year, but what is surprising for Exclusive Autosport is just how much the rest of their team also shined. Cooley landing on the podium in all three races showed an immense amount of consistency even with the partial reversed grid in race two. Joao Vergara improved throughout the weekend more than any other driver. After finishing 11th in race 1, he worked his way up to just missing out on the podium in race 3.

3. Leonardo Escorpioni got up to speed fast

Escorpioni will be one of the youngest drivers when USF Juniors starts at NOLA Motorsports Park this season at only 14. He even missed the Continental Tire test at Sebring due to not being old enough to compete. In three races with Zanella Racing, he has already shown that he can compete with drivers that are multiple years older than him. Starting from the front of the grid in race 2, he was able to hold off the competition to pick up a win. He added a seventh and ninth place finish on top of that to cap off a great opening weekend.

4. Jay Howard Driver Development carried a strong points contingent

While the Yacademy Winter Series doesn’t carry a team’s championship, three drivers from newcomers to USF Juniors Jay Howard Driver Development are sitting in the top 10 in points heading into Homestead. G3 Argyros finished fourth in the opening race. Ava Dobson finished right behind him in fifth. Californian Timmy Carel is sitting right behind them in the standings. Expect a round of steady improvement in Homestead from the JHDD drivers.

5. USF Juniors will be one of the most competitive, if not the most competitive, junior category in America

With a flurry of driver announcements in the past three days, USF Juniors will be a crowded field in 2024. Development director and broadcaster Rob Howden estimated that he expects a field of 28 or more by the time the series begins. We got to see plenty of new drivers in Sebring and some new teams. Ethan Tovo and Jackson Tovo drove for Team Tonis while Rodrigo Gonzalez and Patricio Gonzalez both drove for the new DeForce Driver Development squad. With guys we do see in Sebring like Wheldon and Jeffers and title contenders not in Sebring like the newly-announced four-time F4 US race winner Augusto Soto-Schirripa and F4 Brazil champion Vinicius Tessaro, a world of intrigue surrounds the series this year.

The races for the Yacademy Winter Series in Homestead will begin tomorrow following a qualifying session at 8 a.m. eastern time. Race 1 is scheduled for 11:20 a.m. eastern, race 2 at 3:05 p.m. eastern and race 3 on Sunday at 11:20 a.m. eastern.

The standings after Sebring are as follows:

1. Sebastian Wheldon – 24
2. Evan Cooley – 20
3. Jack Jeffers – 18
4. Leonardo Escorpioni – 12
5. Rodrigo Gonzalez – 8
6. Joao Vergara – 6
7. Patricio Gonzalez – 6
8. G3 Argyros – 5
9. Ava Dobson – 4
10. Timmy Carel – 3
11. Diego Guiot – 2
12. Jackson Tovo – 2
13. Michael Suco – 0
14. Enzo Tovo – 0
15. Anthony Martella – 0
16. Emma Scarbrough – 0