Pabst Racing had always been a force to be reckoned with in the USF2000 series. That proved no different in 2023, when the team won their fifth drivers championship in the last seven seasons with Simon Sikes.

Sikes took the scholarship that came with winning and moved up to USF Pro 2000 with the same team, leaving a field of eager drivers to take his place and contend for the championship. This year will have 18 races, just like last, but will have minor scheduling tweaks.

Louisiana’s NOLA Motorsports Park, a fixture on the calendar of other junior series across America, will replace Sebring on the calendar for 2024. Additionally, the round at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course in May is being shortened from three races to two to add a third race to the NOLA weekend. NOLA will also host the series’ official preseason test, which begins Monday.

On top of changes to the schedule, the primary sponsor and tire manufacturer for the series has switched to Continental Tire, ending a long-standing partnership with Cooper Tires. Throughout testing, numerous USF2000 drivers have reported that the new Continental tires are much harder to heat up, putting emphasis on how quickly the drivers can get up to speed.

The winner of the championship will receive a prize package valued at $484,400 to advance, like Sikes did, to the USF Pro 2000 series. Additionally, the champion of the USF Juniors series this season will get a scholarship to advance to compete in USF2000.

The USF Juniors scholarship last year went to DEForce Racing’s Nicolas Giaffone. Giaffone was on fire at the start of the USF Juniors season last year, picking up a staggering six wins in the first nine races. Testing results so far have proven that Giaffone is showing competitive pace against USF2000 competition, finishing in the top five in two sessions at Sebring last December. While the competition is a jump, if the success 2022 USF Juniors champion Mac Clark taught us one thing, it is that it wouldn’t be surprising to see Giaffone fighting for wins by the end of the season.

One of Giaffone’s teammates at DEForce is fellow Brazilian Lucas Fecury. Fecury got experience racing overseas across the past month as part of the Formula Regional Oceania Championship. He picked up three top-10 finishes across fifteen races and gained valuable experience competing against drivers who will be competing in categories like the Formula Regional European Championship this upcoming season. Fecury finished ninth in USF Juniors last season as well with a season highlight being a podium at Barber.

Both Giaffone and Fecury will be joined by Maxwell Jamieson as the last DEForce driver in USF2000 this season. Jamieson ran the entire season of USF2000 last year and steadily improved as the season went along. The best weekend for Jamieson was in Toronto, where he managed to hang on for 10th place finishes in both races. He also secured ninth in the second race of the season in St. Petersburg.

For reigning champions Pabst Racing, one of the most exciting drivers on the grid and one of the very youngest drivers to ever race in USF2000 is 14-year old Hudson Schwartz. Schwartz not only stands out from the competition with his youth but also with his speed last fall during a postseason test on the Indianapolis road course. Schwartz was the fastest driver across the two days, topping the charts in four of six sessions. Schwartz also won the Lucas Oil Race Series last year and picked up three podiums in a partial USF Juniors schedule.

Joining Schwartz on Pabst Racing is Sam Corry, who took one of the best wins all season in USF2000 last year when he came from 12th on the grid at the Indianapolis road course through all the chaos to take victory. While that was Corry’s only win, he picked up two more podiums on his way to a seventh-place finish in the championship standings as one of the highest finishing drivers to be returning to the series this year. Corry switched teams in the offseason from VRD Racing to Pabst.

Rounding out the Pabst Racing lineup is Max Garcia, who picked up a couple impressive podiums at Road America and Toronto as he finished eighth in the standings. Garcia, alongside his teammate Corry, were the two fastest drivers in the field during the Continental Tire test at Sebring, going 1-2 in three sessions. Garcia is 14 as well, just like Schwartz, but will celebrate his birthday before the opening round of the season as the two drivers are part of one of the strongest lineups in all of USF2000.

VRD Racing gets to carry USF Juniors race winner Max Taylor with them to USF2000 this season. Taylor secured a season-defining win at Road America which he then followed up with a second-place finish at the Circuit of the Americas. Those late efforts allowed him to finish the season in sixth in the standings. Taylor also contested 11 races last season in USF2000, securing a season-best finish of sixth at where else but Road America.

Taylor will be joined at VRD by two drivers who come from racing primarily overseas. The first is Nico Christodoulou. If that name sounds familiar to USF2000 fans, it’s because he had a one-off appearance in his home country last year at Toronto where he picked up a win. Christodoulou ran six races in USF2000 back in 2020 and has since been picking up experience racing in the GB3 Championship, where he secured three podiums last season driving for a partnership between VRD and Arden. Christodoulou also is a proven race winner in F4 US, having won three races in 2021 with VRD.

The final driver in the lineup for VRD is Xavier Kokai, who is joining the series from Australia. Kokai is an experienced racer and race winner in the Formula Ford category in his native country. Kokai got to compete in the test last December at Sebring where he showed steady improvement and finished off his testing results by securing a 10th and 9th place finish in the last two sessions.

Jay Howard Driver Development’s efforts in the series will potentially be led by possible title contender Evagoras Papasavvas, who is the highest-placing driver in the 2023 standings to return to the series in 2024. Papasavvas finished fourth overall in 2023 after securing six podiums and a Mid-Ohio win. While Papasavvas had four second-place finishes last season, keep an eye on him to turn those close opportunities into wins this upcoming season as he takes another shot at the title.

Papasavvas will be racing this season alongside Michael Costello, who finished fifth in the F4 US standings after starting strong with two wins and four podiums in the first eight races. Costello immediately hit the ground running in his F4 US campaign and will have the chance to do the same this year as he has already been a proven winner in open-wheel cars heading into his time in the USF Pro Championships. 

Jace Bacon closes out the roster for JHDD. Bacon has one of the most interesting backgrounds in the series, making his open-wheel debut this year after having won races amongst other successes in Radical Cup competition.  Bacon made an appearance at the test back in October in Indianapolis Motor Speedway, getting the chance to race amongst plenty of the competition he will go up against this year.

For DC Autosport, Carson Etter returns to the team after running a full season in USF Juniors and a partial season in USF2000. He finished 12th in the USF Juniors season last year and had a best finish of sixth that he picked up in the second race at Road America. He also got to get acclimated to USF2000 competition, racing in the series at Mid-Ohio and Road America. His best finish there was 11th in race 2 at Portland.

Joining Etter is Ayrton Houk, a former Team USA scholarship scholarship winner who most recently finished second place in the Formula Race Promotions F1600 championship. Houk has shown a lot of promise as a potential sleeper candidate to have a great debut season, running in the top half of the field throughout the course of the test at Sebring.

Finally, Exclusive Autosport’s only announced driver for the season is Joey Brienza, who finished fifth in USF Juniors last season. Brienza shined during the start of the season last year at Sebring where he got his only win alongside two second-place finishes. Brienza also picked up two more podiums along the way at Road America and the Circuit of the Americas and also ran at street circuits and Indianapolis Raceway Park to prepare for the upcoming season.

The USF2000 series kicks off on March 8 when the cars take to the track in St. Petersburg, Florida.