Photo credit: Gavin Baker Photography (Photo shows cars exiting turn 4)

A total of five, yes, five cars ended up having their races ended in a single corner throughout the first USF Pro Championships race weekend on the Streets of St. Petersburg.

Turn 4 comes at the end of one of the most intense breaking zones on the circuit after a high-speed corner in turn 3 and provides challenges for drivers regardless of the circumstances, but with many young drivers entering the corner two or three wide, there was bound to be chaos and there sure was.

It only took one lap in the first USF2000 race of the weekend for the first incident to happen when Jay Howard Driver Development’s Brad Majman wrecked in the corner. Brady Golan and Wian Boshoff would also find themselves crashing in the same race.

“You can’t overpush the braking zone and you just have to be smart about it,” Michael Costello, a Pabst Racing driver in USF Pro 2000, said. “If you know someone’s gonna go, just sit back.”

Additionally, in Indy NXT practice, HMD Motorsports’s Hailie Deegan tapped the wall early on in the session before continuing on with minimal damage.

Beyond that, the USF Pro 2000 drivers did not have much better luck than their USF2000 counterparts during their weekend, with multiple crashes in turn 4 taking part in their second race as well.

Both of those crashes involved Turn 3 Motorsport cars. Alessandro de Tullio, the winner in the first USF Pro 2000 race of the weekend, ended up crashing into the barrier and damaging his rear wing on lap 18, ending his second race prematurely.

“A lot of mistakes in turn 4 so I think to keep that in mind and just to minimize mistakes,” de Tullio said before the race. “If you’re not focused for the entire 25 laps, anything can happen.”

On top of de Tullio, his teammate Cooper Becklin also collided with the same wall just a few laps later, marking the fifth in-race incident that took place during the weekend during the corner.

With so many retirements happening during the races, it jeopardized many drivers abilities to hang with the leaders in the point standings. Not finishing puts drivers in a hole which they’ll now have to make up throughout the season.

“You can’t win the championship in St. Petersburg, but you can definitely make it harder for yourself,” Exclusive Autosport’s Mac Clark said.