LEXINGTON, Ohio -- You'd expect Carlos Munoz and Jack Hawksworth to be at or near the top of the time sheet in the first Firestone Indy Lights practice session on the 2.258-mile, 13-turn Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for the Mid-Ohio 100. And they were -- with Munoz leading the way with a best lap of 1 minute, 13.5625 seconds in the No. 26 Dialy-Ser car for Andretti Autosport and Hawksworth a scant .1921 of a second behind in the No. 77 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports with Curb-Agajanian car.

 

But jumping into prominence on the Timing & Scoring screen with less than a minute left in the 60-minute session was Axcil Jefferies, who is making his Firestone Indy Lights debut. The 19-year-old from Zimbabwe posted the third-fastest time of 1:13.8848 in the No. 28 Starting Grid JMM/BHA with Curb-Agajanian car.

 

“It was a pretty good first session; we weren’t going for times as such," said Jefferies, who competed in the FIA Formula 2 Championship last year and previously competed in the Formula BMW Pacific championship. "We were trying to evaluate a few things on the car and I was trying to get comfortable in the Indy Lights car. We were able to work through a good program and I think that will put us in good sted.

"We’ve been given an opportunity by American Honda and Starting Grid to show what we have and I need to impress, and hopefully we can keep that momentum through qualifying and the race and get some more races in.”

 

A second practice session Aug. 3 preceding the 1 p.m. (ET) qualifications will get the green flag at 9:30 a.m. The 40-lap race is scheduled for noon Aug. 4 (NBC Sports Network broadcast at 2 p.m.). It's the first Firestone Indy Lights race at the track since 2010.