Florida driver aiming at USF Pro Championships title in sophomore season
ORLANDO, FL – At just 14 years-of-age, Leonardo Escorpioni was one of the most impressive young drivers in the USF Juniors program in 2024, running for Zanella Racing in the team’s debut season in the USF Pro Championships Presented by Continental Tire. The team is extremely excited to confirm that the Florida driver will be back with the growing operation in 2025 for his sophomore campaign in USF Juniors with the sole goal of fighting for the series title and the USF2000 scholarship.
Escorpioni showed his talent and perseverance throughout his rookie season, making his first trip to the podium at Virginia International Raceway in June with a strong second-place result. He backed up this performance with four top-six finishes in the last six races of the season enroute to ninth in the championship standings.
“Leonardo performed extremely well for us last year in our first season in USF Juniors and we’re thrilled to be ready to fight for the title with him this season,” enthused Jose ‘Naka’ Zanella, team owner. “It was our debut year and to be fighting for podiums with a talented racer as young as Leo showed exactly what we can do as a team. He’ll be 15 next season with a full year under his belt, and we know we’ll be in the fight from the very start of the season at NOLA.”
Escorpioni has been racing with Zanella since 2021 in national level karting, where he was a front-running driver with multiple wins to his credit in various series. Leonardo’s development through the 2024 season in USF Juniors was steady as he maintained positive upward momentum through the second half of the season, just as the team would have hoped. His ability to take every lesson and apply it to the next session and the next race is what helped to secure his run of strong results over the final races of the calendar.
"After a successful rookie year, we plan to carry our momentum into an even stronger second season with Zanella Racing," offered Escorpioni. “As a new team in 2024, we focused on learning the car, the series and all the tracks and I’m super excited to take all that we learned into next year’s championship fight.”
As the team prepares to enter its second season in the USF Juniors program, Zanella Racing is deep into its off-season testing program and will also announce a third driver shortly. The team has also purchased a fourth car and drivers interested in joining the team or testing with Zanella Racing this winter should contact Jose via email at info@zanellaracing.com.
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