Whitney Strickland Wins in Masters Cup

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (May 17, 2026) – Evagoras Papasavvas earned his second win in Formula Regional Americas Championship (FR Americas) competition on Sunday morning at Road America. Inclement weather was a factor all morning, and evolving track conditions added an extra layer of challenge at an already difficult circuit. Race 2 at Road America proved to be all about survival, and those that were able to stay out of trouble reaped the benefits on the final results sheet.  

• Notes of Interest:
• Evagoras Papasavvas scored his second FR Americas win with a victory at Road America.
• Kekai Hauanio tied his best finish of the season with a second-place result in Race 2.
• For the second time this season, Christian Bogle scored a top-three finish. Bogle returns to FR Americas competition after running in the series part time in 2021.
• Whitney Strickland won in Masters Cup for the third time this season. Finishing sixth overall, the Hillenburg Motorsports driver earned a career-best finish.
• Competing at his home track, Aidan Schuh recorded a career-best finish with his seventh-place result. Through a partnership between Crosslink Motorsports and AJ Foyt Racing, the rookie drives the No. 14 Homes For Our Troops Ligier JS F3, which shares an identical livery with Santino Ferrucci in the NTT INDYCAR Series.
• FR Americas continues to be recognized as a viable training ground for drivers looking to prepare for INDY NXT and INDYCAR due to the similarities in the cars and their handling. Today’s winner, Papasavvas, competed in a partial INDY NXT season just last year.

The typical standing start was aborted when a car reversed on grid, so instead, Evagoras Papasavvas (No. 71 Crosslink Motorsports Ligier JS F3) lined up next to Brady Golan (No. 40 Toney Driver Development Ligier JS F3) to lead the field for a rolling two-by-two start. Timing it perfectly, Papasavvas pulled away from the field and opened up a 1.779-second advantage by the time they completed the first circuit. Kekai Hauanio (No. 29 N-E-Where Transport / Crosslink Motorsports Ligier JS F3) was one of the biggest movers during the first lap, fighting through the field and moving into second from his sixth-place starting position. With a light rain beginning in some areas around the circuit, drivers began slipping and sliding before a multi-car spin led to a full-course caution.  

Drivers stayed on track to attempt a restart with their Hankook racing slicks, but remained just as aggressive on the restart. Multiple cars spun through Turn 1 before contact in Turn 3 between two competitors brought out the red flag for a mandated switch to Hankook rain tires for the remainder of the event.  

The race restarted with just enough time for a green-white-checker finish. Papasavvas and Hauanio fired off to get a bit of a gap, before swapping the lead back and forth several times during the final laps. Behind them, Cooper Shipman (No. 10 Kiwi Motorsport Ligier JS F3) was the big mover, climbing from sixth to third during the final two laps. With the checkered flag just a few turns away, the caution flag waved once again when another car went off the racing surface.  

Papasavvas was the first to see the checkered flag with Hauanio following in his wake. Shipman crossed the line in third, but received a post-race penalty for reversing on the starting grid, costing him 30-seconds and dropping him to ninth on the official results. Christian Bogle (No. 7 Pelican Energy Consultants / Toney Driver Development Ligier JS F3) was subsequently promoted to third to receive the final podium position. 

“ has its positives and negatives—being out in front means you’re the first one into all these corners, and especially on slicks, I genuinely had no idea what to expect,” said Papasavvas atop the podium. “I thought I was going to lose it a couple of times, so I was just happy to keep it on track and keep it in one piece. With the warm up lap, we got to experience where it’s wet, where it’s dry, where the grip is. We almost lost it a couple of times, but that’s part of it. It was really fun battling with , going back and forth for that whole last lap, especially. I kind of wish it didn’t end under yellow and we were able to keep going to the checkered flag, but overall, it was really fun.”

>> SEE MORE:  Round 5 Official Results

In the Masters Cup, Whitney Strickland stayed focused from start to finish while leading the class. With a sixth-place overall finish on the final results, Strickland earned his best finish of the season. 

“It felt great,” said Strickland after climbing from the car. “It was a nice run in the rain—I love that. I have a lot of experience doing it and I’m quite good at it. My plan was to go around somebody in Turn 1, which I did. Then, my other plan was to go around people in the carousel, but I wasn’t able to get that executed. Luckily, I avoided that big crash right before Turn 14. It was a lot of avoiding crashes, and thankfully, with a lot of the racing experience I have, I’ve been able to avoid that.”