Indy Lights testing

On Tuesday 15 September Stefan returned to the scene of his last race, the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, for a day's testing with Sam Schmidt Motorsports. The team is one of the most successful of recent years in the Indy Lights series, having won the championship in 2006 and 2007 - both times with British drivers.

Stefan was able to put in a full day's work on the track and notched up over 200 miles, the equivalent of more than two full race distances. His best lap time was 1m14.4s, which made him second quickest of the six drivers on track. He was just a tenth off the pace set by Martin Plowman and fourth-tenths ahead of Charlie Kimball, both of them testing for current championship leaders AFS Racing. A few tenths further back came Adam Christodoulou, runner-up in this year's Star Mazda series, and former Atlantics racer Carl Skerlong in a second Sam Schmidt car.

Stefan ran most of the day on old tyres, including when the track was at its optimum and others were using new tyres. He was confident that if he too had been on new tyres he could have gone significantly quicker.

All the same, he was pleased with how the day went. "I've certainly learnt a lot about the car," he said. "It's the first test day I've run all year, so it's nice to be able to change a few things on the car and experiment with my driving style a bit."

More importantly, as far as his prospects of a drive next season are concerned, the team were also happy. Stefan commented: "They were pleased with my speed and consistency, and I was able to give them a lot of feedback about their car. I want to thank Sam Schmidt and all the team for giving me this great opportunity, and I hope we can team up again in the future."

Stefan is hoping to do a few more tests before the winter break, before making a decision on his options for next year.