IndyCar: Matheus Leist looking to build on rookie season in 2019

Matheus Leist is looking to build on what started off as a promising rookie IndyCar season in 2018 throughout the 2019 season.

The rookie IndyCar season of A.J. Foyt Enterprises’ Matheus Leist featured three key highlights. First of all and most importantly, he landed a full-time ride with the team as the driver of the #4 Chevrolet.

Next, he topped the speed chart in the season’s first practice session on the streets of St. Petersburg. Finally, he qualified in third place for the season opener, the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, and he nearly qualified on the front row for it.

Fellow rookie Robert Wickens of Schmidt Peterson Motorsports bumped Leist to third place from second on his final lap of the qualifying session to take the pole position for the race.

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All three of these key highlights took place before the 2018 season officially started, and it all got worse from there for the 20-year-old Brazilian throughout the season.

Leist crashed on lap 28 of the 110-lap season opener, although he was already 11 laps off the lead lap at that point as a result of the fact that his car experienced mechanical issues in the early stages of the race. While he finished 14 of the final 16 races on the 17-race schedule, he didn’t finish any of them in the top 10, and he didn’t start any of them in the top 10, either.

Aside of his third place start in the season opener, Leist’s best start of the season was his 11th place start for the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His best finish of the season was his 11th place finish in the race at Pocono Raceway, and his best finish in terms of finishing ahead of the highest percentage of the field was his 13th place finish in the Indy 500.

Leist finished the season in 18th place in the championship standings with an average finish of 16.8. Only one full-time driver, Carlin’s Max Chilton, finished behind him in either of those categories, and he finished behind him in both with a 19th place finish in the standings and an average finish of 17.9.

The driver of the #4 Chevrolet completed only 1,756 of the season’s 2,368 laps. The only full-time driver whose laps led total trailed that of Leist was Wickens, who missed the season’s final three races due to injuries he suffered during a wreck in the race at Pocono Raceway. He completed 1,645 of the 1,930 laps in the 14 races that he contested.

But another highlight of Leist’s 2018 season took place in June when he signed a contract extension with A.J. Foyt Enterprises to continue driving the #4 Chevrolet in the 2019 season, meaning that he is set to have a chance to build on his 2018 season.

We got a glimpse of what Leist is capable of throughout the early part of the weekend of last year’s season opener. Yes, this weekend was pretty much the only remotely successful weekend of his rookie season, but all this means is that a driver who is clearly loaded with potential has nowhere to go but up in his second season in the sport.

Whether or not Leist finds himself in contention to win races this season, he will certainly be a driver to keep an eye on for this reason.

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How will Matheus Leist perform in his second season as a full-time IndyCar driver this year? The 17-race 2019 season is scheduled to get underway on Sunday, March 10 with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, which is set to be broadcast live on NBC Sports Network from the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida beginning at 12:30 p.m. ET. Be sure not to miss it.