IndyCar: Zach Veach looking to overcome rocky start to 2019

Zach Veach will be looking to overcome a rocky start to the 2019 IndyCar season in this weekend’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Andretti Autosport’s Zach Veach entered the 2019 IndyCar season, which is his second season as a full-time driver, as somewhat of a dark horse championship contender after making major strides late in his rookie season driving the #26 Honda for arguably the sport’s top team.

However, the first three races of the 2019 season have not gone according to plan for the 24-year-old Stockdale, Ohio native.

Through these three races, Veach sits in 19th place in the championship standings, and he sits ahead of only two of the sport’s 20 full-time drivers, A.J. Foyt Enterprises’ Matheus Leist and Carlin’s Max Chilton.

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Additionally, Veach’s average finishing position of 16.00 is better than the average finishing positions of only these two drivers (19.67 for both) when it comes to the sport’s full-time drivers.

There is no way to deny that the start of the 2019 season has been a rocky one for Veach. However, every cloud has a silver lining. After finishing in 16th and 13th place in the race’s on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida and at Barber Motorsports Park last season, he finished in 14th and 12th in those races this season, respectively.

Plus, Veach finished in last Sunday’s race at Barber Motorsports Park in 12th place after starting all the way back in 23rd, so he certainly showed some potential at a track where it can be quite difficult to pass.

As a result, his only really major blunder so far this season is his spin on the first lap of the season’s second race at Circuit of the Americas, which he did not recover from en route to a 22nd place finish after starting in ninth for IndyCar’s inaugural race at the natural terrain road course in Austin, Texas.

But with Veach still clearly needing a shot in the arm no matter how you slice it, what better race for him to overcome his rocky start to the season than the season’s fourth race, the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach?

Veach qualified for last year’s 85-lap race around the 11-turn, 1.968-mile (3.167-kilometer) temporary street circuit on the streets of Long Beach, California in 16th place. He entered this race having competed in four IndyCar races in his career, and his top finishes in these four races were 16th place finishes.

In just his fifth career IndyCar start, Veach went on to move up 12 positions and finish in a career-high fourth place.

Veach went on a cold streak of eight consecutive races without finishing in the top 11 after this race, but after closing out his rookie season with four top 10 finishes, including a fifth place finish, in the final six races, it became overwhelmingly clear that he made big strides throughout last year.

The confidence that Veach should have for this Sunday’s race at IndyCar’s most historic street circuit after finishing it in a career-high fourth place last year and making these major strides ever since then should be enough to get him back on the right track after a rocky start to his sophomore IndyCar season.

Will Zach Veach pick up some momentum moving forward in the 2019 IndyCar season the same way he did last season, by recording a solid result, perhaps even his first career podium finish or his first career victory, in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach? Find out by tuning in to NBC Sports Network’s live broadcast of this race from the streets of Long Beach, California this Sunday, April 14 at 4:00 p.m. ET.