IndyCar: Zach Veach in need of a strong second half to the 2019 season

After a disappointing start to the 2019 IndyCar season following a momentum-building 2018 season, Zach Veach is in need of a strong second half.

Andretti Autosport’s Zach Veach did not have the best of rookie IndyCar seasons last year, but over the course of the 17-race season, he made some steady improvements and turned the latter stages of the season into a momentum-building part of the calendar to propel himself to a great sophomore season as the driver of the #26 Honda.

The 24-year-old Stockdale, Ohio native recorded four top 10 finishes in the 2018 season’s final six races last season en route to a 15th place finish in the championship standings. Only four drivers recorded more top 10 finishes than Veach did during this span, and all four of them finished in the top six in the standings. Two of them finished in the top two.

But the 2019 season has not lived up to expectations for Veach, even compared to his slow start to the 2018 season, which still featured a career-high fourth place finish in the season’s third race on the streets of Long Beach, California.

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Through the first nine races of the 17-race season, Veach has recorded two top 10 finishes, both eighth place finishes in the two races at the Raceway on Belle Isle, and he sits in 19th place in the championship standings.

Veach sits in 18th place in the standings out of the sport’s 19 full-time drivers and is the only driver separating the two drivers of the lowly A.J. Foyt Enterprises team from being the lowest two drivers in the standings among the full-time drivers. His average starting position is 15.4, down from last year when it was 14.5 despite the fact that he recorded a career-high starting position of third for the second race on the Raceway on Belle Isle just a few weeks ago, and his average finishing position is 15.8, down from last year when it was 14.1.

Driving for arguably not only the sport’s top Honda team but the sport’s top overall team, Veach needs to improve, and the second half of the 2019 season is a great place for that improvement to begin.

Veach signed a three-year contract with Andretti Autosport ahead of the 2018 season, so he should be back for the 2020 season regardless of how he performs throughout the rest of the 2019 season.

That said, the second half of the 2019 season is a great opportunity to get himself back on the right track not only for the 2019 season but heading into the 2020 season, and he needs to take advantage of it.

Veach finished in seventh place in the race Exhibition Place, 10th in the race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, sixth in the race at Pocono Raceway and fifth in the race at Gateway Motorsports Park (now World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway) last season, four races that remain on this year’s schedule.

He will need to build on that success from last year for this year’s races at these four tracks while improving upon his results at the three tracks that were on last year’s schedule that also remain on this year’s schedule.

At these three tracks, Road America, Iowa Speedway and Portland International Raceway, he finished no higher than 19th place and recorded an average finishing position of an abysmal 20.3. It goes without saying that he should have a lot more success at these three venues this time around, but he needs to put his head down and show it as he continues to try to prove himself at the highest level of American open-wheel racing.

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Will Zach Veach turn around what has been a disappointing 2019 IndyCar season through nine races in the second half of the season? The season’s 10th race is scheduled to take place at 12:30 p.m. ET this Sunday, June 23. This race, the REV Group Grand Prix at Road America, is set to be broadcast live on NBC from Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin beginning at 12:00 p.m. ET.