Zach Veach scored a spot on the podium for both races at Road America. [John Wiedemann Photo]
Road America Mazda Indy Lights
RACE ONE – SATURDAY:
Ohio native Zach Veach would love to be racing in Sunday’s Kohler Indy Car race here at Road America. But for now the 21-year-old will have to be satisfied with a dominating performance Saturday as he won the Mazda Indy Lights race by leading all 20 laps.
Starting on the pole, Veach, in his first year of Lights’ competition with Belardi Motorsports, put space between himself and the rest of the 14-car field, avoided several incidents behind him, and beat runner-up Dean Stoneman by 7.9 sec to record his first Road America win.
“I’m relieved that this one is over. There were a couple of moments where I was sideways and thought ‘this is it, I’m done,’” recalled the young driver who blamed the hot, slippery track for the incidents behind him.
“The changes we made after qualifying helped us in the race and let us build a gap in case we had a late-race caution. It’s been a strong learning curve for all of us with the new Lights car.”
Series’ rookie Dean Stoneman, who scored his first two Lights wins in Indianapolis in May, started fifth and survived a five-second penalty for avoidable contact to earn his fifth straight podium finish.
“Zack was quick and we did well to come from fifth and earn our podium spot. The penalty just made his winning margin a little larger,” said the Croydon, England native.
The race was slowed by a lap 8 caution when rookie Dalton Kellett spun and contacted the Turn 12 barrier.
Felix Serralles finished third and series’ points’ leader Ed Jones was fourth.
Sheboygan, WI rookie James French made his series’ debut subbing for Felix Rosenqvist who was in Germany competing in a DTM event. French, a Motorsports Engineering major at IUPUI won two races here last weekend in the Road America June Sprints. He finished 12th today.
RACE TWO – SUNDAY:
On a wet but quickly drying track, 19-year old Santiago Urrutia nursed his rain tires to a dominant win in Sunday’s Race 2 of the Mazda Indy Lights Series at Road America.
Urrutia, from Montevideo, Uruguay, started on the front row and survived two early-race restarts to lead a 1-2 sweep for the Schmidt Peterson team.
“This was a tough, physical race and at the end I was trying to stay on the wet line of the track to save our wet tires,” said Urrutia, who grabbed the lead from his teammate Andre Negrao with a daring third to first-place move in Turn 1 on a Lap 10 restart and rolled to an 8.1sec win; number two of the year.
Brazilian Negrao started fifth but couldn’t catch the winner though he scored his first career Lights podium finish. “It was hard to race on wet tires when the track was drying, but the podium finish was amazing.”
Zach Veach, who won Saturday’s Race 1, was fighting points leader Ed Jones for the race lead on Lap 5 when he spun exiting Turn 5 and fell back to sixth. “The rain (and wet track) present too many variables. I learned a lot but I do need to work on running on a wet track. We thought about stopping for slicks, but we would have lost too much track position.
“I (finished third) and was the only driver on the podium both days. Overall, I’m happy.”
Jones lost his lead to Dean Stoneman on Lap 8 after he suffered front and rear wing damage during Turn 6 contact with Carlin teammate Felix Serralles, but Stoneman suffered a flat tire a lap later, ending his hopes for a win, despite unlapping himself after changing to slicks. He finished 13th.
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