TORONTO – Zach Veach of Andretti Autosport believes patience is more than a virtue. In his case, it’s vital.
The second-year NTT IndyCar Series driver believes his three-year contract with the team has given him time to develop into a competitive driver. It’s similar to Josef Newgarden, who early in his career was given time to improve under the tutelage and support of former team owners Sarah Fisher, Wink Hartman and later, Ed Carpenter.
During that time, Newgarden went from a young driver with very raw talent into a race-winning competitor and eventually an NTT IndyCar Series champion with Team Penske in 2017.
“I’m extremely thankful for Andretti and for Gainbridge,” Veach told NTT INDYCAR Mobile. “The partnership of those two have made this all possible. I look at Josef Newgarden’s situation, his first two years in IndyCar were quite different than what he is doing right now. That is the same path we are trying to follow.
“Last year, results started to come when we really weren’t expecting them, too. Now that we have been there and know how to make that happen, it’s a case of a force of will to make that happen. Any time you try to force something it just makes you go backwards. It’s trying to get back to allowing things to happen naturally, rather than having my head get in the way and try to make things happen myself.
“You sit here in between races and think of other guys and realize I’m not the first person to be in this position. Josef is the first one that comes to mind. We are trying as hard as we can to turn things around. I’ve never been the guy who wants to just compete in motor racing. We are busting our ass to see how we can get better.
“I’m not here to just race; I’m here to win races.”
Veach is hoping a return to the Honda Indy Toronto will help him regain the performance level he recaptured here last year. Veach started 22nd and finished seventh on the streets of Toronto last year.
Veach would use that result to finish the season with three top-10 finishes in the next three races, including 10th at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, sixth at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway and fifth at the oval track then-known as Gateway Motorsports Park.
“This is where our recovery last year started, and we are working towards making that happen again,” Veach explained. “Last year, it was just being clean and not trying to drive that hard. When you have that approach, you are in a much better mindset than trying to force things to happen.”
After finishing his rookie season 15th in the standings, the driver from Stockdale, Ohio, was confident of a dramatic improvement in 2019.
So far, that has not been the case.
A pair of eighth-place finishes in both races of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix are the only two races Veach has finished in the top 10 in 2019.
“This has been the hardest season of my life to be honest,” Veach admitted to NTT INDYCAR Mobile. “It seems that if anything can go wrong, it will. We’re trying our absolute hardest to get back ahead of the avalanche we seem to be caught in right now. That’s to be expected at some point. Everyone goes through it at some point in their career. We’re just trying to get ahead of it as quickly as we can and get back to having clean races.
“Whether it’s my doing or something we can’t control, it’s been hard to put things together like we normally do.”
Veach believes a combination of foiled strategy and a little bit of bad luck has put his season in jeopardy.
But he has full faith in his team owner Michael Andretti that the young protégé can turn it around, and the value of patience on his side.
“I still have a year left on my contract with Andretti,” Veach said. “Hopefully, we can extend that if we get on a better roll here.”