American Racing News Vol 1, Issue 2 Issue 6 | Page 9

BELARDI AUTO RACING AND VEACH SCORE TOP FIVES AT MID-OHIO
LEXINGTON, OH – Belardi Auto Racing has enjoyed an extremely solid
couple of months on the Indy Lights
Presented by Cooper Tires circuit,
winning three races on the
strength of five podium finishes
and seven top-five results. Stockdale, Ohio’s Zach Veach extended
the team’s top-five run at the recent Mazda Road to Indy Presented
by Cooper Tires event at Mid-Ohio
Sports Car Course, posting a pair of
strong finishes on the 2.258-mile,
13-turn road course.
Veach drove his #5 JD Equipment
entry to fourth in the opening race
on Saturday and then capped the
weekend with a fine run to fifth on
Sunday. These results come hot on
the heels of Veach’s win at Road
America, his second place finish at
Iowa and Felix Rosenqvist’s sweep
of the victories on the streets of
Toronto. The team has good momentum heading into the next
event at Watkins Glen International. “Our team is extremely focused
on winning races and our recent
victories have only served to
strengthen the expectations that

we have for ourselves,” offered Brian Belardi, Team Principal. “We
know we have a team that can win
races, and we expect to run in the
top-five and contend for victory every weekend. Zach turned in a
strong and consistent performance
for us at Mid-Ohio and he rewarded the team’s hard work with a pair
of top-fives that keep us in the
championship fight. With three
races to go, we’re ready to fight.”
The Mid-Ohio event featured a
compact schedule for the Indy
Lights drivers and teams, with just
four on-track sessions. A Friday
morning practice session was followed by qualifying in the afternoon, and daily races on Saturday
and Sunday, so Veach needed to
come up to speed quickly, and was
able to post the seventh fastest
time of the session, which would
put him on the inside of row four
for the start of Race 1. The team
had tested at Mid-Ohio in June, but
the track is notorious for its changing conditions, and with a full day
of Mazda Road to Indy testing by
the USF2000 and Pro Mazda teams,

the racing surface was uncharacteristically ‘grippy’ on Friday.
In the two races, Veach was able to
make up any ground during the
first couple of laps. On Saturday, he
was able to advance quickly to fifth
on the opening lap and then made
a pass for fourth on the second
circuit. Zach fought valiantly to
hold the position, but he lost a little
pace with the car and slipped to
fifth. Sunday's race seemed to be a
mirror image on the start as Zach
was again able again to get up to
fifth before a mid-race spin by Felix
Serralles advanced him to fourth.
It was a strong points haul for the
team, as Veach now sits just 52
points out of the lead. He’ll need a
strong run of finishes and a little
luck to steal away the championship, but the team is up for the
challenge.

BELARDI AUTO RACING PR | INDYLIGHTS.COM