Indy Lights: Zach Veach claims first series win in St. Pete

Zach Veach took the first Indy Lights win of his career with a dominant performance in St. Petersburg. The Andretti Autosport driver, who was one of only three non-rookies in the field, passed polesitter and fellow veteran Gabby Chaves at the first corner, and never looked back. He crossed the line five seconds clear of Chaves, who in turn had a 16s buffer over third-placed Jack Harvey.

"I'm so happy. Last year didn't go exactly how we wanted it to, but my engineer (Doug Zister) never stopped helping me," related Veach. "This winter I spent a lot of time trying to get more physically strong because I felt that was my weakness, and spent a lot of time doing mental things and came into the season with a whole new attitude. I think it paid off for us.

"My engineer definitely was on me a lot about saving tires. In my mind I was thinking, 'Just don't mess up, just hit my marks, have clean laps' – and we were able to do that. I took the lead early and were able to keep it from there. I want to thank everyone on the RePLAY XD team for all their hard work and support in getting me to Victory Lane. Big thanks to Cooper Tires, Mazda and the Mazda Road to Indy for this amazing start to 2014."

It was the battle for third that provided most of the race's interest. Early on the position was occupied by Matthew Brabham, who looked a threat for second during the opening laps before he clipped the wall at Turn 3 and was forced to pit with a punctured left-rear tire. That promoted AutoGP champion Vittorio Ghirelli onto the provisional podium, but he was never able to open a gap over the group of cars pursuing him and was eventually beaten with a great move around the outside of the last corner by Harvey.

"I went into the corner on the high side and there's not much grip put there to be honest," Harvey said. "I was just hoping he'd give me enough room, and to be fair, he did."

Ghirelli had a bigger scare a few seconds later when Alex Baron clipped his rear, although Baron was the only one to sustain any damage; the Belardi driver retiring with a broken front wing.

The race's only interruption came right at the start, when Scott Anderson crashed heavily at Turn 3 on the opening lap and prompted a five-lap spell under caution while the mess was swept up.