INDYCAR: Veach leads rookies at Sonoma test

Ed Carpenter Racing's Zach Veach made quick work of adapting to Josef Newgarden's Chevy-powered Indy car on Thursday, as the Ohioan led the three Indy Lights drivers making their debut at Sonoma Raceway.

Veach, using Newgarden's No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing entry, posted an unofficial best of 1m18.32s around the 2.3-mile road course. He was followed by Andre Negrao in James Hinchcliffe's No. 5 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda (1m18.35s) and Santiago Urrutia in Mikhail Aleshin's No. 7 SPM Honda (1m18.62s). Veach's time also compared favorably to 2015 Indy Lights champion Spencer Pigot, who drives the No. 20 ECR Chevy (1m18.93s).

"I don't think I'm going to stop smiling for a week," Veach told RACER. "It was incredible. We ended up doing about 60 laps. It gave me a real experience of what I'm getting myself into. We showed some pace so hopefully that means we deserve to be in IndyCar if we can get the sponsorship together."

Brazil's Negrao brings solid GP2 experience to the table, which smoothed his introduction to IndyCar.

"I think the car definitely helped me in the first laps," he said, referencing the benefit of extreme downforce and tire grip. "The braking and the speed is so different from this car to Indy Lights. It's a lot different car."

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Like Veach, Negrao looked like an old pro within a matter of laps, and with more time, more speed was waiting to be found. Under IndyCar's testing rules, teams gain an extra day by placing Indy Lights drivers in the car for half the scheduled running, so with all three having logged their time in the morning, they handed over the cars to their full-time drivers for the afternoon.

"Maybe for the first part of the track I lost some tenths there, but the back of the track I feel pretty close," Negrao added. "You have to trust more in the car, trust more in the tires."

Urrutia also felt he would have benefitted from more time in Aleshin's car.

"It was great; a lot more downforce, brake, everything," he said. "In the beginning it was quite difficult, but lap by lap I was getting better. If I could drive in the afternoon, we could improve a little more."

All three head directly to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the Mazda Road To Indy season finale where Urrutia leads the Indy Lights championship by one point, Veach is fourth in the standings and has a shot at the title, and Negrao is seventh.

Click on the thumbnails below for larger images.

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