Long Beach Indy Lights: Gabby Chaves beats Zach Veach to race win
Gabby Chaves took a straightforward win over Zach Veach in the Indy Lights race around the streets of Long Beach
In a race run entirely under green, all of the excitement over the lead battle began and ended between the start line and the first corner.
Matthew Brabham vaulted up from third on the grid to try to run three-wide with polesitter Veach and Chaves before thinking better of it and tucking back in behind the leaders, but he distracted Veach just enough to allow Chaves to pounce around the outside and take the lead.
From there, the Belardi driver always looked in control. His lead ballooned to as much as 2.0 seconds before a brief mid-race rally from Veach, although even then the margin never shrank below 0.5s.
Brabham also mounted a brief surge at around the same time before clattering the wall with his left rear tyre once too often and losing touch with the leaders a few laps before the finish.
Alex Baron held a distant fourth until encountering a problem on the second-last lap that allowed both Jack Harvey and Luiz Razia to slip past.
Results - 45 laps: Pos Driver Team Time/Gap 1. Gabby Chaves Belardi 57m12.3822s 2. Zach Veach Andretti +0.6344s 3. Matthew Brabham Andretti +3.8687s 4. Jack Harvey Schmidt +27.556s 5. Luiz Razia Schmidt +28.0631s 6. Alex Baron Belardi +38.6317s 7. Juan Piedrahita Schmidt +52.3862s 8. Juan Pablo Garcia Schmidt +54.2087s 9. Scott Anderson Fan Force +1m06.8322s 10. Zack Meyer Moore +1m07.1742s Retirements: Lloyd Read Herta 34 laps Vittorio Ghirelli Moore 29 laps
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