Andretti Autosport drivers finished St. Pete practice

Zach Veach, Andretti Autosport

Photo by: Bret Kelley

Led most of the first practice session and ended in P2
Best time - 1:09.6114 at over 93 mph
" I think so far we're off to a great start in the 2014 season for the RePLAY XD car. We led most of the first practice session here and ended up P2, so I think we're still getting used to Cooper Tires, and there are some things we want to change for tomorrow's practice and qualifying. Hopefully we can get our first road course pole position and get settled in for the race on Sunday."

Matthew Brabham, No. 83 United Fiber & Data/MAZDASPEED

Rookie's single session brought the third quickest time
Best time - 1:09.6267 at over 93 mph
"Today was great; we just had one practice session so it was a lot of waiting around, waiting for us to get on track. I'm very thankful the weather held out and we were able to have a nice, dry session. I think we have good speed. It's a little jumbled up at the moment with everybody trying different things, but I think we're pretty strong. We've got a lot of work to do overnight, but we know the right direction to go in, so we're going to be working hard to make sure we're the fastest car on track tomorrow."

Garett Grist, No. 27 DaVinci Foods/Lander Property Management

Practice One - P10
Practice Two - P3
"Today was a good day here in St. Pete. It was my first time ever on a street track in a Pro Mazda car - first practice in the regular season for me. A lot for me to learn. We made some improvements with the car, but mostly it's me learning the street track and this car. I raced here last year in the USF2000 car, and it's a lot different. A lot for me to work on, but we ended the day in P3 which is great. We'll go back, look over data, watch some video and see where we can improve on for tomorrow's qualifying."

Shelby Blackstock, No. 28 Starstruck

Practice One - P2
Practice Two - P7
"Overall the day was pretty up and down. The first practice session we were P2 by less than a tenth of a second. In this afternoon's session, there was an early red, and right after that there was a little bit of confusion on pit lane, so we ended up restarting the session at the back of the pack. It was a little unfortunate for the No. 28 Starstruck Andretti Autosport crew, but hopefully we can look at some data, fix some stuff in the car and be P1 tomorrow."

Andretti Autosport