LONG POND, Pennsylvania — They passed each other several times and ended up alongside in Sunday’s ABC Supply 500, but the perspectives of Andretti Autosport teammates Zach Veach and Marco Andretti were decidedly dissimilar.

Veach’s sixth-place finish in the No. 26 Group One Thousand One Honda was the rookie’s finest Verizon IndyCar Series result on an oval, his second-best result of the season and extended his recent momentum to three consecutive top-10 finishes. Were it not for his front wing adjuster on the nose of the car being damaged early on, he felt capable of a podium run.

“That’s the goal, this last half of the season, I wanted to consistently be in the top 10,” Veach said, sitting on the pit wall following the Pocono Raceway event. “At Texas, we were running in the top 10 and I made a mistake. At Iowa, we were in the top 10 and I made a mistake. If it wasn’t for those races, we’d have a good streak of top-10s right now.

“My goal is to hopefully be in the top 10 the last three races, maybe even get a top-five or podium, and try to climb on top of that and forward it to next year.”

Andretti gambled with an early pit in the No. 98 U.S. Concrete/Curb Honda and would have finished higher than seventh had the 500-mile race marred by two early incidents included at least one more caution period. Although this was his highest career finish at Pocono’s 2.5-mile tri-oval that the Andretti family has historically called home, the third-generation driver wasn’t as upbeat as Veach about the outcome.

“We need to be better,” Andretti said. “We made a good gamble to pit early, we came out, we were flying and we leapfrogged everybody and, it figures, we go (the final) 480 miles with no yellow. So, we ended up right where we started.

“We went for it. All we needed was a little help to be on the podium. We just had to save (fuel) most of the race.”

As it is, the Andretti Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian driver conceded he didn’t have enough to catch the race winner, teammate Alexander Rossi, or runner-up Will Power of Team Penske.

“Close to third,” Andretti said, “but the front two were gone and we didn’t have much for them.”

He praised Veach for another strong run. Andretti said the rookie got by him after Andretti was unable to overtake fifth-place finisher Josef Newgarden of Team Penske.

“Zach’s been really impressive, fun to drive against,” Andretti said. “It cost me sixth trying to pass Newgarden for fifth. That’s what checked me up and allowed Veach by. But I’d rather go down swinging, I guess. If I would have cruised, we would have finished sixth. I tried.”

Veach expressed gratitude for how his teammates — Andretti, Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay — have helped him grow. One of the lessons was put to use this day after debris from one of the early crashes involving five cars on Lap 7 ripped the front wing adjuster off Veach’s car.

“We started the race a little conservative on front wing, just to get through the first stint,” he said. “Our plan was to keep adding throughout the race. That kind of hurt us because we were stuck with that same front wing angle. As soon as I got close to cars, I really struggled. The car was perfect, I just needed more front wing to it, which we couldn’t put in.”

But he's been reminded of how established veterans endure without making excuses.

“OK, this isn’t ideal,” Veach said he told himself, “but I’ll do the best I can with what I have to get the most out of the day.”

That he did. The only other time he’s finished higher than Sunday was a fourth place in April’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

“Marco and I, I think we passed each other four or five times throughout the race,” Veach said. “He and I had a little bit of a battle. I’d make a mistake, he’d get around me. He’d make a mistake, I’d get around him. I wanted to make sure I was the second-to-last one to make a mistake.

“I’ve been getting a lot of love from my teammates lately. I can’t thank them enough because they’ve really been helping me along every step of the way. Marco, Alex and Ryan, I’ve learned so much from them and have so much respect for those guys. It’s cool to be kind of running at the same level as them.”

Race winner Rossi gave extended credit to Veach for giving all the team’s drivers a strong Pocono setup from what the rookie learned in an Aug. 9 test at the track. It was Veach’s first time in an Indy car on the “Tricky Triangle.”

“I think the fact that we were able to do that is just a testament to the car I had from Andretti Autosport, really the work that my teammate Zach Veach put in at the test here last week,” Rossi said. “We were able to roll off instantly competitive and strong. Couldn't have done that without him.”

The Verizon IndyCar Series heads to another oval this week, the 1.25-mile Gateway Motorsports Park, for the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline. Live race coverage begins an hour earlier than last year, at 8 p.m. ET Saturday on NBCSN and the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network.