Rinus VeeKay put his Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet at the top of the times in Sunday morning warm-up for the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey. The Dutchman lapped 2.238-mile WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in 1m08.4096s, 0.042s ahead of Chip Ganassi …
Rinus VeeKay put his Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet at the top of the times in Sunday morning warm-up for the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey. The Dutchman lapped 2.238-mile WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in 1m08.4096s, 0.042s ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon.
The main task for all teams and drivers was to assess tire degradation as the track temperatures are skewing far hotter than previously forecast.
Andretti Global’s Colton Herta was the first driver to try out a long run on Firestone’s alternate tire, but after six laps, his drive was interrupted by a red flag caused by Sting Ray Robb. The AJ Foyt Racing driver got the fast, uphill Turn 6 slightly wrong, ran wide on the exit curbs and slid through the gravel. Thankfully the car hit a deeply stacked part of the tire wall, and while the right-rear corner of his car was heavily damaged, Robb alighted from his car under his own power.
Meanwhile, Robb’s Foyt teammate Santino Ferrucci was served a stop and hold penalty for a silly obstructive move on his Juncos Hollinger Racing bete noire Romain Grosjean.
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Penske’s Will Power had a spin through the same Turn 6 gravel as Robb, but kept it off the wall and continued without causing a red flag.
Agustin Canapino went to the top of the times in the final 10 minutes, setting a 1m08.5314s on primary tires, while Grosjean ran a 1m08.8558s on reds but impressively produced a 1m09.8170s 12 laps into his run, suggesting the alternates can hold on.
Dixon, who was also practicing fuel save, moved CGR to the top of the times, briefly, before VeeKay went P1.
Canapino was third, ahead of Linus Lundqvist (Ganassi), Herta, Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti), Marcus Armstrong (Ganassi) and polesitter Alex Palou.
The green flag waves for the start of the Firestone GP of Monterey at 3:30 p.m. local (Pacific) time.
Opening practice for the eighth round of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, saw Scott McLaughlin finish on top for Team Penske, with Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay looking strong until engine trouble, and …
Opening practice for the eighth round of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, saw Scott McLaughlin finish on top for Team Penske, with Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay looking strong until engine trouble, and Arrow McLaren’s newest recruit Nolan Siegel turning his first laps for the team.
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The bravest person this year at the Indianapolis 500 wasn’t strapped into one of the 240mph missiles. In fact, Tim Broyles was merely standing on pit lane, dressed in dark pants and his Ed Carpenter Racing team shirt, making the ballsiest call of …
The bravest person this year at the Indianapolis 500 wasn’t strapped into one of the 240mph missiles.
In fact, Tim Broyles was merely standing on pit lane, dressed in dark pants and his Ed Carpenter Racing team shirt, making the ballsiest call of the event last weekend when his driver Rinus VeeKay was sitting towards the bottom of the qualifying results.
The young Dutchman’s crash Saturday morning set the No. 21 ECR Chevy program back as one would expect. Broyles, ECR’s general manager, oversaw the effort as their amazing crew members scrambled to repair VeeKay’s car.
With a ready machine to roll back out to the qualifying line to try and get in the show the heat of the day, blazing speed was not on their side.
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“Obviously, with how the whole morning played out, we thought we had a fast car with Rinus and we actually thought we had three fast cars with Ed [Carpenter] and Christian [Rasmussen], but then the incident happens with Rinus and you have all your nice, shiny, new, perfectly-fit parts on the car thrown into a bucket of crashed parts,” Broyles told RACER as he uncorked an epic tale.
“Right there, we made a quick decision to stick with that car instead of building up a backup car and just move some components from the backup car over, which was going to be [VeeKay’s] Detroit [street race] car, so it was not exactly your best Speedway stuff, but it should get him in the race.
“We put the car back together and used a qualifying attempt to actually do a leak check. I don’t know if a lot of people realize what was going on there. We went out on track and had Rinus run a couple straightaways, and they ended up waving it off, because he was going so slow, but we were just mainly leak checking and making sure everything was good after putting the car back in one piece.
“He brought it back, we tried to get some time to cool the engine down in pit lane — which you can really never get done in pit lane, and especially as warm as it was — but got it somewhere close to cool and he went out and made his initial run.”
With the limitations brought about by using a Speedway-tuned car that had some non-Speedway components installed out of necessity to get back on track, VeeKay did well to secure 29th in the 33-car field. He wasn’t at risk of being bumped, but it was a hollow feeling for Carpenter, Broyles, and the rest of the team which has grown accustomed to VeeKay charging onto the first two starting rows at the Indy 500.
It’s here where Broyles took a massive roll of the dice.
With ambient temperatures starting to come down and cloud cover having a modest cooling effect on the Speedway, faster runs in the final hour of Saturday’s qualifying session — one where the drivers in 13th though 30th like VeeKay would be locked into place and done for the weekend — meant there was limited time left to see if the repaired ECR Chevy could give qualifying another go and move VeeKay closer to the front of the field.
And with IndyCar’s unique Indy 500 qualifying rules, teams have two lanes to choose from to send their drivers through: The “safe” lane where attempts can be made to improve your speed and starting spot where there’s no risk of losing your existing speed and spot if you don’t go faster, and then there’s the “fast” lane, which nobody uses, which requires teams to forfeit their driver’s starting spot — becoming unqualified — before making an attempt. Even the slightest issue during a fast-lane run could lead to failure and send the driver and car home. Slow, but safely in the field, VeeKay wasn’t in jeopardy of missing the Indy 500.
That was, of course, until Broyles’ brass balls entered the equation.
“I was sitting there around the five o’clock hour and the (safe) line was starting to get long,” he said. “We’re watching the weather and waiting for somebody that we thought would put in a reasonable time just to get a read on the track. And I think it was (Agustin) Canapino who went out and ran a 233mph and it was like, ‘OK, the track’s pretty good.’
“So I looked at the guys, and I’m like, ‘I’m probably going to live to regret this, but let’s go!’ I surprised everybody. I’m probably on the conservative side at times, but for all the effort that went in to get that car ready, and to know that we had a fast car but couldn’t show it, I said, ‘They deserve the opportunity, all of them as a group.’
“And the (safe) lane was only getting fuller, so I walked down there to the IndyCar race officials as the guys pushed the car into the (fast) lane, and saw (IndyCar president) Jay Frye and (race director) Kyle Novak and (race steward) Gary Barnard, walk up and hand Gary the withdrawal paperwork, and Jay says, ‘You know, you’re the only guy who would withdraw a car today…’ So I said, ‘I know…I’m probably gonna get the ‘Dumbass Award’ here today.’
“So Rinus fires the thing up and leaves and I walked up pit lane and tried to find a quiet spot by the scoring pylon, by myself, and Rinus did what we thought he would and sticks it into the Fast 12. I think it made it a pretty exciting day for the fans over here and everybody else. It’s fun when it works out.”
A collective achievement to celebrate for VeeKay and the ECR crew. Mike Young/Penske Entertainment
The mental toll of pulling VeeKay out of the Indy 500 and waiting to see if his plan would backfire and end in misery left Broyles in need of a long nap.
“Talk about being exhausted,” he said. “I have complete faith in our group; they have each other’s back. That’s the culture that we have here. And that’s what makes it fun, right? But you don’t want too many days like this one. After qualifying, you’re walking down pit lane, and it all hits you and you’re just so exhausted.
“One of our team owners, Stuart Reid, walked up and said, ‘Who had the balls to do that?’ And laughed about it at the time. Like I said, it’s those guys, they earned it. The best part about it was seeing the joy in their in their eyes and excitement they had when Rinus put up those big speeds that made it worth it.”
VeeKay’s crew chief was given the Clint Brawner Award for mechanical excellence after authoring the quick crash fixes and getting his driver into the Fast 12.
“It’s a really cool side story that Austin Shepherd won the Brawner Award, and that’s like a group award, right?” Broyles said. “That’s about all the guys around you, but to be recognized individually was pretty cool, too. The hardest thing I had to do is turn in that piece of paper and put myself in the running for the ‘Dumbass Award.’ They did the actual work, they got dirty, and I just had to walk down and hand in a piece of paper.”
Rinus VeeKay’s chances of continuing his front-row qualifying streak at the Indianapolis 500 took a hit Saturday morning when the young Dutchman spun and crashed in Turn 3 during his four-lap run. VeeKay’s No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevy incurred …
Rinus VeeKay’s chances of continuing his front-row qualifying streak at the Indianapolis 500 took a hit Saturday morning when the young Dutchman spun and crashed in Turn 3 during his four-lap run.
VeeKay’s No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevy incurred significant damage, and while he emerged from the car without assistance, he did have a noticeable limp while walking to the AMR Safety vehicles.
The ECR team swept into action and had a spare chassis waiting to be built up for the 23-year-old who was seen by the IndyCar Medical staff and released to continue competing once the backup is ready.
“Went through Turn 3 at speed once, and then I had some understeer, made an adjustment, and somehow, I had a huge moment,” VeeKay said. “I don’t really understand how that happened. It was unusual. We took a huge step backwards (with the crash).
“I think we’ll be fine getting into the field, but we should have been able to do one run and be done. It was two hard hits. We shouldn’t have to go through this.”
Saturday morning’s practice session for the IndyCar Series at Barber Motorsports Park was paced by Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay. VeeKay’s lap of 1m06.546s in the No. 21 Chevy was shadowed by Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Romain Grosjean in the No. …
Saturday morning’s practice session for the IndyCar Series at Barber Motorsports Park was paced by Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay. VeeKay’s lap of 1m06.546s in the No. 21 Chevy was shadowed by Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Romain Grosjean in the No. 77 Honda (+0.035s) and Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin in the No. 3 Chevy (+0.063s).
The 45-minute session took place under gray but warm skies and had its usual share of spins and off-track adventures with Pietro Fittipaldi and Theo Pourchaire having the most demonstrative issues.
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Where Pourchaire’s spin in the No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevy was of the harmless variety, Fittipaldi wasn’t as fortunate as he met the barriers with the front of his No. 30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda, which was lifted away by a tow truck and returned to the paddock for repairs.
Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist also had his session cut short; the No. 60 Honda was pushed under the team’s tent where an engine change — the first for Honda this season — was being performed ahead of this afternoon’s qualifying session (3:30-5pm ET).
IndyCar’s attempts to create more on-track action for fans and more free space for its drivers was met with some strong opinions on whether it should continue at other road and street courses. With the opening 75-minute session at the Firestone …
IndyCar’s attempts to create more on-track action for fans and more free space for its drivers was met with some strong opinions on whether it should continue at other road and street courses.
With the opening 75-minute session at the Firestone Grand Prix structured with a 20-minute window for all 27 drivers to lap the track before the field was split into alternating 10-minute sessions, the concept should have prevented the long periods of inactivity where teams have their drivers sit on pit lane and preserve sets of tires for select moments when the track is clear. The format change is only being trialed on Friday.
And with the series making one set of the faster green-banded Firestone alternate tires available for each car during the Friday session to perform qualifying simulation runs ahead of Saturday’s qualifying session, the Friday afternoon run was an important one for every driver.
But the random timing of red flags during some of those 10-minute blasts meant some drivers had limited or no time on the alternates, which will have a negative impact on the rest of their weekend.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Pietro Fittipaldi, a first-timer at St. Petersburg, had positives to offer about the format that was tested.
“I think it was good because for me, especially while learning the track, there was less of the traffic and people on out laps slowing me down,” he told RACER. “So for me, it was much better. The idea of the session was to do as many laps as possible. … I haven’t experienced it here without it, so tomorrow’s session will tell me what it’s like with all the cars out there at the same time.”
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Arrow McLaren team principal Gavin Ward questioned the format’s need at anywhere other than the Chevrolet Grand Prix.
“I applaud us for trying something,” he said. “I think it’s only going [to be] worth doing at Detroit. What we suggested here was just to split into two groups and run two separate sessions. I think this was overcomplicated.”
Juncos Hollinger Racing co-owner Ricardo Juncos wasn’t a fan.
“I don’t like it much,” he said. “I think it’s a lot of stress. Right now, with the red flag, it hurst us with [driver Agustin] Canapino. We didn’t get a lot of time. We actually didn’t use the [Firestone] greens, so our lap times [are] pretty massively down. That’s the only chance for him before qualifying, so it screwed the whole thing.”
Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay had a range of takes to offer.
“I wasn’t pleased with the first 10-minute run,” he said “The second one was nice. But on the other hand, because it went red twice, I barely got a second run. We just got a lot less running in than we usually do. So for me, it was okay, because I’ve been here [in an IndyCar]. I think for [rookie teammate] Christian [Rasmussen who hasn’t], I think it would be better without it because it hits the rookies pretty hard because they need all the laps.”
ECR lead engineer Matt Barnes also saw the pros and cons of the format.
“It’s hard to get everything done, but it’s nice to know you’re gonna have a 10-minute break,” he said. “But this all depends on [when] the reds fall. If you get your laps in, you’re probably happy, but if you didn’t, you’re probably not. I can say it was more smooth than I thought it would be.”
Kyle Kirkwood, the polesitter from the most recent race, spun on new tires, damaged his car, and fell to 12th in the Firestone Fast 12 session. Rinus VeeKay, the polesitter from last year’s Barber Motorsports Park NTT IndyCar Series race, got caught …
Kyle Kirkwood, the polesitter from the most recent race, spun on new tires, damaged his car, and fell to 12th in the Firestone Fast 12 session. Rinus VeeKay, the polesitter from last year’s Barber Motorsports Park NTT IndyCar Series race, got caught in a bottleneck with Team Penske drivers and then ran off track on his last flying lap and dropped to ninth.
IndyCar’s all-time pole winner Will Power also fell off the circuit and plummeted to 11th. Championship leader Marcus Ericsson simply lacked the speed to make the Fast 12 and settled for 13th. Those were just four of many IndyCar front runners who were expected to vie for strong starting positions but find themselves with a lot of passing to do over 90 laps on Sunday in Alabama if they want to salvage their weekends.
“It was just a dumb mistake, to be honest,” Kirkwood said of looping his No. 27 Andretti Autosport Honda and ripping a downforce-producing component from his car’s diffuser. “We lost the rear-left strake and that just caused a ton of understeer in the left-hand corners and a ton of oversteer on the right-hand corners.”
Power pointed to Team Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin as one of the authors of his adversity and also reckoned an engine on the verge of needing a rebuild conspired against finding greater success.
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“Scott went off in Turn 1 on the money lap and just put all that grass on (the circuit),” he said. “So I went wide there and lost some time there and was definitely up (on pace) coming to that. And then in Turn 13, the wheel locked and unwound itself because there was so much grip in the middle of that corner. And I just had to get out of the throttle and ran off, which screwed the next lap. But we’ve been a tenth-and-a-half down with the engine this weekend. We’re just hanging in there.”
Championship leader Marcus Ericsson was out of touch as Chip Ganassi Racing stablemates Alex Palou and Scott Dixon qualified second and fifth, respectively. Lining up 13th was not what Ericsson had in mind after delivering two strong qualifying performances at St. Petersburg and Long Beach.
“Yesterday we were really happy, and then today, in the morning session, we felt like the car was not as good,” he said. “So we went back a little bit to what we had yesterday and it felt a lot better. I think the car was pretty nice to drive, but it’s missing a few tenths. Disappointing.”
Kirkwood’s teammate Colton Herta didn’t have a spin or lose any bodywork from his car to explain the lack of speed with his No. 26 Honda at Barber.
“I never qualify well here; I’ve never been in the Fast Six,” he said after placing 14th. “We should transfer but unfortunately we didn’t. Have to look at what went wrong and why we’re so slow, but we shouldn’t be getting knocked out in round one.”
IndyCar driver Colton Herta said he’s “100 percent OK” after going airborne Friday at Iowa Speedway.
IndyCar Series drivers Colton Herta and Rinus VeeKay were not injured and walked away from a terrifying airborne crash during a restart Friday night in the first of event of the doubleheader weekend at Iowa Speedway.
On Lap 156 of 250 as drivers were preparing for a restart, IndyCar aborted it. But it may have been too late notice for Herta, whose No. 88 Honda plowed into the left rear of VeeKay’s No. 21 Chevrolet. The contact between the two sent Herta flying through the air, spinning halfway around above the SAFER barrier on the outside of the track and barely missing VeeKay’s head.
Herta remained airborne after soaring ahead of the rookie driver before ultimately landing right side up and sliding across the track.
Afterward, Herta told NBC Sports that he didn’t slow down because he didn’t realize IndyCar called the restart off, which officials said happened because Pato O’Ward jumped the restart. More via NBC Sports:
“It happened so fast, I wasn’t really sure what was going on, but I’m happy to report, I’m fine,” Herta told NBCSN pit reporter Kelli Stavast. “No injuries. I feel perfectly fine and fit to drive (in Saturday’s race). …
“I wasn’t told the restart was called off,” Herta said. “I was told green. I wasn’t going to go by the lights when I was told green. So that’s what happened. And there you go. I guess everyone else got the message. Happy to be OK.”
And in a video he tweeted, he thanked everyone for their support and said he’s “100 percent OK” and “really excited to get back on track” Saturday.
VeeKay told NBC Sports after that he’s pleased with the safety precautions IndyCar has taken, particularly the new aeroscreen it added this year to increase protection of the driver and act as a windshield. VeeKay said his aeroscreen was destroyed in the wreck.
“I’m very happy, especially with the safety. … The aeroscreen, it was destroyed. Thank you to IndyCar for the great safety cell and let’s go for it tomorrow.”
The Herta-VeeKay crash wasn’t the only time Friday night when IndyCar’s aeroscreen proved just how crucial its presence actually is.
Prior to Herta’s airborne wreck, Will Power lost a wheel, literally, after his car made contact with the outside wall. And as he slid around the track trying to get control of the car, his tire nearly took his head off, and Power credited the aeroscreen for protection him.
.@12WillPower has been cleared after this incident.
