Veekay victorious in Indy GP
The Dutch Indycar rising star scored his maiden series victory ahead of the pole-scoring ex-formula 1 driver
The Grand Prix of Indianapolis will always live in the shadow of its Memorial Day Weekend brother held on the iconic oval, but it has served up plenty of good racing since its inception in 2014. And if not all of the battles are for the lead, at least that possibility is there.
The 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway includes two long straights that allow cars to draft, with or without using the 200 seconds of ‘extra’ push to pass (1.65 bar as opposed to 1.5 bar) turbo boost. And while there are high, medium and low-speed corners that demand good downforce, much of this can be provided by the underbody of the car, as per one of the prime intentions of the current aerokit – because the track surface is so pool-table smooth, the teams can slam the cars on the deck. Hence you’ll never hear Indycar drivers at the IMS road course bitching about being unable to follow due to dirty air from the wings of the car in front.
Also, several corners are wide, as are the front and back straights, allowing for a variety of lines to be taken, thereby creating passing opportunities. And the virtuous circle is completed by the fact that these lines get used so frequently that, however bad the rubber marbles are as the Firestones slough off their outer surfaces, there are usually at least two usable lanes at the end of each straight, and a driver can experiment with different lines through several turns without skittering off into oblivion.
The result is a fine track that can reward speed and aggression, and doesn’t punish experimentation. Enter Rinus Veekay.
Last year’s Indycar Rookie of the Year is a man who is not yet quite as famous for his speed and aggression as fellow young gun Pato O’ward, but only because 1) the 20-year-old Dutchman took a little longer to tame his ebullience into constructing serious points hauls rather than occasional ‘OMG, did you see that?!’ flashpoints, and 2) because Ed Carpenter Racing has traditionally been a team that shone on ovals and only sporadically on road and street courses.
But Veekay has always been extraspecial on the Indianapolis road course. Last weekend, he became the first driver to win races at all levels of the Road to Indy – USF2000, Indy Pro (formerly Pro Mazda) and Indy Lights – and Indycar itself with his first top-tier success. He also cemented his relationship with the course from which he lives just a short bike-ride away. In USF2000 he finished second here; in
Pro Mazda he placed third; in Indy
Lights he took pole, fastest lap, and won.
Ed Carpenter was immediately impressed by Veekay when ECR tested him at Portland in 2019, and his desire to do a deal was confirmed by the kid’s pace in a second test at Mid-ohio. And when they rocked up at the GP Indy last July for the second race of the Covid-affected season, Veekay produced his first top-five finish. At the Harvest Grand Prix at the same venue in August, he took pole and scored his first Indycar podium.
Fast-forward to May 2021, and he delivered his first Indycar win in thoroughly convincing fashion. Veekay’s triumph was the first for Carpenter’s team since Josef Newgarden dominated
Iowa Speedway in 2016, and the first on a road/street course since Newgarden led Luca Filippi in an ECR 1-2 at Toronto in 2015.
Notable about this race was that Indycar made it 85 laps long. Last year’s GP Indy was 80 laps, which enabled Graham Rahal to featherfoot his way to second on a two-stop strategy. The Harvest GP doubleheader saw one of the races reduced to 75 laps, which meant everyone of note tried to do it in two stops, but the other race was a barnstormer of 85 laps where no one could complete it in just two stops and therefore just had to drive to the max in between their three stops. It was one of the best road-course races of the last decade.
Hence the series’ decision to keep with that race length for last Saturday’s event. It didn’t deliver thrills to the same extent, but it wasn’t short of action.
Romain Grosjean was the main topic du jour on Friday, because in only his third Indycar event he delivered pole position
to Dale Coyne Racing with RWR in his Dallara-honda. Like Veekay’s win, this qualifying topper was of special significance to the team, since it was Coyne’s first pole since Sebastien Bourdais went quickest at Phoenix three years ago. And with Grosjean being the charming guy that he is, and a recent survivor of a potentially lethal accident, he was hot property.
“Of all the tracks I’ve been racing in the US, this is the one that feels the most familiar,” he said after beating Team Penske driver Newgarden by 0.13 seconds. “I can tell it was actually designed for Formula 1, the way the kerbs are, the layout and the corners. I knew I was going to feel OK on the track quite quickly, whereas St Pete takes a little bit more time to learn. Barber, a few tricks there that you need to understand. Here for me it’s a bit more straightforward…
“Going into the weekend, we obviously
“I can tell the track was designed for Formula 1. I knew I was going to feel OK quite quickly”
did a lot of work to be good and also just learning about it. Our first segment of quali wasn’t so good. Second one felt much better. Going into the Fast Six I never ran scrubbed red tyres, so I didn’t know what to expect from the car. It behaved really well.
“The first lap I had a mistake. It was a fast lap, but I had a mistake. I knew
I had more pace in the second lap. It went really, really good. I thought that could be it. That was it.”
Newgarden was disappointed but reasonably content to have outperformed his Penske team-mates. Will Power, a fourtime winner here, spun while trying to set a ‘banker lap’ on hard tyres in Q2 and was stuck in 12th. Simon Pagenaud was 10th, feeling a little more settled with his road course set-up, and rookie Scott Mclaughlin was an inspired fifth, behind only Grosjean, Newgarden, Jack Harvey (Meyer Shank Racing) and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou, who had lost FP1 to a water leak but delivered well in qualifying.
Grosjean burst into the lead at the start, but behind him sixth starter Conor Daly in the other ECR Dallara-chevrolet was tapped into the Turn 1 grass by Pagenaud after closing to the apex on the Penske driver too abruptly. When Daly spun and stalled, out came the full-course yellow.
Veekay, who had started from seventh on primary (harder) Firestones, ran sixth in the early stages behind Grosjean, Harvey (later to be sidelined by a right-rear puncture), Newgarden, Palou and Mclaughlin.
Grosjean pitted at the end of lap 25 for more reds, while Palou also stopped and took on blacks. That made him easy prey for the charging Harvey, who crossed the start/finish line just 2s behind Grosjean next time by, a gap that held steady once Grosjean got his reds up to temperature.
Grosjean started to edge away from Harvey by lap 30, only a tenth or two at a time, but it meant on lap 33 that the leader’s advantage was 3.6s.
Veekay was now running fourth in this stint but, as before, he was one of the first to the pits for the second round of stops, triggering a flood of pit visitors. Meanwhile, late-stopper Grosjean had an alarming moment as he lapped Takuma Sato, banging wheels with the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver, while a far cleaner move occurred moments later. Palou was inadvertently held up by team-mate Jimmie Johnson as they departed the pitlane. It cost Palou momentum onto the back straight, and Veekay took the opportunity to drive between the Ganassi drivers and claim a net second. By now, Harvey was out of the picture, his strong run falling victim to a puncture, which meant he finished off the lead lap.
Grosjean, who had fallen back behind Sato after an aggressive unlapping manoeuvre, pitted on lap 43, but it wasn’t a stellar stop and he was now on primaries, making him vulnerable to the charging Veekay. The ECR driver stalked him throughout lap 44, and
then dived inside at the right-handed Turn 12 and held it to grab the (net) lead. The only drivers ahead were the off-strategy Ryan Hunter-reay – 9s ahead – and Scott Dixon.
By lap 57 Grosjean was only 2.2s from the lead, with Palou 1.4s further behind. Eight seconds behind Palou was Newgarden, just ahead of Rahal, who had recovered superbly after getting caught up in the Daly incident, and then making a stop under yellow that left him insufficient time to catch the field when the race suddenly went green.
When Grosjean made his final stop three laps after Veekay, with 22 remaining, he emerged 5s behind the leader.
Veekay never looked like losing from there and duly recorded his first series victory, with Grosjean a fine second. Third place for Palou moves him to within 13 points of team-mate Dixon (who finished ninth), while Newgarden has now risen to third spot as he continues to recover from his unfortunate opening round.