We are moving back to a Chevrolet team with the sixth IndyCar Team Preview for the 2022 season. Ed Carpenter Racing went into 2021 without a victory in nearly five years. It took five races for ECR to be back on the top step of the podium and the team did it with sophomore driver Rinus VeeKay.
The Dutch driver started 2021 with incredible form, six top ten finishes in the first seven races, but a cycling accident broke VeeKay's collarbone after the eighth race, and his season was not the same afterward. Conor Daly and Ed Carpenter continued to split the #20 Chevrolet in 2021, but neither could match VeeKay. Carpenter was fifth in the Indianapolis 500, but it was the only top ten result for an ECR driver other than VeeKay. Daly's best finish with the team was 11th and his oval results took a dip filling in the #59 Chevrolet for Carlin.
After eight seasons, ECR will field two full-time drivers, as Daly takes over the #20 Chevrolet permanently with Carpenter running a third entry for the Indianapolis 500 and possibly the other oval races. VeeKay will be back for his third season.
2021 Ed Carpenter Racing Review
Wins: 1 (Grand Prix of Indianapolis)
Poles: 0
Best Start: 3rd (Indianapolis 500, Belle Isle II)
Championship Finish: 12th (Rinus VeeKay), 18th (Conor Daly), 27th (Ed Carpenter)
Conor Daly - #20 BitNile Chevrolet
Daly was set for a full season split between two teams again in 2021. Starting with ECR, Daly qualified in the top ten at Barber Motorsports Park but fell back to 16th. At St. Petersburg, he started 19th and climbed to 16th.
Moving to Texas, Daly shifted to Carlin's #59 Chevrolet. With qualifying rained out for both races, Daly was forced to start dead last in each race, as the 24-car grid was set via entrants' points. The difficult nature of Texas Motor Speedway trapped him at the back in race one and he finished 21st. In race two, he was caught in the accident at the start and went across the start/finish line upside down, a dramatic way to be classified 24th.
Things turned around in Indianapolis. He qualified sixth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis but contact with Simon Pagenaud sent him off course and he stalled. The gearbox was damaged and for the second consecutive race he was dead last in 25th. For the Indianapolis 500, he started 19th while his teammates both made the Fast Nine. However, Daly was able to run long on the first stint and took the lead under the first caution for Stefan Wilson's spin. He led 40 laps, 100 miles, but didn't have the pace as the race remained green and dropped back. He survived hitting Graham Rahal's loose tire after Rahal's spin exiting the pit lane to finish 13th.
He was a mid-pack driver for the middle portion of the season, and it wasn't until the second IMS road course race he was contending for a top ten finish again. An off-track excursion dropped him from a top ten spot in the middle of the race and he finished 11th. He couldn't quite find the balance at Gateway, but with the number of cars falling out of the race, he made up positions and was 11th again.
The season ended with three consecutive results outside the top fifteen.
Numbers to Remember:
0: Top ten finishes in 22 starts with Ed Carpenter Racing.
80: Career starts, ninth most among the 25 announced full-time drivers for the 2022 IndyCar season, and the most among full-time drivers without a victory.
7: Drivers have taken more than 80 starts to get a first career victory (Michel Jourdain, Jr., George Snider, Ed Carpenter, Oriol Servià, Wally Dallenbach, Eddie Cheever and Alex Tagliani).
112: Drivers with at least 80 IndyCar starts.
19: Drivers with at least 80 IndyCar starts and zero victories.
What does a championship season look like for him?
It starts with a top ten finish in St. Petersburg, Daly's first with Ed Carpenter Racing. With one top ten under his belt, Daly heads to Texas and gets ECR its first oval victory since Iowa 2016. He gets another top ten at Long Beach but finishes 14th at Barber.
Heading home to Indiana, Daly starts the month of May with a sixth-place finish in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. He gets ECR back into the Fast Nine and qualifies on the second row for the Indianapolis 500. In the race, he leads 39 laps but one of those is the last lap and he becomes the first Hoosier to win the Indianapolis 500 since Wilbur Shaw in 1940.
With two oval victories under his belt, he gets a top five at Belle Isle and Road America. He is 15th at Mid-Ohio but gets back into the top ten at Toronto. He makes it three oval victories at Iowa with a top five finish in the other Iowa race that weekend. Back in Indianapolis, he finishes in the top five for the second IMS road course race and he is ninth at Nashville.
He does not pick up a victory at Gateway, but he finishes fourth and he is in the top five for the final three races of the season, with fourth and third-place finishes at Portland and Laguna Seca respectively.
What does a realistic season look like for him?
Ed Carpenter Racing was finding its form last year before the second half of the season. The pace was there to be competitive and mix it up in the top ten. Daly can break the top ten funk in 2022. It could come at either a road/street course or an oval, and with one of each to lead off the season, he could have a top ten very early.
However, there is clearly two sides to ECR. It went from Renaissance to spiraling down the drain all in 2021 alone. There is a middle ground. ECR is not set up to be a routine race winner, but it can be competitive. With Arrow McLaren SP making a leap forward last year, ECR is the third best Chevrolet team with at least five cars ahead of its pair. Throw in at least three Honda teams and another eight solid entries, it will be tough for either ECR car to break the championship top ten.
Daly could get into the top fifteen and not surprise anybody. A top ten championship finish would require hands down his best IndyCar season, at least nine or ten top ten finishes, with a few podium finishes and a few top five finishes. I think Daly would be happy to get just five top ten finishes. Any finish in the top five is hard to imagine right now. If a top five finish were to come, it would have to be on an oval.
Rinus VeeKay - #21 Sonax Chevrolet
The 2021 season started with an impressive drive for VeeKay, from 14th to sixth at Barber. He was in the top ten for the entire St. Petersburg race and finished ninth. In the first Texas race, he was the only driver to make a pit stop before the James Hinchcliffe caution and that trapped him a lap down, leading to a 20th-place finish. In the second Texas race, he broke through to a ninth-place finish.
In Indianapolis, VeeKay qualified seventh for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. The team maximized the tires over each stint and VeeKay grew faster with each lap. He found himself challenging Romain Grosjean and Álex Palou and took the lead once and for all with 21 laps to go. His victory made him the third first-time winner through five races.
On the oval, he qualified on the front row, best of the team in third, and he led early in the race. Fuel mileage was his greatest enemy, and VeeKay was stopping earlier than the other front-runners. This cost him positions, but he took a respectable eighth-place finish. Through the craziness of the first Belle Isle race, VeeKay was second. For the second Belle Isle race, VeeKay started third, but he cut a tire after contact with Marcus Ericsson and finished 18th.
The following Monday, VeeKay went for a cycling ride and fell off his bike, breaking his collarbone. The injury knocked him out for the Road America race that weekend and Oliver Askew filled in. VeeKay was not the same after the injury. He was 16th at Mid-Ohio, taken out early at Nashville and spun out in the second IMS road course race when Scott McLaughlin hit him.
He made his own costly error at Gateway when he made contact with both Ganassi cars on a restart. He would be outside the top fifteen of the next two races purely on speed and fuel pressure issues ended his Long Beach finale early.
Numbers to Remember:
7.857: Average finish in his first seven starts of 2021.
9.0: Average starting position in his first seven starts of 2021.
20.375: Average finish in his final eight starts of 2021.
17.625: Average starting position in his final eight starts of 2021.
What does a championship season look like for him?
The season starts a lot like 2021, seventh at St. Petersburg, eighth at Texas, fifth at Long Beach and he winds up fourth at Barber.
Back at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, VeeKay doesn't quite match his 2021 performance, but he is still on podium. In the Indianapolis 500, he is the best ECR entry all race but finishes third. At Belle Isle, VeeKay qualifies on the front row and pulls out his first victory of the season. He makes it four consecutive podium finishes, with a third at Road America, and his victory at Mid-Ohio makes it five consecutive podiums.
He falls back at Toronto, but he is in the top ten of both Iowa races. On the IMS road course, he is back on the podium before finishing seventh in Nashville. At Gateway, VeeKay is in the lead battle all night, but a great final pit stop is what gets him the lead and his third victory of the season. He follows it up with a third at Portland and a fifth at Laguna Seca.
What does a realistic season look like for him?
With how VeeKay started in 2021, he is clearly capable of more than how his season ended. The falloff was too great for it to be pure luck. He had strong results in 2020 at a few rounds, including Gateway and the Harvest Grand Prix. His collarbone injury knocked him off his form in 2021, and he never recovered. Fully fit, he should get back to that level occasionally in 2022.
He can regularly finish in the top ten, and we saw he can win. He has been able to make up positions in races and turn an average starting position into a top ten or even top five finish, but his qualifying pace can limit those days. There should be plenty of races where he is in the top ten from the start of the weekend and remains there.
ECR did fall off in 2021 that was more than the driver, and the team could hold him back from being incredible. There will likely be a few race weekends where it isn't there and a top ten is out of reach. That will bring his championship finish down. Limiting those days will be key.
There is a chance VeeKay gets the same results he got in 2021, but instead of having all the good races and all the bad races clustered together, they could be mixed, and his season will look more average. He could also repeat his 2021 start and continue that form throughout the entire season. VeeKay could make a gain in 2022 and could break into the championship top ten. Victory will be difficult, but not impossible, as we saw last year. A few top five finishes are more practical for his season.
The 2022 NTT IndyCar Series season begins on Sunday February 27 with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. NBC's coverage will begin at noon ET.
