Less than 40 days until the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series opener, 37 days remaining to be specific, and the team previews roll into Ed Carpenter Racing. ECR didn't win a race in 2022. It had a few good showings early, but the good days dwindled the deeper the season went. There was no noticeable improvement from the season before, and that is something the team will hope changes in 2023. The team is fielding the same drivers for the fourth consecutive season, hoping consistency leads to newfound success.
At First Glance... This is fine
Yep. This is an IndyCar lineup. Rinus VeeKay is back. Conor Dally still occupies a seat. It has been the main ECR lineup since 2020. Why break it up?
VeeKay won a race in his sophomore season after taking Rookie of the Year with a handful of memorable performances, including a podium finish from his maiden pole position. In year three, he had another podium finish from pole position, but these high watermark days are rare for the Dutchman. While he won in his sophomore season and had six top ten finishes through his first seven starts that year, he ended that season with eight consecutive finishes outside the top fifteen. He had a podium in 2022, but he also had seven finishes outside the top fifteen and 11 finishes outside the top ten in 17 races.
On ECR's best days, it looks like VeeKay could replicate the later stages of Josef Newgarden's time with the team, but too often the Dutchman will fall in a four-race rut and you will forget it is even competing.
Add to it that in the better part of three seasons being an ECR driver, Conor Daly has been disappointing and, depending on the mood of the observer, one could call this time dreadful. He has routinely been the second finisher in the two-horse ECR race despite having 50 starts on the Dutchman when VeeKay debuted in 2020. Those promising days as a super-sub for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, Dale Coyne Racing and Carlin have not blossomed into sustained full-time success.
But this is fine for ECR. Retaining the lineup says as much.
VeeKay could have something and the team has already committed to him for the next few seasons. Daly has never cracked the top fifteen in the championship when a full-time driver, but this is enough for ECR at the moment. It could be more, and the team should strive for more. Not long ago it was in the championship battle om the final day of the season. The team has been looking for that spark post-Newgarden, and it took a few seasons, but something was recaptured with the hiring of VeeKay. The issue remains that all the pieces put together do not quite reach that higher level.
ECR was once a threat at multiple disciplines. It found ways to win races with Ed Carpenter himself as driver, and even Mike Conway, then Newgarden did something greater. But now the team can only find some magic every four or five races, and that magic isn't all that spectacular.
It still shows speed at Indianapolis, but the truth is the team that is heralded as a oval contender hasn't won an oval race in nearly six and a half years and it hasn't broken through into the championship top ten since Newgarden's final season in 2016.
This is a small team, but we know it can be greater than its current level. It felt like a sleeping giant for a few seasons, but perhaps ECR wasn't that big after all. It will take its fistful of top five finishes every season, obsess over the month of May and when it isn't drink milk after 500 miles it will rinse, wash and repeat.
2022 Ed Carpenter Racing Review
Wins: 0
Best Finish: 3rd (Barber)
Poles: 1 (Barber)
Championship Finishes: 12th (Rinus VeeKay), 17th (Conor Daly), 27th (Ed Carpenter)
Conor Daly - #20 BitNile Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
2,195: Laps completed during the 2022 season, the sixth most in IndyCar
2: Top ten finishes in his last 38 starts
17.6: Average championship finish when a full-time driver
What does a championship season look like for him?
It involves interdimensional travel, and the Conor Daly from the universe where Daly never goes to GP3 and instead runs the entire 2011 Indy Lights season where he is teamed with Josef Newgarden replacing the Conor Daly we currently have.
After impressing IndyCar teams in that Indy Lights season, he would have gotten a full-time ride in the debut season of the DW12 chassis in 2012. Daly experiences the same growing pains as Newgarden, but he benefits from being another young American in the series and his bright days are noticed.
Daly continues to develop in IndyCar and he and Newgarden's careers grow parallel to one another, each having won races and moved to different teams. However, the alternate dimensional Daly got caught in some... wormhole? I don't know. Either way, he is now here on this plain of existence. He is better developed and the Conor Daly we know goes on a nationwide EDM tour, allowing the other Daly to drive. The other Daly is fantastic. He wins early, he wins often. He is reliable and is always in the top five and pulls off a championship that feels like pure fiction.
What does a realistic season look like for him?
We should be concerned that Daly has never broken the top fifteen in the championship his career. He has had a fractured career, but he has been in cars that should crack the top fifteen. He could get there, but it will require his best season ever, and it is difficult visualizing Daly scoring six or seven top ten finishes when two has been a stretch. He could possibly get four or five, putting him close to the top fifteen, but it isn't going to be much greater than that.
Rinus VeeKay - #21 Sonax Chevrolet
Numbers to Remember:
1,890: Laps completed during the 2022 season, the second fewest among regular competitors
12: Races where VeeKay finished worse than or did not improve from his starting position
94: laps led in 2022, a single-season best
What does a championship season look like for him?
VeeKay maximizes the days he has speed. When he qualifies at the front or toward the front, he keeps moving forward in the race. Top ten tens become top fives. Top fives turn into podium results. The season begins with another drive forward into the top five at St. Petersburg and that is theme of the first quarter of the season. VeeKay moving forward.
The qualifying form does not falter at Indianapolis and he is again on the front row, but this time he has the race of his career and gets a highly celebrated victory for Ed Carpenter Racing. The points from that weekend gives VeeKay the championship lead, but he has a slump, more a hangover for a few races. However, the team regains its composure over the summer and a victory in Mid-Ohio puts the team back in the championship fight.
It is a contest until the very end. Each race you think the final twist has occurred only for it to turn in the opposite direction in the next race. A significant turn occurs when VeeKay is back at Indianapolis. In the second road course race, a victory regains him the championship lead by the slimmest of margins. Then he backs it up with a victory in Gateway and two clinical top ten performances closes out his championship season.
What does a realistic season look like for him?
The championship top ten is possible, but it will require VeeKay and ECR avoiding the summer slumps of the last two seasons. When VeeKay is on it, he looks as good as his contemporaries and we have seen him string together top ten runs. If he can extend those and spread those over the entire season, he could be seventh or eighth in the championship easily.
He can sprinkle together nine top ten finishes in a season, three on road courses, three on street courses and three on ovals with two or three of those results being top five results with maybe one of those being a podium result. That is basically Alexander Rossi's 2022 season and that earned Rossi ninth in the championship. VeeKay could do that, but he could also end up only doing about two-thirds of that and end up between 12th and 14th in the championship again.
The 2023 NTT IndyCar Series begins on Sunday March 5 with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. NBC and Peacock will have coverage of the race.
