Last year, Rinus VeeKay scored a pole at Barber Motorsports Park and finished third, but two fourth places were his only other tangible highlights and he finished 12th in the championship.
Daly’s high point was fifth in the rain-lashed Grand Prix of Indianapolis, while team owner Ed Carpenter, who races the ovals only, could not crack the top dozen.
Carpenter says he therefore has made some key changes in the team in the off-season.
“We've been able to bring in some new people," he said. "We lost a couple, but all things considered, I would say our turnover was low. For a year and a half we've been trying to add a couple positions that we didn't have. I think we're happy with the people we've been able to bring in. Some new faces in engineering, some new faces out on the car. Hopefully we have a deeper team, a little bit of a restructure at the shop, but minor, relative to other teams…
“It's not like we created a new department or project. It's just more depth on the bench, more people working on the projects we already had going and furthering them.”
Regarding targets for the new season, Carpenter said “Absolutely we’re looking for race wins. I think we feel like we have that in our team, in our driver lineup. So for sure race wins and consistency – consistency inside the top five, top 10 with all the cars is where we want to be.
“Rinus nearly won a race last year. Probably should have at Barber. We've had places that we've been super competitive, like Indy and others. We definitely had some weaknesses and disappointing results last year, too. We’re looking to show a level of consistency that we haven't had lately [and] absolutely wins are the goal.”
VeeKay said the team’s performance was “too up and down” and to resolve this and improve his own fortunes he and Ed Carpenter Racing’s engineers have sifted through the fine details of their 2022 season.
“We kind of took apart every full race weekend with Practice 1, Practice 2, like everything with the feedback, what I gave. Lap for lap, we looked everything back. We tried to find stuff that should have gone right but didn't go right. Kind of kept going the whole weekend… We found a lot of stuff that I could prepare better in some ways. I feel like I can prepare a bit better in some ways. I found different ways, to prepare.
“I'm focusing on that now. Also within the team, they also found a few things they can improve so we can start off better.”
VeeKay said that he will “always try to give it all” but admits last year there were “a few mistakes that were unnecessary that need to be filtered out.” He went on, “I think there was a top eight in the championship that was possible with the car we had last year. If stuff would have gone my way a little, if I didn't leave some stuff on the table, a top eight would have been possible.”
Daly, too, is seeking that elusive consistency in the ECR-Chevrolet package.
“We want to be faster at certain places,” he said. “We've been able to look at all those places during the off-season… We got to do a lot of simulator days in the end of last season, the beginning of this season.
“There's a lot of really cool stuff. Even after the Indy 500 last year… I obviously have not been as good at qualifying there as my teammates have been, so that's really an area I would like to be better. But, boy, have we been good in those races the last two years! Excited to take that to another level as well. We know our cars, when we show up there, are very, very good.
Carpenter suggested it was highly unlikely that he would be partnering with Beth Paretta’s ‘woman-forward’ team as he did in 2022, running Simona de Silvestro at four races.
“We had plans and talks about doing more,” said Carpenter, “but we kind of set a date on the calendar. If we didn't have everything in order from funding and people, the full program in place by a certain date, we wanted to be disciplined and focus on exactly what we're doing.
“That's the plan. I don't see that changing [although] things can always change. If we're going to have growth, my focus is doing that in '24.”
Carpenter also confirmed that Rinus VeeKay signed a multi-year agreement in 2021, while 2023 is the final year of a multi-year agreement with Conor Daly.
