INDYCAR: Broken spark plug stops VeeKay’s promising weekend in Detroit
by William Soquet, LASTCAR.info Staff Writer
PHOTO: Rinus VeeKay on Instagram
Rinus VeeKay finished last for the 3rd time in his NTT IndyCar Series career in Sunday’s Chevrolet Grand Prix on the streets of Detroit when his #18 askROI Honda retired with engine problems after completing 6 of the race’s 100 laps.
The finish came in VeeKay’s 80th series start and was his first since Gateway in 2022, 44 races ago. Across IndyCar Series history, it was the 27th for the #18, the 46th due to engine problems, and the 124th for Honda.
After an up-and-down 2022 season that ended with a second-consecutive 12th-place points finish, VeeKay headed into a two-year extension with Ed Carpenter Racing. Performance regressed in 2023 for both driver and team. VeeKay didn’t hit the Top Five at all and notched only two Top Tens, while the team let Conor Daly go midseason and replaced him with Ryan Hunter-Reay. The early part of 2024 was not much better, with an eighth-place finish at St. Petersburg and a ninth at the 500 serving as the only two top-tens through early July. After Mid-Ohio, the driver sat a dismal 18th in points. However, VeeKay rattled off a string of eight straight top-12 finishes to finish the year, rebounding to 14th in the standings.
Despite no contract signed for 2025, signs pointed to the relationship between the Carpenter team and driver continuing after 2024. However, on September 20th, the team released VeeKay from its driver lineup, a move that was a bit of a blindside to the driver and was eerily reminiscent of the Callum Ilott / Juncos Hollinger split from September 2023. With few opportunities left, and even fewer that didn’t require a budget, VeeKay’s IndyCar future looked uncertain. As fall turned into winter, the only two entries left on the grid were the two Dale Coyne Racing cars. Jacob Abel filled the first in mid-January, but it was until mid-February that VeeKay was announced as the driver of the #18.
Since then, VeeKay has been nothing short of a revelation in the car. He was stout in the season-opening St. Petersburg race, qualifying 12th and finishing ninth. At Barber, he qualified fifth and finished fourth, giving Penske driver Scott McLaughlin a run for the money in the closing laps as VeeKay attempted to drive into podium position. At the Indianapolis Grand Prix, the site of his only IndyCar win, a pedestrian 24th-place starting spot turned into a ninth-place result, the driver’s third top-ten finish of the season.
Dale Coyne Racing as a whole struggled to get around the oval at Indianapolis in the month of May, and VeeKay was the final driver to secure his starting spot in the field of 33. He only beat teammate Abel to do so. Strategy calls during the first half of the race once again found VeeKay running in the Top Ten at points, but brake issues led to a crash on pit road and a disappointing 27th-place finish. Despite that, he sat 11th in points heading into Detroit. That points standing, if it were the end of the season, would be better than any of his five efforts for Ed Carpenter Racing. To add into the optimism before Detroit, it was announced that longtime IndyCar engineer Michael Cannon joined the team on VeeKay’s entry. Cannon was a big part of A.J. Foyt Racing’s turnaround a few years ago, and many speculated he could work similar magic with Coyne this year.
The pairing seemed to pay immediate dividends, with VeeKay showing ninth on the charts in first practice. Conor Daly was the bottom driver, a tenth of a second behind 26th-place driver Nolan Siegel. Second practice was a bit tougher, as VeeKay slipped to 16th. Both Juncos Hollinger Racing cars were now trailing, separated from the rest of the field by a few tenths. However, this session, it was Sting Ray Robb in 27th. Siegel was the slowest driver in qualifying, not getting a full at-speed lap in and finishing with a best lap time of 1 minute, 8 seconds - a full eight seconds slower than polesitter Colton Herta. VeeKay beat Marcus Ericsson by .01 second to transfer to the second round, and then turned the seventh-best time in that round. Due to an engine grid penalty for Graham Rahal, VeeKay moved up to sixth on the starting grid.
Siegel stuck to the back at the drop of the green, running alone behind several wheel-to-wheel battles immediately in front of him. However, even after the initial chaos settled, car and driver struggled like they had most of the weekend. By the time Lap 5 rolled around, Siegel was 18.5 seconds back of leader Herta and over a second behind the next driver up the road, Conor Daly. VeeKay lost a spot in the initial shuffle at the drop of the green but settled into seventh, sitting between McLaughlin and Will Power in the running order.
On Lap 6, Felix Rosenqvist started the opening round of pit stops, getting off the alternate tire after only a handful of laps. He was the only driver to pit that lap and dropped to 27th. VeeKay started losing positions midway through the lap, falling to at least tenth, and brought the car to pit road. A stationary #18 was shown in pit lane on Lap 8, signaling that there was a mechanical issue with the car. After bringing it to the garage and investigating, a broken spark plug was found to be the culprit, as VeeKay noted that the car simply lost power at a certain point.
The typical Detroit carnage reared its head a bit later in the race, with both Ilott and Alex Palou retiring in the second half of the race after crashes. Palou’s was especially surprising, as the runaway champion this year was having another strong run before being punted by David Malukas. The Bottom Five was filled out with Christian Rasmussen and Devlin DeFrancesco, who both exited due to mechanical issues. Ramussen’s retirement was disappointing, as the sophomore driver led 21 laps earlier in the day and was knocked out of last year’s Detroit race due to engine problems.
LASTCAR STATISTICS
*The #18 has now finished last at least once in eight of the last nine seasons. The car avoided finishing last during the shortened 2020 season.
*This is VeeKay’s first last-place finish on a street course, as his two previous last-place finishes came on the ovals at Indianapolis and Gateway.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
27) #18-Rinus VeeKay / 6 laps / engine
26) #90-Callum Ilott / 66 laps / crash
25) #10-Alex Palou / 72 laps / crash
24) #21-Christian Rasmussen / 81 laps / mechanical
23) #30-Devlin DeFrancesco / 83 laps / mechanical
2025 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES OWNERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Dale Coyne Racing, Team Penske (2)
2nd) Chip Ganassi Racing, Prema Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (1)
2025 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES MANUFACTURERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Honda (4)
2nd) Chevrolet (3)
2025 LASTCAR INDYCAR SERIES DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP
