Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay who is entering his fifth season in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES season says that he now knows what he needs from the car.

Speaking to Paddock Eye during the second content day in Indianapolis, VeeKay said that with him now in a leadership role with the team, he can guide the direction of the setup for the car and believes that his new rookie teammate, Christian Rassmussen just needs to follow his lead when it comes to the working with the car and if he does this it will help the team to move forward.

Well, I think over four years, it’s not really a specific thing I can say. I think one thing in general is I know what the car needs to feel like. I think Christian still has to find that out over the course of the season, what that perfect balance feels like, and what you need to achieve, what you need to do to achieve that.

I think I can really set that baseline and guide the team to where we need to go. And I think Christian needs to just explore and kind of follow my lead since we’ve had the same kind of driving style, feedback, and everything.

I think as a leadership role, that experience of knowing what I need as a car, that’s going to be very important. I think that’s how we will save time during short race weekends with practices that are so short, to be quick for qualifying.

VeeKay told Paddock Eye that he and Rassmussen have a similar driver style and this was shown when they set up the car during their time together in the Chevrolet simulator.

When it comes to what he has learned over the last four seasons of INDYCAR SERIES racing, VeeKay said that there isn’t any one thing that he can pinpoint but looking ahead to the 2024 campaign, VeeKay said that the aim is to be back on the podium and challenging for the top ten in the championship.

VeeKay says that the 2023 season was really when he was able to step up and talk to the team and get them to change things on the car that needed to be done and this is something that will help him, Christian Rassmussen and the team to take a step forward for the 2024 season.

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