The Rinus VeeKay of 2020 and the Rinus VeeKay of 2021 are two very different people, if you ask him.
The driver of the No. 21 SONAX/Autogeek Chevrolet for Ed Carpenter Racing embarked on his rookie campaign in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES last season in one of the most challenging times in the sport’s history, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
VeeKay wasn’t new to North American open-wheel racing. He won the 2018 Indy Pro 2000 championship, but the depth of talent and level of competitiveness in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES was certainly new.
Not to mention he was a teenager, taking the green flag in his first race at just 19. It certainly didn’t go according to plan when he crashed out in a Turn 2 incident on Lap 37 in early June at Texas Motor Speedway. VeeKay finished 22nd.
The Dutchman learned so much during the 2020 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season, in which he finished 14th in the points standings and was named Rookie of the Year, that will help him be a better driver in his sophomore season. But VeeKay insists that the year as a whole taught him more than how to be a better race car driver.
“I think it made me an adult to be here on my own for a year and take my own responsibilities and figure everything out myself,” he said. “I think in one season, I have changed and learned as much as in all my previous seasons in the Road to Indy and car racing. There’s just so much to learn. It’s never really easy, but I just really improved myself during the whole season.”
Consider this: VeeKay became a resident of Indianapolis at the start of 2020 with the expectation that he could go home to Hoofddorp, Netherlands, from time to time. But his residency became permanent when the season started in June. Travel restrictions were in place virtually everywhere in the spring, and two-week quarantines made leaving the country a challenge later in the year.
That meant VeeKay was essentially on his own. He couldn’t travel back to the Netherlands, and his parents were rarely able to come to the United States. For a teenager who had relied on his parents his whole life, everything had changed.
“Normally in the Netherlands it would be pretty easy to throw my clothes near the washing machine and let my mom do the job,” he said. “She couldn’t do it, so I had to take care of all that stuff, plan my day, start cooking my own food and just doing everything myself like adults do. It really, really changed me as a person.”
VeeKay said the growth he experienced last year off the track will certainly help him on it. He believes that as a driver, no longer being dependent on his parents, taking responsibility for his actions and being a more mature person directly translates to the racetrack.
He might be on to something, too.
VeeKay started the 2021 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season with two consecutive top-10 finishes, at Barber Motorsports Park and on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida. He was in good company as one of just five drivers to do so, alongside Scott Dixon, Will Power, Sebastien Bourdais and Marcus Ericsson.
His return to the 1.5-mile Texas oval May 1-2 was mixed. He finished 20th in the Genesys 300, but he came back the next day to finish ninth in the XPEL 375. That 20th-place finish hurt him in the points standings, and he is 11th, 69 points behind leader Scott Dixon.
But he’s also behind Dixon in another category: most consistent driver in the paddock. Dixon has opened the season with four top-10 finishes, and the driver with the next best start to the season is VeeKay with three top 10’s in four starts.
“I think we can be a front-runner consistently, and I think top five or top six is possible in the championship,” VeeKay said. “Of course, there’s so many factors that revolve around it, but I think looking at our speed and the progression our team made in the offseason and all the work they’re putting in and the new little tricks we got for the season, we can definitely run in the front consistently and be right there in place whenever we get the possibility to win a race.”
If you’re looking for a track where VeeKay can be right there in place to win, look no further than this Saturday’s GMR Grand Prix on the IMS road course (2 p.m. ET, live on NBC).
The 14-turn, 2.439-mile circuit proved to be one of VeeKay’s best tracks in 2020. He has two top-five finishes in three starts: a fifth in last July’s GMR Grand Prix and a third in one of the INDYCAR Harvest GP races last fall. He also scored the NTT P1 Award for pole position at that Harvest GP race, where he scored the first and only podium finish of his career.
At no other track on VeeKay’s NTT INDYCAR SERIES resume has he performed better. Second is World Wide Technology Raceway, where he finished sixth and fourth, respectively, in last year’s doubleheader weekend.
“We’ve been super close a few times, but didn’t really have the luck last year,” VeeKay said. “It’s not 2020 anymore. In 2021 with car No. 21, I’m turning 21. It all seems like it has to happen now.”