'It's a little bit of a surprise' - VeeKay rocks Barber qualifying

Rinus VeeKay was all smiles after firing the No. 18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda into fifth place for Sunday’s Children’s of Alabama Grand Prix.

There’s no reasonable scenario where the smallest team in the IndyCar Series should displace the entire Arrow McLaren team, two of Andretti Global’s drivers, one Penske driver, and 22 of the 27 cars entered, but that’s exactly what the Dutchman did.

“It's a little bit of a surprise, yes, but we believed we had pace this weekend,” VeeKay told RACER. “I think we started yesterday in practice with some evolutions, different things we learned in the other places that just didn't work out. So this is also the only place we've tested before this season, and we went back to our finished (chassis setup) product from testing. And good thing, we got to try it in practice too. Made a tidy few adjustments, and really did the exact right things in qualifying to make it through.”

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Some drivers chose to use an extra set of Firestone’s faster red-banded alternate tires to improve their odds of transferring into the next knockout round of qualifying. VeeKay and Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel, who qualified sixth, avoided temptation.

“I think it was fifth in every group, so that was good,” he said. “We saved, just like Nolan did, a set of reds in the Fast Six for use tomorrow. We should have more grip than the other guys around us. I think it's gonna be a red race.”

Adding to its veteran engineering group, the Coyne team increased its engineering depth coming into Barber by hiring former Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing damper specialist Mike Cicciarelli.

“It’s great for Dale Coyne Racing; the morale is up for everybody,” VeeKay said. “And the same thing for Honda, I think, really puts the team in the spotlight where they should be. Just a big thanks to everybody involved.”