ECR on an “upward trajectory” and ready to capitalize at Indy

IndyCar team owner/driver Ed Carpenter believes that his team is on the rise, and ready to peak in Sunday’s 109th running of the Indianapolis 500.

Carpenter is a three-time pole-winner at the 500, and finished the race runner-up to Will Power in 2018. And while his team’s qualifying performance this year wasn’t as stellar as we’ve come to expect – Alexander Rossi will start 12th, Carpenter 14th and Christan Rasmussen 18th – the 44-year-old is “really excited” by the team’s race set-up, ahead of final two-hour practice on Carb Day (Friday). 

“I thought our last regular day on track Monday went really, really well,” said Carpenter. “It's always a nice way to finish off that week feeling prepared, kind of take some of the pressure off of Carb Day. It can be such a weird practice session.

“So not super stressed about tomorrow. Just go make sure everything is back where we want it and everything's working, get some pit stop practice in, be prepared for Sunday.”

Regarding IndyCar’s hybrid system, introduced on the cars last July, Carpenter observed that it “makes the operating window maybe a little smaller just with the extra weight” but that he regards it as a good tool to have available in race conditions.

“It’s much more useful in a race setting than what it was in qualifying,” he said, “just being consistent with the usage and maximizing it, whether you're on the move or defending. It does play a pretty big role in helping manage keeping people behind you or getting past cars. It's just another layer of detail that didn't exist prior. So just a little more to think about and manage in the midst of the race.”

Carpenter also praised Rossi, who joined the team after seven seasons with Andretti Autosport (now Andretti Global) and two at Arrow McLaren. The first of Rossi’s eight wins came in his rookie season of 2016, at the 100th running of the Indy 500. 

“First and foremost, he's won the race. That's always a big plus, to have a past champion on your team. But beyond that, Alex is really a professional, detail-oriented guy. The driver he replaced in Rinus [Veekay] was fantastic here, very quick. But in general, we hadn't had a driver come into our team that had been at other high-level teams before they got to us, with the exception of Ryan Hunter-Reay doing a couple races for us a couple years ago.

“To have a driver like that join us full-time, we're in a really exciting time at ECR where we have a new ownership partner and new new sponsorship. We're really trying to raise our standards and aim higher than where we had the past couple years. He's a big part of that.

“I think we're heading in a good direction. We probably haven't had all the results that we would have hoped on the No. 21 car [Rasmussen]. Alex has been quite consistent. We've been qualifying better with that car on average than we had been a year ago, and having some solid races. It feels like we're on an upward trajectory and really want to capitalize on that on Sunday.”

For his part, Rossi described his Indy victory as “a long time ago” but added, “I think we have as good a shot as any this year to try to get number two.”

Rasmussen, 2023 Indy NXT champion and IndyCar sophomore, suggested that qualifying results this year belied ECR’s potential on Sunday.

“I think we've had a good month so far,” he said, “We've had really fast race cars. We missed out a little bit in qualifying, but we're better than what we showed there. I'm excited. Excited to get started. We had a good race here last year [12th]. I was able to move forward, so hopefully we can do that again.”

The 24-year-old Dane said that having already been through the emotions of Indy 500, from first practice to race day, he’ll be calmer this year.

“There will always be butterflies when you are just about to start the Indianapolis 500,” he said, “but the month as a whole, I've been a lot more calm in a way this year just kind of knowing what to expect a little bit more, which has been nice.”