‘The potential is there’ - Coyne

The final results don’t show it, but Dale Coyne’s decision to revamp his IndyCar team’s engineering roster after the Indianapolis 500 was on display from the moment Rinus VeeKay and Jacob Abel rolled out for Friday’s opening practice session at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.

Young series veteran Rinus VeeKay, with 2020 championship-winning race engineer Michael Cannon newly in charge of the No. 18 Honda, was ninth in the outing, and in qualifying, the Dutchman fired the car into seventh on the grid. Rookie teammate Jacob Abel, who has Mike Colliver as his new full-time race engineer, cut almost five positions off of his qualifying average of 24.8 to earn 20th on the grid, which boosted his confidence after months of tail-end results.

VeeKay and Cannon were running well in the race, but the No. 18 pitted soon after the start to deal with a loss of engine power that meant his race was over after six laps. Abel was more fortunate — or fortunate for a longer duration, until he was hit from behind and suffered significant damage to the rear of the No. 51 car — to rise as high as 14th and held on to place 18th, another career-best by five positions.

One week prior, Abel watched the Indianapolis 500 from the sidelines after failing to qualify and VeeKay started 31st, wrecked on pit lane with a brake issue and was 27th. Although Detroit fell well short of what could have been, Coyne’s team has a chance to author a solid run across the 10 races that remain with VeeKay and Abel.

 “This was a big reset for everybody,” Coyne told RACER. “Rinus could have been a top five if we didn’t have the problem we did, and Jacob could have been a top 10 with the strategy he was on. He would have been near where (Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyffin) Simpson was (in fifth). And we felt really good about what Rinus could do put that didn’t get to play out the way we’d hoped.”

Prior to leaving for Chip Ganassi Racing, where he won the 2020 IndyCar title as Scott Dixon’s race engineer and earned consecutive Indy 500 poles, Cannon was part of Coyne’s most formidable rotation of engineering talent which also included four-time Champ Car champion Craig Hampson and Ganassi’s Ross Bunnell, who replaced Cannon and currently engineers Felix Rosenqvist via Ganassi’s technical alliance with Meyer Shank Racing.

Among the recent alumni, Hampson’s one of Andretti Global’s engineering leaders today, and Bunnell has Rosenqvist sitting sixth in the championship; Cannon’s influence after completing six months of a non-compete clause following a split with PREMA Racing was just as expected, according to Coyne.  

“Mike Cannon was here for six years and everybody knows him from his time here before where we had a lot of good results together,” he said. “And he and Mike Colliver get along really well, and (Colliver) and Jacob have known each other for a while and that’s already a good relationship. Rinus was initially unsure about the change when I told him about it. He’d gone well with his (former engineer) Ed (Nathman), so he was a bit hesitant at first, but he knew of Cannon and they got on right away and he’s really happy already. It normally takes at least two or three races for guys to jell, and it’s happened after one.”

Detroit was a largely unfulfilling glimpse of what DCR can do with Cannon and Colliver on board. With the talents of damper engineer Mike Ciciarelli included — he joined from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in April at Barber Motorsports Park — Coyne can wait to see what the retooled team from Illinois can produce going forward.

“We’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing together, and I really like with what we have with ‘The Mikes’ with Mike Cannon and Mike Colliver, and Mike Ciciarelli, who started here with us a long time ago before he went off to the other teams,” he said.

“We’ve got a test at Milwaukee next week which should be a nice tune-up for Gateway and then we go onto Road America. We know we had good cars at Detroit and I think our guys definitely could have both been in the top 10. The potential is there.”