{"id":290959,"date":"2023-04-27T06:35:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T06:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=290959"},"modified":"2023-04-29T01:59:16","modified_gmt":"2023-04-29T01:59:16","slug":"star-driver-haunted-by-fuel-for-nightmares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=290959","title":{"rendered":"Star driver haunted by 'fuel for nightmares'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rinus VeeKay has been something on an enigma since his breakout IndyCar<\/a> win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

The Dutch driver has had a rollercoaster ride of results in the three seasons he's completed to date.<\/p>\n

After his maiden win in 2021, just two of the remaining 10 races that season saw him crack the top 10. Most of those were well down the field.<\/p>\n

Stan Sport is the only place to watch the 2023 IndyCar Series, featuring Will Power, Scott McLaughlin and Scott Dixon.<\/strong><\/em> All the action streaming ad free, live and on demand<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The 2022 season was something of a headscratcher too. He opened the season with two top 10 finishes before stunning the field with pole position at Barber Motorsports Park.<\/p>\n

\"Rinus<\/p>\n

However, he couldn't convert and ultimately ended up third overall.<\/p>\n

What followed was a bizarre sequence akin to his 2021 season in which just three races from 13 were top 10 finishes \u2013 most seeing him between 15th and 25th.<\/p>\n

That missed opportunity was one that VeeKey laments the most.<\/p>\n

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He lost out on the win after McLaren's Pato O'Ward blew by him after the pit stop sequence.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the Hoofddorp-born driver fell to third behind Chip Ganassi Racing's Alex Palou and finished more than 12 seconds adrift of the lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"It's fuel for nightmares, definitely," said VeeKay.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/IndyCaronNBC\/status\/1520833737268858880<\/a><\/p>\n

"I've not been as close to winning all last year and since that moment.<\/p>\n

"We had all the ingredients to win and I didn't make it happen when it mattered most.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"Really sucked. Also it's a mistake I'm never going to make in the rest of my career.<\/p>\n

"Mistakes happen for a reason. They're good mistakes if you learn from them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"I'm really, really sure I'm going to really not make the mistake any time any more."<\/p>\n

The start of the 2023 season hasn't been much to write home about.<\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n

So far he's had finishes of 21st, 11th, and 26th across St Petersburg, Texas, and Long Beach.<\/p>\n

"We're definitely not happy," he said.<\/p>\n

"It's been so far disastrous in results. Definitely not where we want to be.<\/p>\n

"We know we have pace. Long Beach wasn't where we wanted to be. Texas, there's still room to improve. I think we really had the pace to race there in Texas.<\/p>\n

"In St. Petersburg, we were third, sixth in practice, something goes wrong in qualifying. At the end of the race we were fighting for sixth place again.<\/p>\n

"I think we have all the cards on the table to do better, to get back to last year's results. We just have been a bit unlucky."<\/p>\n

\"Rinus<\/p>\n

VeeKay is, nevertheless, optimistic about his fortunes.<\/p>\n

A return to Barber Motorsports Park offers another opportunity to try and put it on pole position and redeem himself for the pain of last year.<\/p>\n

"I think Barber, Indy road course, Indy 500 are those places where I can climb back up and get back to where we belong," he said.<\/p>\n

The Grand Prix of Alabama gets underway at 5:15am on Monday, May 1 with coverage live, ad-free, and exclusively on Stan Sport.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rinus VeeKay has been something on an enigma since his breakout IndyCar win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The Dutch driver has had a rollercoaster ride […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":290961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290959"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=290959"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290965,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290959\/revisions\/290965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/290961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=290959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=290959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=290959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}