This NTT INDYCAR SERIES season has been an Alex Palou coronation, and rightfully so. But there are more champions to celebrate – the men and women who have made Chip Ganassi Racing the dominant organization of this era.
The proof is in the team’s top-shelf consistency. This championship that was secured last weekend at Portland International Raceway was the 17th all-time for Chip Ganassi’s bunch, tying the record set by Team Penske. And here’s the thing: All 17 of Ganassi’s season titles have come in the past 30 years.
Remember, Ganassi debuted his Indianapolis-based team in 1990 with Eddie Cheever driving the car. CGR added a second entry part-time for the 1992 season, but it didn’t have two full-time cars until 1994 when Michael Andretti scored the team’s first race victory at the season-opening race in Surfers Paradise, Australia.
Soon thereafter, CGR began chewing up its competition. The combination of Jimmy Vasser and Alex Zanardi in 1996 produced seven victories in 16 races, plus the team’s first series championship thanks to Vasser. Zanardi won the next two season titles before leaving for Formula One, replaced by Juan Pablo Montoya, who won the team’s fourth consecutive series championship in 1999.
Scott Dixon won his first season title in 2003. Dixon’s second championship in 2008 began a Ganassi run that continues today: 12 championships in the past 18 seasons. This is the third time the team has won four titles in succession, the other coming from 2008-11 with Dixon and Dario Franchitti taking turns clutching the Astor Challenge Cup.
Dixon has amassed six titles, Palou four, including the past three. Franchitti contributed three. That’s six different drivers winning a title for Ganassi in this 17-of-30 stretch since 1996, a winning rate of 56.6 percent.
In that same period, NASCAR’s Hendrick Motorsports comes the closest to matching CGR’s excellence – it has 13 titles. In Formula One, Red Bull has eight such championships, Mercedes seven, Ferrari six.
In the NFL, the New England Patriots have won six titles since 1996, the same number as the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA. Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees have won five championships in that span. The Detroit Red Wings lead the NHL with four.
Other INDYCAR SERIES teams have similarly not been able to keep up with CGR. Since ’96, Team Penske has won eight titles, Newman/Haas five, Andretti Global four. No other team has won more than two season championships. Since the sport unified in 2008, CGR has won 12 titles, Team Penske five, Andretti Global one.
Ganassi has continued to say that these numbers, along with others, will be “something you talk about someday with your grandkids.” But even he recognizes this run is something special.
“It means an awful lot to me,” Ganassi said after Palou clinched the title by finishing third in the BITNILE.COM Grand Prix of Portland presented by askROI. “It means an awful lot to a lot of people in Indianapolis at our headquarters. It means a lot to my family and to Alex’s family, I’m sure, and 150 other families that rest on our shoulders week in and week out.”
Ganassi said drivers like Palou complete the organization.
“When you have a group of people like we do, and you plug in the right driver at the right time with the right engine, the right tires, the right chassis, the right engineering, this is the result of that,” he said.
Said CGR managing director Mike Hull: “In football, you have an elite quarterback, not (just) a quarterback. That’s what we have in Alex. We have an elite athlete who drives a race car. You have to have people on the offensive and defensive line. That’s what we have in the building, and that’s what we have, as we saw today, in all three pit boxes.
“That’s what it takes. Alex represents all of us. He represents the past, the present and the future of Chip Ganassi Racing. We’re really proud to be part of having a driver like Alex be with us hopefully for a long period of time. Hopefully he never gets tired of what he does.”