Chip Ganassi Racing

Chip Ganassi Racing was founded in 1990 by former racing driver and businessman Chip Ganassi, building on the structures of Patrick Racing, to compete in the CART IndyCar World Series. What began as a single, Target-sponsored Indy car team, still a relatively unknown quantity at the time of its founding, developed within a few years into one of the most defining names in American open-wheel racing.

A chapter all its own in the team’s history lies away from the racetrack: Chip Ganassi himself is being honored next month with his own exhibition at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, tracing his career as a driver and team owner. That one of America’s great automotive institutions is dedicating a platform to the founder underlines just how much Ganassi’s name, beyond pure race results, has become synonymous with professional team building in American motorsport.

The team’s greatest run of success began early: between 1996 and 1999, Chip Ganassi Racing won four consecutive CART championships, with drivers such as Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi, and Juan Pablo Montoya. In 2000, the team became the first CART organization to return to the Indianapolis 500 after the split between CART and the Indy Racing League, promptly scoring a dominant win with Montoya, which ushered in its permanent move to today’s IndyCar Series. There, the run of success continued, with drivers including Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, and Álex Palou, adding another four consecutive titles between 2008 and 2011. In total, the team’s record shows 17 open-wheel titles and six Indianapolis 500 wins, plus more than 200 wins across all categories.

In the current era, Chip Ganassi Racing enters 2026 with a driver pairing that combines continuity and experience: Álex Palou and Scott Dixon, together with Kyffin Simpson, make up the driver lineup on car numbers 8, 9, and 10 with Dallara-Honda chassis. With Dixon as a multiple champion and Palou as one of the most defining drivers of recent IndyCar history, the team has a mix of routine and rising talent, rounded out by young Simpson.

For the 2026 season, the 115th championship of American open-wheel racing and the 31st under IndyCar sanctioning, expectations for Chip Ganassi Racing are correspondingly high. With a driver lineup that relies on both proven strength and fresh potential, the Indianapolis-based team remains one of the main contenders for further titles and wins at the series’ great classics.