In his office in Indianapolis, Chip Ganassi displays his team’s first four IndyCar Series championship trophies next to each other, much like the Steelers showed off their 1970s Super Bowl prizes for many years.
It was an homage to the Fox Chapel native’s hometown football team that has since become rather unwieldy as he’s added to his collection to a degree the Steelers can only dream of.
Ganassi clinched his 15th title as a car owner earlier this month when driver Alex Palou capped a dominant season with a win in the penultimate race at Portland International Raceway in Oregon.
It was the first time since the late Dan Wheldon in 2005 that a driver has clinched the title before the season finale. And the fireworks only continued the following week at Laguna Seca, where teammate Scott Dixon finished a strong late-season charge with his third win in four races to give the team nine victories in 17 events in 2023.
Yes, the Indianapolis 500 slipped away when Josef Newgarden outdueled Ganassi driver Marcus Ericsson in the closing laps back in May. But otherwise, it was a dream season watched by one of the biggest audiences for IndyCar racing in many years, as the rising popularity of Formula 1 has driven new eyeballs to the top level of American open wheel racing.
Ganassi is still savoring it a few weeks later.
“All of a sudden, we really lit on fire in the last four races of the year, winning the last four races,” Ganassi told the Post-Gazette by phone from that well-appointed office not far from the legendary Brickyard oval.
“I think mentally we were preparing for a good season, and then suddenly, it turned into a great season. It really, really validated a lot of our practices and what have you. So, yes, it made it really special at the end of the year when you start to realize the increased eyes that were on the sport.”
The future is looking bright, too, now that a contract drama involving Palou has been resolved in Ganassi’s favor.
Last year, the Arrow McLaren IndyCar team announced it had signed the 26-year-old to a contract with an eye toward possibly inserting him into the coveted McLaren F1 seat currently occupied by Oscar Piastri despite an existing contract with Ganassi.
Chip Ganassi Racing fought the deal in court and retained Palou’s services in 2023. Then the entire deal fell apart this August when Palou informed Arrow McLaren that he’d be staying put, prompting an angry statement from McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown.
Ganassi responded with fiery comments of his own about how Brown and Co. had conducted their business.
“Anyone that knows me knows that I don’t make a habit of commenting about contract situations,” Ganassi said in a news release. “Subsequently, I have been quiet since Day 1 of this story but now I feel I must respond. I grew up respecting the McLaren Team and their success. The new management does not get my same respect.
“Alex Palou has been a part of our team and under contract since the 2021 season. It is the interference of that contract from McLaren that began this process, and ironically, they are now playing the victim. Simply stated, the position of McLaren IndyCar regarding our driver is inaccurate and wrong; he remains under contract with CGR.”
He didn’t have much to add when speaking to the Post-Gazette on Thursday, except to say that other teams would be “further down the road” if they focused on wins and championships the way CGR does.
The upshot: Ganassi gets to move forward with the two hottest drivers in the sport in Palou and Dixon, a five-time champ himself, in 2024. And Palou, for one, is ready to put it all behind him to focus on the shared goal of adding to the trophy collection back at headquarters.
“Obviously not proud or not happy about all of my off-track situations since 2022,” Palou told the Post-Gazette on Wednesday from Spain. “I am happy with the position I’m in now and happy to have the opportunity to continue with the team and continue hopefully scoring more championships to those 15 that we already have.”
He and Dixon will be joined in that pursuit by not one, not two, but three rookies as CGR moves to five full-time entries in 2024.
Marcus Armstrong won top rookie honors on a partial schedule this year but will still technically retain the title with less than a full slate under his belt. The New Zealander who comes to the U.S. from Formula 2 will look to build on five top-10 finishes this season.
Kyffin Simpson will make the jump from the Indy NXT support series and has a lot of upside as a 19-year-old. And Linus Lundqvist comes to the grid with a 2022 Indy NXT title under his belt.
Suddenly, Palou is something of the elder statesman in the garage, a scenario he called “weird,” given his age of just 26. Still, he’s excited to lead what he called a “great group of guys.”
Ganassi, likewise, sees a lot of value in mixing the present, represented by his two champs, with the future with Dixon in the twilight of his career at 43.
“It’s a great thing to have the ability to learn from two of the best,” he said, “and at the same time be on a team that hopefully they have a future with. The one thing in sports you always worry about with youth athletes is them coming into the sport and at an early age and developing bad habits. ... Hopefully, with having Alex and Scott alongside these young gentlemen, it’ll be the right team at the right time.”
The 2024 schedule, announced this week, will be highlighted with a new exhibition event in Palm Springs, Calif., and a return to the famed Milwaukee Mile Speedway.
Pittsburgh was not included despite some chatter about a street race proposed by driver Graham Rahal, whose family owns a number of car dealerships in the area.
Ganassi said he likes the moves as a means of getting back into the Southern California market in a headline-grabbing way and balancing it with a return to a hallowed track adored by fans.
The rest of 2023, though, will be about celebrating a monster year for the organization that saw Palou and Dixon finish 1-2 in points, delivering on the potential Palou observed early on.
“I was, since the beginning, saying that my biggest competitor was Scott,” he said, “basically because it’s Scott Dixon. He knows how to win, and then because I knew he was going to have the same equipment as I did, which was scary because I knew that we had the best of the best.”
Adam Bittner: abittner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @fugimaster24.
First Published: September 30, 2023, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: September 30, 2023, 2:06 p.m.
