Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) confirmed its lineups within the IndyCar Collection and Indy NXT for the 2025 season.
Having introduced the staff would downsize from 5 entries to 3 for subsequent season, questions lingered round who would stay with the group. The solutions: six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon, back-to-back reigning champion Alex Palou, and incoming sophomore Kyffin Simpson.
Dixon and Palou will stay of their respective Honda-powered No. 9 and No. 10 automobiles. Nevertheless, the 20-year-old Simpson will change from the No. 4 automobile he drove throughout his rookie marketing campaign to the No. 8, previously occupied by 2024 Rookie of the Yr Linus Lundqvist (who has but to be confirmed for a journey subsequent season). Marcus Armstrong, who additionally raced with CGR this previous season, was beforehand introduced at Meyer Shank Racing, whom CGR can have a technical alliance with beginning in 2025.
CGR’s newly-formed Indy NXT program – the staff’s first since 2007 – is ready at two automobiles, with Irishman Jonathan Browne within the No. 9 entry and Dutch driver Niels Koolen within the No. 10.
“By all accounts, 2024 was one other stellar 12 months for our group, with 5 IndyCar Collection wins and our third championship within the final 4 seasons,” stated staff proprietor Chip Ganassi.
“As we transfer towards 2025, we wish to defend the championship with a powerful lineup of drivers, and look to proceed Kyffin’s improvement and the event of our younger drivers by means of our Indy NXT program.”
Scott Dixon in his Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
Picture by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Pictures
Dixon, the 44-year-old New Zealander who’s 9 wins away from tying legend A.J. Foyt’s all-time win mark of 67, shared his motivation to get again on observe sooner somewhat than later.
“I’m excited,” stated Dixon, who received two races en path to ending sixth within the 2024 championship. “I’m able to get going. I want there wasn’t such a protracted offseason. We had numerous nice races final 12 months. It didn’t finish the best way that we’d’ve preferred, with some DNFs and a few poor outcomes right here and there, however the staff did an amazing job with nice velocity. I’m trying ahead to the season, and clearly going for championship quantity seven.”
The 27-year-old Spaniard Palou is pushing to turn into the primary three-peat winner since Dario Franchitti pulled it off from 2009-11. “2024 was one other superb season within the books,” Palou stated. “The work doesn’t cease, and I can’t wait to be again on observe with extra starvation than ever in 2025!”
Simpson, a Barbados-born Caymanian, drove to a finest end of twelfth (St. Petersburg) and likewise led a number of laps in final 12 months’s Indy 500, stated: “I’m very excited to proceed with Chip Ganassi Racing in 2025. I sit up for constructing on a powerful begin to my IndyCar profession and I can’t wait to see what our staff can obtain collectively.”
Kyffin Simpson, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
Picture by: Geoffrey M. Miller / Motorsport Pictures
For Browne, who drove to a finest results of sixth (St. Petersburg) in his rookie Indy NXT marketing campaign final season, he hailed becoming a member of CGR as “very a lot a dream come true.”
In the meantime, Koolen, who contested eight of 14 rounds in Indy NXT in 2024, driving to a finest results of tenth (Indianapolis street course, Race 1), is keen for his maiden full-time marketing campaign in IndyCar’s high improvement class.
“I am excited to be doing my second 12 months and first full season in Indy NXT,” Koolen stated. “I sit up for working with Chip Ganassi Racing who’ve nice pedigree and huge expertise throughout many alternative classes.
