Sport is built on rivalries. Think of Liverpool versus Manchester United. Federer versus Nadal. Senna versus Prost.
In motorsport, it’s harder to pick out defining rivalries between teams given the constantly changing competitive landscape. But not so in the US, where the tussle for supremacy between two of IndyCar’s most successful operations has taken on a new dimension in an altogether different arena this year.
Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing have been the dominant forces for the past 30 years and more. It’s now been over a decade since anyone else has won the IndyCar title. Ganassi’s tally since breaking through with Jimmy Vasser in 1996 now stands at 14 championships, but could soon equal Roger Penske on 15 if, as seems likely, Alex Palou maintains his enormous advantage over Josef Newgarden in the final three races.
And since 2000 when Ganassi first conquered IndyCar’s showpiece race, it’s fairly even in the Indianapolis 500 wins stakes too. Chip’s team has five, with Penske adding nine wins at the Brickyard to its pre-millennium tally for a total of 19. Fittingly, this year’s race was a showdown between the two squads, Newgarden just pipping Ganassi’s Marcus Ericsson.
And now the rivalry is now staged on three fronts, as they combine the World Endurance Championship with North America’s IMSA SportsCar Championship, each alongside grandee manufacturer partners lured back to the top class of sportscar racing by the cost-effective LMDh ruleset. Ganassi teamed up with Cadillac to run two V-Series.Rs under the Cadillac Racing banner, one in each series, while Penske Porsche Motorsport runs four factory 963s split evenly across both.
“Did we plan it that way? No!” chuckles Ganassi managing director Mike Hull. “We don’t ask each other what we’re doing next, we just happen to be in the same location at the same time, so we’re going to compare ourselves to them, they’re going to compare themselves to us.”
Source: Autosport