With over 200 starts in premier U.S. open-wheel racing series for a vast array of teams, Oriol Servia has a unique insight into some of the top racers of the 2000s. The Catalan, who was born in Pals near Barcelona, has enjoyed a remarkably lengthy and varied racing career – which included a couple of Formula 1 tests for Prost in 2001 – but he’s best remembered for his Champ Car World Series days.
He netted his sole win for Newman/Haas Racing at Montreal in 2005, albeit in controversial style after leader Timo Glock was ordered to move aside after blocking at the chicane. Servia went on to finish second in points that year.
What he also managed to achieve was double figures in terms of teams that he drove for across CART, Champ Car World Series, Indy Racing League and IndyCar Series, so when Autosport asked him for his favourite team-mate, he simply refused to name just one…
“I cannot say one, because I’ve had a colourful career, right?” he says. “I have a record, not most wins, but I’ve driven for 14 IndyCar teams – so that gives me a lot of team-mates!
“One of the best aspects of my career is that some of the team-mates that I had were, or would be, great champions. I had Cristiano da Matta in my rookie season, I had this young Kiwi guy called Scott Dixon for three races in 2002, then I had Sebastien Bourdais, then I had Will Power.
“So you can say I’ve had four guys who have, in their time, dominated open-wheel racing in the US across the last 20 years. And they learned everything from me! That’s the bottom line as I see it. Seriously, I learned many things from each one, but it’s hard to say which was best because they all had their strengths, they were all special in their own way.”