Vice President of Performance Vehicles and Motorsports for Chevrolet, Jim Campbell, and reigning Indy 500 champion Tony Kanaan were on hand to help announce Chevrolet and Chip Ganassi Racing’s partnership for 2014, as well as Kanaan’s introduction to the team.
Image: Chip Ganassi Racing

While the 2013 IndyCar season is coming to an end this month, one of the biggest team names in the series is taking this time to make major announcements for the upcoming 2014 season. That team is Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) and as we found out from recent press releases on the entity’s website, they will be making major changes come 2014 not only in their automotive brand partnership but also in their driver lineup.

CGR driver Dario Franchitti waits for his race start in Baltimore in September 2013. Image: Chip Ganassi Racing Teams on Facebook

Today CGR announced that they have entered into a partnership with Chevrolet for the 2014 IndyCar season. That means all of CGR teams will switch over to Chevrolet vehicles, doing away with their current Honda partnership.

Chevrolet and NASCAR’s Earnhardt Ganassi Racing have been partners since 2009. Because of this partnership and the glorious return of Chevy to IndyCar in 2012, which proved the brand’s flexibility within competitive series, CGR decided to pair with the manufacturer in both Indy and NASCAR starting next year.

“This decision makes a lot of sense for us for a number of reasons,” Chip Ganassi, Owner of Chip Ganassi Racing Teams said in the entity’s recent press release. “We feel Chevrolet has done a great job in their return to the IndyCar Series and because of our existing relationship with them in NASCAR. There are a lot of synergies that we will be able to realize in working with the same manufacturer across the two series. We are thrilled.”

CGR’s No. 42 Target Chevrolet races in the NASCAR AdvoCare 500 on September 1, 2013. Chevrolet and the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing team have been partners on and off the track since 2009.

CGR’s IndyCar teams have won 93 races since its founding in 1990, including four Indianapolis 500 wins and nine championship wins. So far this year, drivers Scott Dixon, Charlie Kimball and Dario Franchitti have seen a combined four race wins and two poles.

Similarly, Chevrolet is at the top of their game as well, having won 12 Manufacturer Championships in 2012 across NASCAR, IndyCar and Grand-Am racing series. Throughout the first 16 IndyCar Series races this year, Chevrolet has seen nine poles and eight wins.

Image: Chip Ganassi Racing Teams on Facebook

In addition to the new partnership, CGR also announced today that they have signed reigning Indy 500 champion Tony Kanaan to the team for 2014.

With his career 15 poles, 2004 championship and 16 race wins in IndyCar, Kanaan will join Dixon, Kimball and Franchitti as the fourth driver for CGR Teams. Kanaan has entered into a multi-year deal with CGR and will be piloting a new IndyCar entry with sponsorship from leading global IT service provider NTT DATA.

As reported earlier in the year when Kanaan made his first Indy 500 win, Kanaan will be bringing stats like 212 consecutive IndyCar starts, 273 overall starts and over 3,336 laps led to his new team.

Guess that means retirement, which was originally speculated after Kanaan’s Indy 500 win, is out of the question, at least for awhile. 

Congratulations goes out to CGR, Tony Kanaan and Chevrolet for coming together to create one of the biggest forces in IndyCar for the 2014 season and beyond. We can’t wait to see what results from CGR’s new partnerships next year!

Image: Chevrolet