With the announcement of a new two championship format in the IZOD IndyCar Series, awarding prizes to the best oval driver as well as the best road/street course driver, I have taken the liberty to go through all open wheel racing in America since the creation of CART in 1979. I've run the numbers to determine who would have won these championships in the past, and some of the results are pretty interesting.
The data includes all CART seasons from 1979 to 2003, the Champ Car World Series from 2004 to 2007, and the IZOD IndyCar Series from 1996 to today. From 1996 to 2004 in IndyCar, no road course races were held. In 2007 in Champ Car, no oval races were held. In these cases, the overall series champion is listed as the winner in the series' specific discipline.
In a majority of seasons since CART's advent in 1979, one of the two titlists would go on to win the overall title as well. The exceptions in CART were 1985, 1988, 1990, 1996, and 2000, with a teammate of the title winner taking at least one title in each year except for 1998. The only exception in the IRL came in 2006, and that year, oval champion Dan Wheldon actually tied Sam Hornish Jr. for the overall title in points, but lost the tiebreaker on two fewer wins.
In only a few cases has a driver gone on to claim both titles. In CART, Rick Mears did it in 1981 and 1982, while Al Unser Jr. did it in 1994. Sebastien Bourdais did so in Champ Car in 2005 and 2006, but those seasons featured oval schedules of two and one, respectively. So far no driver has won both titles in the IRL.
Mears asserted himself as the most versatile driver in CART's early years by winning oval titles in 1979, 1981, and 1982, alongside road course championships from 1980 to 1982, inclusive. He also won the oval championship in 1989, the year of his last Indianapolis 500 victory, giving him a grand total of seven titles, the highest total of any driver. Bourdais is tied for second with six, the same amount as Al Unser Jr. has, though it is important to note again the insubstantial nature of Champ Car's oval offerings.
Michael Andretti won five titles in six years for Newman/Haas Racing, scoring the 1987 and 1988 oval crowns, as well as the 1990 through 1992 road course crowns. He won four more championships as an owner, including the 2004, 2005, and 2007 oval titles in the IRL, and the IRL's 2005 road course crown. In each of those seasons, Andretti's oval-winning driver would take the overall IRL title.
The closest foil for Andretti as a driver would be Scott Dixon, who has five championships over the past seven years. Dixon won all of his five titles in the IRL, securing the 2003, 2008, and 2009 oval crowns and the 2006 and 2007 road course honors. Not only does Dixon consistently pace the field at one discipline almost every year, but he also moves from domination of one discipline to the other, much as Andretti did in the prime of his career. They even won at a similar clip: Andretti 24 times in six seasons for an average of four a year, Dixon 21 times in seven for an average of three. The main difference is that Dixon was first a road course star and became an oval ace, while Andretti stepped up his game at right turns after mastering lefts only.
An early indicator of Dixon's prowess came in the 2002 CART season, the last for that sanctioning body (or its later Champ Car incarnation) with more than two ovals on the schedule. Under CART's points system, which only afforded the top 12 drivers any points, it was difficult at best to score points in every race under a given discipline. Only three drivers managed to score points in all five oval events that year: oval champion Bruno Junqueira, runner-up Dario Franchitti, and Dixon. It is this kind of consistency that has driven Dixon to multiple IRL titles.
For the most part, three teams have dominated the schedules since 1979. Team Penske holds the lead for the most overall crowns with 19, including nine oval championships (though none since 1997) and 10 road course crowns, usually coming towards the turn of each decade. Newman/Haas Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing are tied for second with 13 total championships apiece. Newman/Haas has three on ovals (tying two cars in 2005) and 10 on road courses. Ganassi's balance is much more even, with seven oval crowns and six on road courses. Ganassi has more titles since 2000, however, by a tally of nine to eight.Al
Showing posts with label Sebastien Bourdais. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sebastien Bourdais. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Where Are They Now? Champ Car World Series
Three years ago tomorrow, the Champ Car World Series commenced its final season on the streets of Las Vegas. It was the first in a planned 17-race schedule, though three races were eventually cancelled, and was won by a young Australian driver by the name of Will Power.
It was Power's first career win in major American open-wheel racing, and it foreshadowed his successes to come, taking victories in open-wheel in every season since. It seems fitting now, as Power dominates the early stages of the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series, to take a look back at that last season of Champ Car, its participants, and its races, in memory of the "other" form of American open-wheel.
The opener at Vegas heralded a new era for the series: new cars, new teams, new drivers, a new track, and a new TV contract. Power's domination also made it look like a new face would run up front, replacing the old guard, three-time defending champion Sebastien Bourdais. Bourdais had a difficult weekend, qualifying 16th of 17 and failing to complete the final 38 laps.
Of course, however, Bourdais proved that Vegas was simply an aberration by winning the next three races, eight of the season's 14 events, and the championship by 83 points over Justin Wilson. Bourdais parlayed that success into a Formula 1 ride, but a season and a half of poor luck and being outperformed by his teammates led to his dismissal.
Bourdais moved on to the Superleague Formula, a European racing series sponsored by soccer clubs that uses a chassis descended from the Champ Car Panoz DP01. There, too, he has seen success, winning one race in each of his first two events, and returning for the full 2010 season.
Indeed, Superleague Formula has proven a refuge for multiple former Champ Car competitors. Tristan Gommendy found a home there after Champ Car's 2008 demise and has never looked back, winning events in each of the past two seasons. But a stronger competitor in the 2007 championship than Gommendy has also made his place in the young division.
Robert Doornbos won Champ Car's Rookie of the Year award in 2007 after winning twice and finishing third in points. "Bobby D," as he is known, was unable to find an IndyCar ride in 2008 when Minardi pulled out of the merged series. He went to Superleague, winning two events and finishing third in points. Last year, he bounced between Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing and HVM Racing, two former Champ Car teams, and had a miserable season, before watching his sponsorship money fall through for 2010. With no other option, Doornbos will compete against Bourdais again in Superleague this year.
Some drivers have made their way into sports car racing, instead of carrying on in the open-wheel ranks. Among them are eighth-place Simon Pagenaud, who competes in the American Le Mans Series; ninth-place Neel Jani, who concentrates on the 24 Hours of Le Mans; and 21st-place Matt Halliday, now racing in the Porsche Supercup. Perhaps the biggest sports-car triumph of an ex-Champ Car driver came this January, however, when Scot Ryan Dalziel was a part of the team that won the prestigious 24 Hours of Daytona.
Katherine Legge, the series' lone female driver, took a similar route by switching her focus to the DTM, Germany's premier touring car championship. There, however, she has languished in the back, with 10 DNFs in 21 starts and a best career finish of 12th, twice.
For a sad majority of ex-Champ Car drivers, however, open-wheel racing in North America remains their goal. With only so many seats to go around, some prominent names are left on the sidelines for the majority of races. Former stars like Bruno Junqueira and Paul Tracy only have rides lined up for the Indianapolis 500 thus far. Oriol Servia and Dan Clarke are out of work entirely.
The biggest travesty of all befell Graham Rahal, who finished eighth in IndyCar points last year but lost a lucrative sponsorship deal with McDonald's. He now runs a limited schedule with Sarah Fisher Racing, with the intent of assembling a full-season deal somewhere to give him a shot at contending for the title. It really says something about the state of the sport in North America when its top American driver not named Danica Patrick can't find a full-time job.
As for the drivers who can count themselves among the employed, however, they're currently running very well. Both Justin WIlson, the 2007 Champ Car runner-up, and Alex Tagliani, who placed tenth, have shown teeth in the first two races of the season. Wilson has won an IndyCar race in each of the past two years, and Tagliani nearly won last year's Toronto race. Jan Heylen currently competes in the Firestone Indy Lights Series and finished in second in the season opener at St. Petersburg.
Power, of course, leads the pack. His story is well-known by now: drafted in by Team Penske last year as a temporary replacement for Helio Castroneves, and given a limited ride after the Brazilian's return, performing excellently in every race. Then, a practice crash at Sonoma sidelined him for the rest of the year with a back injury. He rehabilitated in the offseason, vowing to come back stronger than ever, and thus far the results have been phenomenal.
Of the ex-Champ Car teams now running in IndyCar, many have taken on pay drivers to survive. Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, Rahal's old team, is one of them, now running Honda-backed Hideki Mutoh. Dale Coyne Racing campaigns the underwhelming Milka Duno. The team in the best shape is KV Racing Technology, which now runs three cars and has backing from the powerful Lotus Cars brand.
Conquest Racing and HVM Racing are the teams that best retain the spirit of the old Champ Car World Series, by bringing European talent over to America and giving them a shot. Mario Romancini and Bertrand Baguette, Conquest's two rookie drivers, competed against one another in the European Formula Renault 3.5 series in 2008. Last year, Romancini ran Indy Lights, winning races, and Baguette won the Formula Renault title.
HVM also has a rookie driver, Swiss standout Simona de Silvestro, who may prove to be the final graduate of the Atlantic Championship, Champ Car's old feeder series, which shut down earlier this year. Last year, she won four of the series' 12 races and nearly took the championship after leading in points for much of the year. De Silvestro led laps in her IndyCar debut in Brazil and is looked at by many as a serious Rookie of the Year threat.
Of the other four teams to compete in Champ Car in 2007, two - Forsythe Racing and Pacific Coast Motorsports - no longer actively campaign cars in any series. Walker Racing currently runs Indy Lights with Jonathan Summerton, and RSports - now known as Jaguar RSR - campaigns a Jaguar XKR GT2 in various endurance races worldwide. Dalziel, in fact, was one of its drivers in this year's 12 Hours of Sebring.
The diaspora of the old Champ Car World Series is extensive, with many of the former parties unlikely to ever compete against one another again. But its final season provided open-wheel fans with plenty of memories, including those of a fantastic racecar, the early success of some future IndyCar stars, and one of the most dominating season-long performances in open-wheel history by Bourdais. While the infrastructure may be gone, the memories still remain for a small legion of devoted fans.
It was Power's first career win in major American open-wheel racing, and it foreshadowed his successes to come, taking victories in open-wheel in every season since. It seems fitting now, as Power dominates the early stages of the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series, to take a look back at that last season of Champ Car, its participants, and its races, in memory of the "other" form of American open-wheel.
The opener at Vegas heralded a new era for the series: new cars, new teams, new drivers, a new track, and a new TV contract. Power's domination also made it look like a new face would run up front, replacing the old guard, three-time defending champion Sebastien Bourdais. Bourdais had a difficult weekend, qualifying 16th of 17 and failing to complete the final 38 laps.
Of course, however, Bourdais proved that Vegas was simply an aberration by winning the next three races, eight of the season's 14 events, and the championship by 83 points over Justin Wilson. Bourdais parlayed that success into a Formula 1 ride, but a season and a half of poor luck and being outperformed by his teammates led to his dismissal.
Bourdais moved on to the Superleague Formula, a European racing series sponsored by soccer clubs that uses a chassis descended from the Champ Car Panoz DP01. There, too, he has seen success, winning one race in each of his first two events, and returning for the full 2010 season.
Indeed, Superleague Formula has proven a refuge for multiple former Champ Car competitors. Tristan Gommendy found a home there after Champ Car's 2008 demise and has never looked back, winning events in each of the past two seasons. But a stronger competitor in the 2007 championship than Gommendy has also made his place in the young division.
Robert Doornbos won Champ Car's Rookie of the Year award in 2007 after winning twice and finishing third in points. "Bobby D," as he is known, was unable to find an IndyCar ride in 2008 when Minardi pulled out of the merged series. He went to Superleague, winning two events and finishing third in points. Last year, he bounced between Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing and HVM Racing, two former Champ Car teams, and had a miserable season, before watching his sponsorship money fall through for 2010. With no other option, Doornbos will compete against Bourdais again in Superleague this year.
Some drivers have made their way into sports car racing, instead of carrying on in the open-wheel ranks. Among them are eighth-place Simon Pagenaud, who competes in the American Le Mans Series; ninth-place Neel Jani, who concentrates on the 24 Hours of Le Mans; and 21st-place Matt Halliday, now racing in the Porsche Supercup. Perhaps the biggest sports-car triumph of an ex-Champ Car driver came this January, however, when Scot Ryan Dalziel was a part of the team that won the prestigious 24 Hours of Daytona.
Katherine Legge, the series' lone female driver, took a similar route by switching her focus to the DTM, Germany's premier touring car championship. There, however, she has languished in the back, with 10 DNFs in 21 starts and a best career finish of 12th, twice.
For a sad majority of ex-Champ Car drivers, however, open-wheel racing in North America remains their goal. With only so many seats to go around, some prominent names are left on the sidelines for the majority of races. Former stars like Bruno Junqueira and Paul Tracy only have rides lined up for the Indianapolis 500 thus far. Oriol Servia and Dan Clarke are out of work entirely.
The biggest travesty of all befell Graham Rahal, who finished eighth in IndyCar points last year but lost a lucrative sponsorship deal with McDonald's. He now runs a limited schedule with Sarah Fisher Racing, with the intent of assembling a full-season deal somewhere to give him a shot at contending for the title. It really says something about the state of the sport in North America when its top American driver not named Danica Patrick can't find a full-time job.
As for the drivers who can count themselves among the employed, however, they're currently running very well. Both Justin WIlson, the 2007 Champ Car runner-up, and Alex Tagliani, who placed tenth, have shown teeth in the first two races of the season. Wilson has won an IndyCar race in each of the past two years, and Tagliani nearly won last year's Toronto race. Jan Heylen currently competes in the Firestone Indy Lights Series and finished in second in the season opener at St. Petersburg.
Power, of course, leads the pack. His story is well-known by now: drafted in by Team Penske last year as a temporary replacement for Helio Castroneves, and given a limited ride after the Brazilian's return, performing excellently in every race. Then, a practice crash at Sonoma sidelined him for the rest of the year with a back injury. He rehabilitated in the offseason, vowing to come back stronger than ever, and thus far the results have been phenomenal.
Of the ex-Champ Car teams now running in IndyCar, many have taken on pay drivers to survive. Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, Rahal's old team, is one of them, now running Honda-backed Hideki Mutoh. Dale Coyne Racing campaigns the underwhelming Milka Duno. The team in the best shape is KV Racing Technology, which now runs three cars and has backing from the powerful Lotus Cars brand.
Conquest Racing and HVM Racing are the teams that best retain the spirit of the old Champ Car World Series, by bringing European talent over to America and giving them a shot. Mario Romancini and Bertrand Baguette, Conquest's two rookie drivers, competed against one another in the European Formula Renault 3.5 series in 2008. Last year, Romancini ran Indy Lights, winning races, and Baguette won the Formula Renault title.
HVM also has a rookie driver, Swiss standout Simona de Silvestro, who may prove to be the final graduate of the Atlantic Championship, Champ Car's old feeder series, which shut down earlier this year. Last year, she won four of the series' 12 races and nearly took the championship after leading in points for much of the year. De Silvestro led laps in her IndyCar debut in Brazil and is looked at by many as a serious Rookie of the Year threat.
Of the other four teams to compete in Champ Car in 2007, two - Forsythe Racing and Pacific Coast Motorsports - no longer actively campaign cars in any series. Walker Racing currently runs Indy Lights with Jonathan Summerton, and RSports - now known as Jaguar RSR - campaigns a Jaguar XKR GT2 in various endurance races worldwide. Dalziel, in fact, was one of its drivers in this year's 12 Hours of Sebring.
The diaspora of the old Champ Car World Series is extensive, with many of the former parties unlikely to ever compete against one another again. But its final season provided open-wheel fans with plenty of memories, including those of a fantastic racecar, the early success of some future IndyCar stars, and one of the most dominating season-long performances in open-wheel history by Bourdais. While the infrastructure may be gone, the memories still remain for a small legion of devoted fans.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
12 Hours of Sebring Underway
The Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring, one of American sports car racing's most prestigious events, is underway today at the Sebring International Raceway, a frequent test site for IZOD IndyCar Series teams. This event is frequently recognized as the flagship race for the American Le Mans Series, one of America's top sports car racing classes and a pioneer in green racing technologies.
As such, combined with the lack of an IndyCar race this weekend, it's no surprise to see a handful of the best open-wheel drivers America has had to offer contesting this race. From current competitors to former champions, and even a few ex-CART drivers, open-wheel competitors add a lot of color to this year's race.
The biggest battle will take place between Peugeot and Aston Martin in the LMP1 class, and each team features a driver that once dominated CART or Champ Car. Peugeot's No. 08 will feature four-time Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais, while Aston Martin has hired Adrian Fernandez (also a former IndyCar owner-driver) to campaign its car.
Last year's championship-winning team, Highcroft Racing, will slide down to LMP2 this year. French driver Simon Pagenaud competed in the final season of Champ Car for Walker Racing. One of his co-drivers will be Marino Franchitti, brother of defending IndyCar Series champion Dario. Former Highcroft driver and 1996 IndyCar champion Scott Sharp has left the team to campaign his own Ferraris in GT2.
Ryan Hunter-Reay and J.R. Hildebrand will drive in the LMPC class, a new spec LMP class featuring Chevrolet motors. Hunter-Reay will drive for Level 5 Motorsports, while 2009 Indy Lights champion Hildebrand will drive for current Lights competitors Genoa Racing.
Competitors with lesser-known open-wheel careers include Bourdais teammate Nicolas Minassian (LMP1), Guy Smith (LMP2), Jan Magnussen (GT2), and Ryan Dalziel (GT2). All of these drivers competed in CART and/or Champ Car with limited success, but have found security and won races in sports cars. Most recently, Dalziel won this year's 24 Hours of Daytona. He will drive for former Champ Car team Rocketsports.
As such, combined with the lack of an IndyCar race this weekend, it's no surprise to see a handful of the best open-wheel drivers America has had to offer contesting this race. From current competitors to former champions, and even a few ex-CART drivers, open-wheel competitors add a lot of color to this year's race.
The biggest battle will take place between Peugeot and Aston Martin in the LMP1 class, and each team features a driver that once dominated CART or Champ Car. Peugeot's No. 08 will feature four-time Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais, while Aston Martin has hired Adrian Fernandez (also a former IndyCar owner-driver) to campaign its car.
Last year's championship-winning team, Highcroft Racing, will slide down to LMP2 this year. French driver Simon Pagenaud competed in the final season of Champ Car for Walker Racing. One of his co-drivers will be Marino Franchitti, brother of defending IndyCar Series champion Dario. Former Highcroft driver and 1996 IndyCar champion Scott Sharp has left the team to campaign his own Ferraris in GT2.
Ryan Hunter-Reay and J.R. Hildebrand will drive in the LMPC class, a new spec LMP class featuring Chevrolet motors. Hunter-Reay will drive for Level 5 Motorsports, while 2009 Indy Lights champion Hildebrand will drive for current Lights competitors Genoa Racing.
Competitors with lesser-known open-wheel careers include Bourdais teammate Nicolas Minassian (LMP1), Guy Smith (LMP2), Jan Magnussen (GT2), and Ryan Dalziel (GT2). All of these drivers competed in CART and/or Champ Car with limited success, but have found security and won races in sports cars. Most recently, Dalziel won this year's 24 Hours of Daytona. He will drive for former Champ Car team Rocketsports.
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