Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) confirmed its lineups within the IndyCar Sequence and Indy NXT for the 2025 season.
Having introduced the crew would downsize from 5 entries to a few 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 vehicles. Nonetheless, 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 may have a technical alliance with beginning in 2025.
CGR’s newly-formed Indy NXT program – the crew’s first since 2007 – is about at two vehicles, 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 Sequence wins and our third championship within the final 4 seasons,” mentioned crew proprietor Chip Ganassi.
“As we transfer towards 2025, we want 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 our Indy NXT program.”
Scott Dixon in his Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
Picture by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Photographs
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 monitor sooner somewhat than later.
“I’m excited,” mentioned 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 an extended offseason. We had a number of nice races final 12 months. It didn’t finish the way in which that we might’ve favored, with some DNFs and a few poor outcomes right here and there, however the crew did an excellent job with nice velocity. I’m wanting 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 wonderful season within the books,” Palou mentioned. “The work doesn’t cease, and I can’t wait to be again on monitor with extra starvation than ever in 2025!”
Simpson, a Barbados-born Caymanian, drove to a greatest end of twelfth (St. Petersburg) and likewise led a number of laps in final 12 months’s Indy 500, mentioned: “I’m very excited to proceed with Chip Ganassi Racing in 2025. I look ahead to constructing on a powerful begin to my IndyCar profession and I can’t wait to see what our crew can obtain collectively.”
Kyffin Simpson, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
Picture by: Geoffrey M. Miller / Motorsport Photographs
For Browne, who drove to a greatest 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 greatest results of tenth (Indianapolis street course, Race 1), is keen for his maiden full-time marketing campaign in IndyCar’s prime improvement class.
“I am excited to be doing my second 12 months and first full season in Indy NXT,” Koolen mentioned. “I look ahead to working with Chip Ganassi Racing who’ve nice pedigree and huge expertise throughout many alternative classes.
