Chip Ganassi Racing closed the 2024 NTT IndyCar Sequence season with 5 drivers, and can return in 2025 with 5 drivers unfold throughout three IndyCar entries and two extra in its new Indy NXT program.
On the IndyCar aspect, six-time champion Scott Dixon is again within the No. 9 Honda and three-time and reigning champion Alex Palou will proceed to helm the No. 10 Honda. They’ll be joined by Kyffin Simpson (fundamental picture), who strikes into the No. 8 Honda because the Caymanian driver embarks on his sophomore IndyCar marketing campaign.
“By all accounts 2024 was one other stellar yr for our group with 5 IndyCar Sequence wins and our third championship within the final 4 seasons,” Chip Ganassi stated. “So, as we transfer towards 2025, we need to defend the championship with a robust lineup of drivers and look to proceed Kyffin’s growth and the event of our younger drivers by our Indy NXT program.”
The veteran automobile quantity conference at CGR will carry over to its pair of NXT entries for Jonathan Browne, who will pilot the No. 9 Dallara IL15-AER and Niels Koolen who will drive the No. 10 automobile.
Browne, the 24-year-old from Eire, spent his rookie NXT season with HMD Motorsports the place he earned a finest end of sixth and thirteenth within the championship.
“That is very a lot a dream come true,” he stated. “When it comes to being introduced into a company like Chip Ganassi Racing, it’s big. I’m simply excited to get began and get to racing. It’s an enormous honor and privilege to be part of this group.”
For 23-year-old Koolen from the Netherlands, 2024 was spent racing in three part-time marketing campaign with HMD in NXT and with different groups in System 2 and the European Le Mans Sequence.
“I’m excited to be doing my second yr and first full season in Indy NXT,” he stated. “I stay up for working with Chip Ganassi Racing who’ve nice pedigree and huge expertise throughout many alternative classes.”
Ganassi’s group is headed right into a season of great transition. With IndyCar’s new constitution system having launched with a restrict of three charters per group being enforced, the Indianapolis-based outfit culled two automobiles from its program, the No. 4 Honda Simpson drove in 2024, and the No. 11 Honda occupied by Marcus Armstrong.
Armstrong left the group for Meyer Shank Racing’s No. 66 Honda, however the ties to Ganassi stay as MSR and CGR have struck a brand new technical alliance that may contain chassis information, setups, and engineers being supplied by Ganassi for Armstrong’s automobile and the opposite MSR entries.
As RACER has predicted for fairly a while, Simpson is entering into Ganassi’s third and ultimate IndyCar entry, which additionally earned a $1 million Leaders Circle contract final season by the efforts of fellow rookie Linus Lundqvist, who positioned sixteenth within the championship and captured a pair of podiums and his first pole place within the No. 8 automobile.
The Swede is amid an ongoing seek for new alternatives to proceed his profession after departing CGR.
