A New Direction for Ganassi
At Long Beach a year ago, Juan Montoya won his first race as a CART FedEx driver, a win that propelled the Colombian driver to a championship season as a rookie--at 24 the youngest to win a champ car title.
He was driving a Reynard-Honda, the same package that had won championships for Chip Ganassi’s team the three previous years, in 1996 with Jimmy Vasser, 1997 and ’98 with Alex Zanardi.
But a victory for Montoya this Sunday, in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, would be another first. That’s because Ganassi, in a revolutionary move, switched this season from proven Honda power to a Toyota engine and from the winning Reynard chassis to a Lola.
The move stunned followers of open-wheel racing because Toyota-powered cars have not won since Dan Gurney introduced the Japanese engine to CART in 1996. And Lola has not won a race since 1996. Since then, Reynards have won 49 of 56 races.
Why would Ganassi make such a move?
‘I don’t know of any open-wheel series where the same tire, chassis and engine combination has won for five or more years in a row,” Ganassi said matter-of-factly when asked about the radical change.
Cynical followers of the sport claim it as a financial move, that Toyota lined Ganassi’s pockets with enough money to make it worthwhile.
Lee White, Toyota Racing Development vice president and general manager, says the idea wasn’t Toyotas, that it started with Ganassi.
“I’m the guy who did 99% of the negotiations,” White said. “The first contact was made by Chip. He based his decision on data gathered from the old engine design [used through the 1999 season].
That Toyota never won, but attracted attention in the season’s final race at California Speedway when Scott Pruett put Cal Wells’ Toyota-powered Reynard on the pole with a lap at 235.398 mph.
The switch to Lola was almost as surprising. There are only five Lolas in Sunday’s race. All the other cars are Reynards.
“You always look for that edge,” said Ganassi, who made dramatic moves in 1994 when he introduced Reynard to the series and won his first race with Michael Andretti in Australia, and in 1996 when he switched from Ford-Cosworth to Honda and won the opening race with Vasser at Homestead, Fla.
“This team has shown the benefits of being on the edge in the past and we have seen what it can lead to.”
Montoya and Vasser were consulted before the switch to Toyota and both approved.
“Chip asked Jimmy and I what we thought of making the changes,” Montoya said, “and I told him I felt it was a very interesting idea because it was a big experiment. It was certainly a new challenge, but I supported it all the way. My first reaction when I drove the Toyota engine was that it could win some races.”
Vasser, 34, who was winless in last year’s CART season for the first time since 1995, agreed.
“I’m looking forward to all the challenges--the clean slate with the engine program and the chassis,” he said. “I think both of these things are going to be advantageous to me. I’m a year older and a year smarter. It’s always nice to put bad things behind you, and last year was bad in many ways.”
The opening race, the Marlboro Grand Prix of Miami last month, didn’t go as Ganassi had hoped but the results weren’t all that bad.
Montoya started in the front row and led the first 21 laps before dropping out because of engine failure. Vasser completed all 150 laps, finishing fourth.
“I had a solid car,” Vasser said. “For the first time out with the Lola-Toyota, we had good power and good reliability.”
Jim Aust, vice president of motor sports for Toyota, said, “It was an up and down day. Juan had the dominant car, but unfortunately we had a failure. Jimmy matched our best-ever [CART] finish. Every week’s a new adventure at this point.”
It was really an adventure last Sunday when the race at Nazareth, Pa., was postponed because of snow after Montoya had won the pole on Saturday. The race was postponed to Saturday, May 27, the day before the Indianapolis 500, in which Montoya and Vasser are scheduled to drive.
When CART officials announced that there would be no race opposite the Indy 500 this year, it was expected that a number of teams would be at Indianapolis. However, only Ganassi made the move. Several other teams, such as Bobby Rahal’s, were discouraged from going by their sponsors or engine builders.
No Ford, Honda or Mercedes team wanted to read about its driver winning at Indy with an Oldsmobile-powered car. All Indy Racing League cars but one are powered by 3.5-liter normally aspirated Olds Aurora engines.
Only Target, Ganassi’s sponsor, and Toyota considered the prestige would be worth the effort.
“[Racing at Indy] was something [that] if Chip was going to do it, we would not oppose it,” said Toyota’s White. “In fact, we would support it. We strongly feel that to get our money’s worth in CART, we need people in the stands and we need more people watching on television.
“Right now, CART is the best-kept secret in racing. If John Della Penna had wanted to go, or if Cal Wells had wanted to go, we would have supported them the same way we have supported Chip.”
Argentine rookie Norberto Fontana drives a Toyota-powered car for Della Penna, and Wells has Cristiano da Matta and Oriol Servia in his Reynard-Toyotas.
Montoya and Vasser tested Ganassi’s new G Force chassis at Las Vegas last week, their first times in IRL cars.
“It’s completely different from what I expected,” Montoya said. “Running an aspirated engine [as compared to a turbocharged engine] makes a big difference. They are just two different engines, you know. It’s a completely different car, so there’s no point of comparing one or the other.
“Right now, though, the story is the 2000 season, Lola and Toyota. I think the team did a great decision going there. If we can win with Toyota, it would be great. The car has been fantastic in testing.
“I like the chassis. I like the engine and it is good because everybody is working around us, so we put it in [the] chassis the way we want it. We ask for something, they do it.”
Montoya and Vasser will not get to test the 11-turn Long Beach circuit until Friday, but both indicated they expect no problems. Both are familiar with Victory Lane. Vasser won there in 1996 and Montoya last year.
“The most impressive statistic about Long Beach is that in each of the last four years, the winning driver there has won the CART FedEx championship,” pointed out Vasser. “And all of them were in Target-Ganassi cars.”
Times staff writer Darin Esper contributed to this story.
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Target/Chip Ganassi Racing
TEAM HIGHLIGHTS
* Winner of 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999 Fed Ex Championship Series championships.
* Only team in FedEx Championship Series history to win four consecutive titles.
* Owner Chip Ganassi co-owned 1998 series championship team with Pat Patrick.
* Third among active FedEx Championship Series teams with 39 career victories.
* Third among active FedEx Championship Series teams with 31 career pole positions.
* Has earned 30 victories and 24 pole positions over the last four seasons.
