It has likely been a modest championship celebration at the Chip Ganassi Racing shop in the aftermath of Álex Palou clinching his fourth IndyCar championship with two races remaining. Everyone is happy, but there are still two races to go. The focus will be winning those races. A larger celebration can follow in September when there will be at least six full months until the next race.
While partying responsibly and noting what Palou's title means for the his legacy amongst the greatest drivers of all-time, it has quietly been ignored that this is Chip Ganassi Racing's 17th championship as a team, and that is level with Team Penske for the most all-time.
For the last 20 or 25 years, we have been comparing Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing. Penske has long been the standard in American open-wheel racing. It has done everything with the utmost attention to detail. It is not only the best team on the track but the best operating team off the track, "Penske Perfect" if you will.
As we moved deeper into the 21st century, Chip Ganassi Racing started to take the fight to Penske. It soon became clear every championship came down to who would be better, Ganassi or Penske? After all, the two teams have combined to win the last 13 championships and 17 of the last 18. We go into every IndyCar season asking who will be champion, but inside we know it will be one of five or six drivers.
The records Team Penske had set felt further out of reach. After all, Team Penske has been competing in IndyCar for over 50 years. The numbers are staggering. From race victories to pole positions, they are numbers no other team is truly close to. Most organizations are barely over a decade old. Almost a third of the teams only started competing full-time in IndyCar in the last five years. It is hard to hit triple-figures in some of these categories when your organization has competed in fewer than 100 races.
Team Penske's mark at the top appeared to be safe for a very long time. Except, it appears, in one category.
We never really acknowledged Chip Ganassi Racing's success on a historical level. We knew Ganassi was winning championships and head and shoulders above most of the competition. It almost became anticipated that on the stage at the end of the season would be Ganassi with Dario Franchitti or Scott Dixon or now Álex Palou. What we didn't realized was what all these Astor Cup presentations meant. We weren't really counting and until this weekend it went largely unnoticed how close Gannasi was to Penske.
Now they are equal.
Not only are they equal, but Ganassi has reached 17 championships in a little over half the time it took Penske to hit that mark. This is only Ganassi's 36th season in IndyCar. That still makes it the third-oldest team (hello, Dale Coyne Racing in second), but that means Ganassi has been winning a championship at a rate of nearly one every other year.
Team Penske's 17th championship came only three years ago in what was the organization's 55th season competing in IndyCar.
When it comes to championship, not only are the organizations level, but Ganassi is winning them at a much faster rate, and it does not appear likely the Ganassi organization will be slowing down anytime soon.
Anytime you see a record for most championships matched or surpassed, the question becomes about who is the greatest team. It is easy to look at who has the most champions and declare that is the team that is best.
Last year, the Boston Celtics surpassed the Los Angeles Lakers for most NBA championships with 18, a swing in the favor for the folks from Bean Town against their long-time, cross-country foes.
This past May, Liverpool won the Premier League title, its 20th time winning the championship in England's top league, moving it into a tie all-time with Manchester United. Soccer is a little more nuanced as there are the domestic competitions in each country as well as continental competitions, and Liverpool has been the European champions six times, more than any other English club.
American football is a little messy as the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots are tied for the most Super Bowl championships (six), but when you consider the entire 100-plus year history of the NFL, the Green Bay Packers have the most championships (13). Bragging rights exist for both.
Motorsports is different, the same way soccer differs from basketball and both differ from American football. Championships matter, but there are races within championships and those totals matter. Then there are more prestigious races and victories in those carry more weight than 10 or 20 victories in lesser celebrated races, and in some cases those prestigious race victories are seen as greater than a championship. This is the case for multiple disciplines of motorsports, IndyCar include.
Is Chip Ganassi Racing the greatest team in IndyCar history?
It is level on championships with Team Penske, but with 17 titles in 36 seasons versus Penske's 17 in 58 seasons, it understandable to give Ganassi the edge in that department.
The next thing people look at in IndyCar is Indianapolis 500s. Many look at that before championships, but in this context, we look at it second. Team Penske is the all-time leader and by far the all-time leader. Penske has won the race 20 times since its first attempt in 1969, though Penske has only competed in the race 51 times thanks to failing to qualify in 1995 and then the split from 1996 to 2000.
Ganassi is pretty far off Penske in this case. Ganassi picked up its sixth Indianapolis 500 victory this past May with Palou, it was Ganassi’s 32nd year competing in the race. Even if you account for the almost two-decade difference, Penske is still ahead. Penske had 14 Indianapolis 500 victories in its first 32 Indianapolis 500s. Give a point to Penske.
What about total race victories?
Longevity will give Team Penske the edge. It has the most IndyCar victories with 245 after Will Power's triumph at Portland this past weekend. However, Chip Ganassi Racing is likely a little closer than you realize. With nine victories this season, Chip Ganassi Racing is exactly 100 victories behind Team Penske. It has won 145 times, comfortably in second as third is the defunct Newman-Haas Racing on 107. Andretti Global is the next closest on 77.
When it comes to winning percentage, Penske has won 28.128% of its 871 races contested. Ganassi has won 23.237% of its 624 races contested.
If there is one last thing to consider it is since reunification in 2008, when there was finally one IndyCar series and everyone was back together competing on the same terms. In those 18 seasons, Chip Ganassi Racing has won 12 championship. Team Penske has won five. Andretti Global and Ryan Hunter-Reay are the outlier.
Since reunification, three different Ganassi drivers have won at least three championships. Scott Dixon has won five, Álex Palou has now won four, including three consecutive, and Dario Franchitti won three consecutive championships. Penske's five titles have come from three different drivers. Josef Newgarden and Will Power each won it twice. Simon Pagenaud won it once.
Ganassi has now won six of the last eight championships. Penske's last six championships stretch back to 2006. The only stretch that rivals what Ganassi has done is what Penske did almost 50 years ago. It won six championship in seven years over 1977 to 1983, which spanned the USAC-CART split. Penske would win seven of nine championships if you extend that period to 1985, and it would win eight of 12 titles from 1977 to 1988.
There is a bit of a difference in those time periods, as the championships have changed from oval-heavy series to road/street course-heavy series and teams are now all using the same chassis while Penske was building its own chassis for most of those championship seasons and sometimes competing against three or four or five different chassis manufacturers.
There doesn't have to be one right answer. The fate of humanity is not relying on us coming to a consensus on what is the greatest team in IndyCar history. It is right to acknowledge how great these two organizations have been, and how each stand out in their own greatness. At this moment, Chip Ganassi Racing has gone on a run that cannot be ignored and has placed itself at the top, which we long assumed would only have one inhabitant for a very long time.
