This offseason I have decided to bring back the Career Retrospective, but instead of looking at contemporary drivers, I wanted to take a look back at some of the cult heroes in IndyCar, drivers who aren't necessarily remember for the number of race victories and championships, but for things they did on track that gained the respect of many and left them struck at their ability.
This is part two of a three-part series and it will look at a driver who was on the cusp of Formula One and competing for a seat with a driver who would end up winning a world championship. After losing the Formula One shot, he came to the United States and was a regular championship contender almost immediately, but that title never came and many have forgotten how consistent he was in his relatively short IndyCar stint.
It is Bruno Junqueira.
Where was Junqueira coming from?
The Brazilian was a rather late bloomer, but a quick riser once in the junior ranks.
Junqueira didn't break into car racing until he was 20 years old, and he immediately won the Formula Three Sudamericana championship. These results led to support from Brazilian oil company Petrobras, a sponsor of Williams F1, and Petrobras brought him to International Formula 3000 in Europe.
For the 1998 season, he was paired with Italian Giovanni Montanari at Draco Engineering. A mid-pack team, Junqueira only had two finishes in the points, a sixth in Austria and a fifth at Hockenheim, leaving him 18th in the championship, but teammate Montanari did not score any points.
In 1999, Petrobras signed a technical agreement with Super Nova Racing, which had won three of the previous four International Formula 3000 drivers' championships and had won four consecutive teams' championships entering the season. He was paired with Max Wilson, Jr. in an all-Brazilian lineup, and Junqueira scored a podium at Silverstone and a victory at Hockenheim. He wound up fifth in the championship.
Junqueira had been in contention for the Williams F1 seat for the 2000 season, but he was also facing competition from British Formula Three driver Jenson Button. Button had finished third in the British F3 title with three victories from 16 races. It came down to a testing shootout at Barcelona. Button was 0.16 seconds quicker than Junqueira, and Button was awarded the ride.
Junqueira remained in International Formula 3000 for a third season and started with a runner-up finish at Imola. He was fifth at Silverstone but won the next three races at Barcelona, Nürburgring and Monaco. He suffered a dip in form over the summer before winning the penultimate race at Hungary, giving him a seven-point championship lead over Nicolas Minassian lead entering the Spa-Francorchamps season finale.
Minassian had to win the finale to take the title. The Frenchman was running second at one point in the race, but could not catch Fernando Alonso, and Minassian ultimately fell to third at the checkered flag, covering for what was a poor day for Junqueira, who finished ninth but took the championship by three points.
With the Williams option taken, Junqueira moved to Chip Ganassi Racing, which had two open seats as Juan Pablo Montoya had moved to Williams and Jimmy Vasser left for Patrick Racing. Joining Junqueira at Gannasi was his 2000 title rival Nicolas Minassian.
What did IndyCar look like when Junqueira started in the series?
It was a place where the top drivers for the European junior series could compete if they couldn't make it to Formula One. A handful of successful International Formula 3000 drivers moved to IndyCar during this period.
Juan Pablo Montoya had won the International Formula 3000 championship in 1998 and moved to CART the following year. After winning the 1995 International Formula 3000 championship, Vincenzo Sospiri went to the Indy Racing League when his Formula One plans fell through and Sospiri finished second in his fifth career start at Loudon. Gil de Ferran was fourth and third in the 1993 and 1994 seasons respectively and then joined Hall/VDS Racing for the 1995 CART season, where he won in the final race of his rookie year at Laguna Seca.
Chip Ganassi Racing double-dipped when hiring Junqueira and Nicolas Minassian. Justin Wilson was third in the 2000 season, would win the championship in 2001 and after a taste of Formula One, Wilson would become an IndyCar regular. Sébastien Bourdais moved to CART a year after taking the International Formula 3000 championship, and Tomáš Enge, Bourdais' main title rival would join the IRL in 2004.
Five of the six International Formula 3000 champions from 1998 to 2003 contested at least one full season in North American open-wheel racing, starting with Montoya and ending with Björn Wirdheim, who ran 2005 Champ Car season with Dale Coyne Racing after spending a year as Jaguar F1's test driver. The only champion in that span who didn't run in IndyCar was Nick Heidfeld.
Not only were there many European trained drivers in IndyCar circles, there were also a great number of Brazilians.
Junqueira entered a CART paddock that already included de Ferran, Cristiana da Matta, Hélio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, Christian Fittipaldi, Roberto Moreno and Maurício Gugelmin. Junqueira's former International Formula 3000 teammate Max Wilson, Jr. also made his IndyCar debut in the 2001 CART season.
This isn't taking into consideration Felipe Giaffone and Airton Daré were Brazilians competing full-time in the IRL. Eleven Brazilians were regular competitors in the North American open-wheel scene at the start of the 21st century.
How does IndyCar look now?
Only one Brazilian competed full-time in the 2022 IndyCar season, Hélio Castroneves. Only one other Brazilian competed during in the 2022 IndyCar season, Tony Kanaan.
For the first decade of the 2000s, IndyCar was as much a Brazilian series as it was an American series. De Ferran won multiple championships. Castroneves won multiple Indianapolis 500s. Da Matta and Kanaan became champions. Junqueira was a race winner.
Vitor Meira would soon enter the IRL and showed competitiveness. Raphael Matos was champion in Indy Lights and the Atlantics championship. Ana Beatriz, Jamie Camara and Mario Romancini won in Indy Lights and each made the move to IndyCar. Romancini was the top rookie finisher in the 2010 Indianapolis 500 in 13th. Mario Moraes had a few flashes of speed. Enrique Bernoldi even moved to IndyCar after a spell in Formula One.
IndyCar had already competed in Rio in the late from 1996 to 2000, but the series made a return to Brazil with a race in São Paulo in 2010 due to the success of the drivers in the series as well as business relationships that saw IndyCar use 100% ethanol, most of which came from Brazilian sugar cane.
However, as Brazilians financial boom ended in the early 2010s, combined with the lack of tobacco sponsorship, which funded many Brazilians in the 1990s and early 2000s, the country produced less IndyCar drivers, and not just IndyCar drivers but Formula One drivers as well. Many drivers have remained in their home country to compete in the Stock Car Brasil championship. Even Rubens Barrichello went back to compete full-time in Brazil after his one and only IndyCar season due to Brazilian sponsors being more interested in him competing domestically than abroad in IndyCar.
The European-trained talent is also quite scarce compared to when Junqueira entered IndyCar. None of the previous ten GP2/Formula Two champions have raced in IndyCar and the most recent GP2/Formula Two champion to run in IndyCar is Romain Grosjean after he spent a decade in Formula One before moving to IndyCar in his mid-30s.
Champions aside, even top five drivers aren't coming to IndyCar. Callum Ilott and Christian Lundgaard have and they could be leading a new wave of Formula Two drivers moving to IndyCar when Formula One opportunities do not arise. We forget Alexander Rossi was second in the 2015 GP2 championship before he moved to IndyCar, but the drivers coming straight from the European ladder system to IndyCar is much rarer than it once was.
We are seeing drivers come from Super Formula (Álex Palou), Supercars (Scott McLaughlin), Formula E (Felix Rosenqvist) and NASCAR (Jimmie Johnson), but the Formula Two to IndyCar route has been rather unexplored until recently.
What did Junqueira do in-between?
The rookie season had flashes of potential, but Chip Ganassi Racing was either on fire or ice cold tin 2001. Junqueira started on pole position in his third career start at Nazareth, the race famously remembered as Scott Dixon's first career victory.
Ganassi returned to the Indianapolis 500 that year. Junqueira and Minassian had Tony Stewart join the three-car Ganassi effort. Stewart qualified seventh while Junqueira was 20th on the grid and Minassian was 22nd. Stewart spent much of the race at the front and led 13 laps, but Junqueira kept gaining ground. At the checkered flag, Junqueira was fifth with 200 laps, 500 miles completed and a position ahead of Stewart. Junqueira was the second-best rookie in the 2001 Indianapolis 500. The top rookie was race winner Hélio Castroneves.
There were high and low moments over the rest of Junqueira's rookie season. He was fourth at Milwaukee the week after Indianapolis but then had one top ten finish in the next seven races. At Road America, he qualified tenth in wet conditions. The rain carried over to race day and the conditions were so poor, the race started behind the pace car.
Junqueira spun early after contact with Christian Fittipaldi and dropped to 20th. After a number of cautions, Junqueira found himself at the front of the field, especially as other top drivers ran into issues, including Michael Andretti, who bent stressing column after Andretti made contact with Fittipaldi. Due to the pace of the race, the checkered flag would come at the two-hour limit. Junqueira led the final ten laps and took the checkered flag on lap 45, ten laps short of the full distance. It was the high point that season as Junqueira ended up 16th in the championship.
In his sophomore season, he won the third race of the season at Motegi. Through seven races, he had three podium finishes and four top five finishes after having only three top five results in his entire rookie season. He went back to the Indianapolis 500 and won pole position with a four-lap average of 231.342 mph. Junqueira led the first 32 laps but stalled on his first pit stop. Gearbox issues took him out of the race after completing over 87 laps.
He was second in the championship after Portland and later won at Denver, but Cristiano da Matta's form was difficult to beat. Da Matta had six victories in the first 12 races, and he was on the podium in six of the final eight races and 11 races total. Da Matta clinched the title with three races to go, but Junqueira held on to second.
For 2003, Chip Ganassi Racing moved to the Indy Racing League, ending its participation in CART. Junqueira did not make the move and remained in CART, moving to Newman/Haas Racing and taking over the seat vacated when da Matta moved to the Toyota Formula One program. Junqueira even drove the #1 car. He opened the season with five consecutive top five results and top five finishes in 11 of the first 12 races, taking the championship lead after his victory at Road America.
Unfortunately, Junqueira hit a skid in the final six races. His only top five finish was his Denver victory while Paul Tracy won twice and had four finishes in the top six. Tracy won the title by 27 points.
Junqueira had another strong start in 2004 with four runner-up finishes in the first five races, and he led the championship after Milwaukee, but his teammate Sébastien Bourdais won three of the first five and four of the first six. Bourdais won six times while Junqueira won twice and had seven runner-up finishes in 14 races, putting him 28 points behind his a teammate Bourdais and as vice-champion for a third consecutive year.
The 2004 season also saw Junqueira return to the Indianapolis 500 as Newman-Haas Racing made its Indianapolis Motor Speedway return for the first time since 1995. Junqueira qualified fourth and led 16 laps, ultimately finishing fifth in the rain-shortened race.
After three consecutive years ending up second in the championship, Junqueira was poised for a title push in 2005. He was third in the season opener and won the second round of the season at Monterrey to give himself a one-point championship lead over Bourdais. Newman-Haas Racing was at Indianapolis again with both drivers. Both cars showed decent speed with Junqueira qualifying 12th and Bourdais in 15th.
Junqueira was running sixth when overtaking the lapped car of A.J. Foyt IV entering turn two on lap 78. Foyt IV came down on Junqueira entering the corner and spun the Brazilian into the wall. Junqueira suffered a fractured vertebra and was out for the rest of the Champ Car season, ending his title hopes.
Able to make a full recovery, Junqueira returned for the 2006 season with Newman-Haas. He won pole position for his fifth race back at Portland and finished fourth before ending up second at Cleveland. However, he did see a dip in form that season. He had runner-up results at Denver and Road America, but ended up fifth in the championship.
After four seasons with Newman-Haas, Junqueira moved to Dale Coyne Racing for the 2007 season. Combined with the Panoz DP01 chassis and Coyne's master strategic skills, Junqueira wound up scoring three consecutive podium finishes during the season and finished seventh in the championship, the best championship result for a Dale Coyne Racing driver at the time. He remained with the team through reunification, but the team like many of the Champ Car teams struggled to catch up with the Dallara-Honda set up. He was sixth at Watkins Glens and seventh at Belle Isle, but ended up 20th in the championship.
Without a full-time ride for 2009, Junqueira settled for a Indianapolis 500 one-off with Conquest Racing but the car did not take to the track until Bump Day. He easily made the field, ending up 30th and over 6/10ths of a mph above the bubble. However, Conquest Racing's Alex Tagliani was the final car bumped from the field. With Tagliani's sponsorship, the Canadian replaced Junqueira in the race and ended up finishing 11th, the top rookie and earned himself Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year honors.
Taglaini repaid the favor the following year with his own team FAZZT Racing Team. However, it was again a Bump Day entry and his first practice laps were only a few hours before his first qualifying attempt. Junqueira made eight practice laps before his qualifying run. When he took his four-lap run, he completed it at 225.662 mph, the seventh-fastest qualifying speed of the weekend and nearly a mile per hour faster than the next best car during the Bump Day qualifying session.
Though showing impressive speed in qualifying, Junqueira was out of the race on lap eight after a spin. A.J. Foyt Racing put Junqueira in its extra car for Indianapolis the following year and he qualified 19th. However, this year was a season remembered for Ryan Hunter-Reay not qualifying for the race and Andretti Autosport and DHL purchasing the Foyt entry, leaving Junqueira replaced from the Indianapolis 500 for the second time in three years.
Junqueira had transitioned to full-time sports car participation in 2011, but he made one final IndyCar start at Baltimore in 2012, substituting for Josef Newgarden, who fractured his wrist the week prior at Sonoma. Jumping into the car cold turkey, Junqueira qualified 20th and finished 19th out of 25 cars after having been caught in an early accident and nursing a wounded car for most of the race.
What impression did Junqueira leave on IndyCar?
Not one of the most unheralded drivers in recent IndyCar history, Junqueira deserves more respect than he gets, but he drove during a complicated time.
He showed up as the CART/IRL Split was evolving and flipping and he wound up staying on the CART/Champ Car side driving for the best team in the series and happened to be paired with one of the best drivers of the decade. In a way, Junqueira and Sébastien Bourdais got the best out of each other. Junqueira was runner-up in the championship in three consecutive seasons. You don't accidentally do that.
The disappointing thing is Junqueira broke his back in what was his best chance at a championship. He took the 2004 championship to the wire and started 2005 with a competitive set of results. We will never know what the 2005 season would have looked like if Junqueira had not been injured.
Oriol Servià stepped into that car and finished in the top five in ten of the final 11 races, including seven podium finishes. Add the 265 points Servià scored over those 11 races to Junqueira's total from the first two and Junqueira would have had 324 points, 24 fewer than Bourdais' final points total, but, and with all due respect to Servià, Junqueira was a much better driver. There likely would have been two or three races Junqueira would have drawn more out of the car and turned a simple second or third into a victory.
Also, Bourdais didn't have a great run of form after Junqueira's injury. Servià finished ahead of Bourdais in three of his first four races with the Newman-Haas Racing, and in that span Bourdais had only one podium result. If Junqueira had been in for those races, I think he would have punished Bourdais for leaving points on the table and Junqueira could have controlled the championship into the summer and pulled out a title.
But we will never know.
That missing championship aside, Junqueira's raw speed at Indianapolis stands out. His 2010 effort remains one of the most unappreciated performances of the 21st century. He did eight practice laps in a backup car that hadn't been properly set up and then put up the seventh fastest qualifying run of the month for a new team and he qualified ahead of two Andretti Autosport cars, four other full-time entries and Paul Tracy, who failed to make the race.
The same way we never know what Junqueira would have done if he wasn't hurt in the 2005 season, what would have happened if Ganassi took him to the IRL along with Dixon for 2003? We only saw a glimpse of his oval prowess due to the schedule shifting when he entered the North American open-wheel racing. He didn't make that many oval starts in comparison to some of his contemporaries. He only made one start at Michigan and two starts at Fontana. He likely would have been competitive in that 2003 season running on the intermediate tracks as well as the superspeedways.
But we will never know.
Eight career victories aren't nothing. You don't get lucky eight times in any professional motorsports series even during a split. Even with eight victories, the roll of the dice might not have gone in your favor. In Junqueira's case, he had a good roll, but with a slightly different roll it could have been something greater.
