2006 Champ Car World Series

Teams and drivers

The following teams and drivers competed in the 2006 Champ Car World Series. All teams competed with the Lola B02/00 chassis, the Ford-Cosworth XFE engine, and tires supplied by Bridgestone.

Team changes

Every team that fielded cars on a full-time basis in 2005 returned for the new season. In early 2005, two-time Formula One World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi began reorganizing his Fittipaldi Racing team after it was temporarily shut down at the end of the 2003 season. The team was rumored to debut in 2006, but seemingly ceased operations sometime in 2005. After a twelve-year absence from the series, EuroInternational announced their intentions to enter at least ten races in 2006 before fielding two full-time entries in 2007, when the series was set to introduce their new Panoz DP01 chassis. The announcement was met with uncertainty from fans, which was only heightened by the lack of confirmation by the series. Eventually, EuroInternational revealed they would not compete in the Champ Car World Series in 2006 because of how hard it was for them to acquire a Lola chassis, though they did race in the second-tier Atlantic Championship Series. Several teams from the Indy Racing League, including Panther Racing, were reportedly planning to enter the Champ Car World Series in 2006, but ultimately never did.

Driver changes

After spending six months recovering from injuries sustained in a crash during the 2005 Indianapolis 500, Bruno Junqueira completed over 200 laps during a three-day testing session at Sebring International Raceway in December 2005 and announced his return to Newman/Haas Racing car for 2006. Junqueira's teammate, two-time and defending series champion Sébastien Bourdais, signed a one-year contract extension with Newman/Haas Racing which included an exit clause if an opportunity arose to compete in Formula One. Bourdais admitted that he initially held off on extending his contract because he had attempted to secure a seat with Formula One's BMW Sauber team, though the costs of terminating Jacques Villeneuve's contract were too expensive for the team.

Newman/Haas Racing failed to gain enough funding to field a third entry for Oriol Servià, who substituted for Junqueira for the last eleven races of the 2005 season and finished second in the Drivers' Championship standings. Meanwhile, Jimmy Vasser opted to solely compete in the season-opening Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach before retiring from American open-wheel car racing, forcing PKV Racing to find a replacement driver. The team tested with Ryan Briscoe, Franck Montagny, Giorgio Pantano, and Ryan Dalziel, but ultimately chose Servià as he had more experience in the series. Servià was teamed with Katherine Legge, a three-time winner in the Atlantic Championship Series who became the first female driver to compete in the series since Lyn St. James in the 1995 Marlboro 500 and the first female driver in history to race full-time in the series.

Legge and Servià's hirings at PKV Racing left Cristiano da Matta without a ride for 2006, as he had already fell out with the team's management following a string of poor results towards the latter half of the 2005 season. Da Matta later joined Dale Coyne Racing, though he was essentially forced to drive for the team without a salary. Reigning Eurocup Mégane Trophy champion Jan Heylen initially sought an opportunity to race for Conquest Racing, but the team's seats were occupied by 2005 Atlantic Championship Series champion Charles Zwolsman Jr. and Andrew Ranger, the latter of whom intended only to compete at Long Beach and the three races in Canada before obtaining enough sponsorship to complete the entire season in May. After partaking in a test session with Dale Coyne Racing along with Nicky Pastorelli at California Speedway, Heylen was selected as da Matta's teammate for 2006. Dale Coyne Racing announced Heylen's hiring only hours prior to the first practice session for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

As his contract with Forsythe Racing was set to expire at the end of the 2005 season, series veteran Paul Tracy expressed interest in competing in NASCAR. In August 2005, he tested an ARCA car owned by Richard Childress at Michigan International Speedway, and later declared his intentions to drive part-time in the second-tier Busch Series in 2006 before fully switching to NASCAR in 2007. Despite doubts that Tracy would return to the Champ Car World Series in 2006, he opted to continue racing in the series that year alongside teammate Mario Domínguez. By April 2006, Tracy spoke to the media about talks for an extension of his current contract with Forsythe Racing, and a new five-year deal with the team was announced the next month.

Ahead of the previous season's Lexmark Indy 300, Will Power signed a three-year contract with Team Australia and subsequently replaced the outgoing Marcus Marshall, as he was let go by the team near the end of the 2005 season because of their straining relationship with him, while Alex Tagliani remained with the team. Rumors circulated that Team Australia planned on running a third car for Australian driver Ryan Briscoe; however, Briscoe only wound up competing with the team in the final three races of the 2005–06 A1 Grand Prix season.

After 2005 Rookie of the Year Timo Glock left the Champ Car World Series to race in the GP2 Series, DHL pulled their sponsorship of Rocketsports Racing and the team was left scrambling to find another driver. They planned to hire Franck Montagny before being approached with a sponsorship effort headed by four Brazilian businessmen, which called for Brazilian drivers Antônio Pizzonia and Enrique Bernoldi to race under the name of Team Brazil. The two drivers completed a testing session at Houston Motorsports Ranch in March, but a deal was not reached in time for the start of the season, forcing Rocketsports Racing to field a single entry for Pizzonia at Long Beach. Negotiations continued throughout the season, although nothing ever materialized.

Comedian and actor Cedric the Entertainer joined the Champ Car World Series as a co-owner of HVM Racing, which had been renamed to CTE-HVM Racing to commemorate his partnership with the team. Although Ronnie Bremer had signed a contract to remain with the team for 2006, a lack of sponsorship led to the deal being voided less than two weeks before the start of the season. CTE-HVM Racing's two seats were taken by Nelson Philippe, who spent the last two seasons racing for Conquest Racing, and rookie Dan Clarke, who finished fifth in the 2005 British Formula 3 International Series.

Mid-season

• On April 28, Nicky Pastorelli was announced as Rocketsports Racing's "full-time" driver, after two testing appearances with the team during the month. Pastorelli had won the Euro Formula 3000 series in 2004, was a Formula One test driver for Jordan Grand Prix in 2005, and was scheduled to remain as such with the renamed Midland F1 Racing, but that opportunity fell through in December when one of Pastorelli's investors backed out of the deal.
• On May 25, Rocketsports Racing announced it would field a second car for rookie Tõnis Kasemets in six unspecified races, beginning with the fifth round of the season at Portland. After four races in a row, Kasemets would only race again at Road America in September, competing in five events instead. Kasemets became the first Estonian to drive in Champ Car, after finishing second in the Atlantic Championship with three wins against the also promoted Charles Zwolsman Jr. and Katherine Legge.
• On June 9, following the race at the Milwaukee Mile, the RuSPORT team announced that they were replacing A. J. Allmendinger with Cristiano da Matta, who switched after just four races with Dale Coyne Racing. The change came as a total surprise, as Allmendinger had been the cornerstone of the team since its founding in 2002. The move was caused by profound differences between both parties over RuSPORT and Allmendinger's joint potential to overcome Bourdais' early domination.
• On June 12 Forsythe Racing announced they were parting company with Mario Domínguez over "changes in the engineering structure of the team (that) no longer suit both parties". Domínguez had clashed twice with his teammate Paul Tracy and Bruno Junqueira in the first four races. On June 14, the open seat was filled, as A. J. Allmendinger was announced as Domínguez's replacement, just five days after being fired himself.
• On June 16, Mario Domínguez took over as the driver of the No. 19 car for Dale Coyne Racing, vacated a week before by Cristiano da Matta. Domínguez claimed to have been fired from Forsythe in order to keep A. J. Allmendinger in the series, as the only American driver in the field.
• Since July, the line-up at Rocketsports Racing underwent a number of changes:
  • On July 5, it was announced that the No. 8 car driven by Nicky Pastorelli would not compete at the Toronto event, after one of Pastorelli's sponsors had defaulted. The sponsorship problem was solved in time for the next round in Edmonton, as announced on July 18.
  • On August 23, Antônio Pizzonia was announced to return in a one-race deal at Montréal, this time on the No. 18 car. After Tõnis Kasemets raced at Road America, Pizzonia finished the season in the car, being announced for the Surfers Paradise race, and then for the Mexico City finale.
  • On September 18, Mario Domínguez was signed to complete the season in the No. 8 car for the final three races, switching from Dale Coyne Racing. Nicky Pastorelli was out again due to his continuing financial issues, and while the team hoped to have him in the No. 18 for the final two races, it went with Pizzonia instead.
• On August 3, Cristiano da Matta sustained serious head injuries in a testing accident at Road America, after colliding with a deer that crossed the track between turns 5 and 6. Da Matta was transferred out of intensive care unit later that month and left the hospital on September 23, but the crash sidelined him for the rest of the season, and it eventually ended his open-wheel racing career. In response to the crash, RuSPORT withdrew the No. 10 car for the Denver event, and no replacement driver was announced for Montréal or Road America, despite rumours of Dario Franchitti finishing the season in the car.
• After Mario Domínguez's departure, Dale Coyne Racing filled the No. 19 on a race-by-race basis. On September 19, it announced rookie Juan Cáceres for the race at Road America. Cáceres, who had already tested with the team earlier that month, was fifth in points in Euroseries 3000 at the time. On October 12, Andreas Wirth was announced for Surfers Paradise on the heels of his third place finish in Champ Car Atlantic, and he remained in the No. 19 for the season finale with no formal announcement.
• On October 9, RuSPORT announced Ryan Briscoe would take over the No. 10 for the final two races of the season. Briscoe was a former Formula 3 Euro Series champion and Formula One test driver for Toyota, who looked all year for opportunities in Champ Car after a difficult 2005 season in the IndyCar Series with Chip Ganassi Racing.
• On October 24, following the race in Surfers Paradise, A. J. Allmendinger announced that he would drive for Team Red Bull in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2007. On October 27, Forsythe Racing team announced that Allmendinger would be replaced immediately by 2004 Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Rice for the final race of the season in Mexico City. Rice was looking for a permantent switch to Champ Car after losing his IndyCar ride with Rahal Letterman Racing, but he would not compete in any other race in the series.
• On October 31, Forsythe Racing announced a deal to run a third car in Mexico City for rookie David Martínez, who finished fifth in Champ Car Atlantic. However, on November 6, it was announced that Paul Tracy would miss the Mexico race after breaking his right scapula in an alcohol-fueled accident that was alternately reported as happening on either an ATV or a golf cart. As a result, David Martínez ended up making his Champ Car debut driving Tracy's No. 3 car, instead of the No. 33 he was originally slated to drive.

Schedule

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The following rounds were included on the provisional calendars but later cancelled:

Schedule changes

Fourteen races were included on the 2006 schedule, up from 13 in 2005, marking the first time since 1999 that the series' schedule increased its number of races. The Grand Prix of Houston returned to the Champ Car World Series' schedule for the first time since 2001. It was to be held on a 1.7 mi street circuit surrounding the Astrodome and Reliant Stadium, as opposed to the previous street circuit in downtown Houston. The race was notably scheduled on the same day as the Indianapolis 500 time trials, and no Champ Car World Series teams ended up entering the Indianapolis 500 that year. After being excluded from the schedule in 2005, the Grand Prix of Road America was brought back in 2006, replacing the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and leaving the Time Warner Cable Road Runner 225 at the Milwaukee Mile as the lone oval track race on the calendar. However, series president Steve Johnson emphasized his commitment to continue hosting oval races for the series. The Gran Premio Telmex was pushed back from November 5 to November 12 at the request of the promoter in order to avoid conflict with All Souls' Day, the traditional national holiday of remembrance in Mexico.

In March 2005, Champ Car World Series co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven announced the series' debut in China, specifically at the Goldenport Park Circuit in Beijing, for the 2006 season, with Beijing State-owned Assets Management Company Chairman Li Aiqing taking the role of the event's promoter. The race was to be held either in May or September 2006, but was excluded from the provisional calendar because the event hadn't been finalized and eventually cancelled. Among the races included in the provisional calendar was the inaugural Ansan Champ Car Grand Prix at the streets of Ansan, South Korea, which was deferred from the 2005 season because of a lack of preparation for the event. The race was again called off in July 2006 because of troubles with the circuit's construction, and it was finally abandoned after two consecutive cancellations.

Background

Politics

The 2006 season marked the ten-year anniversary of the formation of the Indy Racing League (IRL), which resultantly split premier American open-wheel car racing into two sanctioning bodies. As the Champ Car World Series' contract with Dover Motorsports—owners of the Grand Prix of Long Beach—came to an end in 2005, IRL president Tony George assured teams of the IndyCar Series that they would be racing at Long Beach in 2006, along with a support race sanctioned by the Rolex Sports Car Series. However, Champ Car World Series co-owners Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerald Forsythe bought out the event in June 2005, guaranteeing that it would remain on their series' calendar for 2006 and beyond.

Results and standings

Races

Drivers' Championship standings

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Notes:

• Alex Tagliani withdrew from the race in Milwaukee after his car was heavily damaged in a crash during practice
• Mario Domínguez was docked 7 points for causing an avoidable crash in Milwaukee
• Paul Tracy was docked 7 points for causing an avoidable crash in San Jose
• Paul Tracy was once again docked 3 points for causing an avoidable crash in Denver
• Justin Wilson withdrew from the race in Surfers Paradise after breaking his wrist in a crash during practice

Nations' Cup standings

• Top result per race counts towards the Nations' Cup

Notes

Mexico was penalized 7 points as a result of a penalty applied to Mario Domínguez in Milwaukee

References

References

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