Now, the spotlight is firmly fixed on Chip Ganassi Racing as the NTT IndyCar SERIES looks toward the 2027 season, and the questions facing the organization are massive. Curt Cavin points straight to Alex Palou and the sweeping changes within the organization's engineering department as the most fascinating watch. Palou is hunting a fifth consecutive series championship, a feat that would send his legacy to an all-time level, especially with rivals reorganizing to dethrone him and the No. 10 car.
That said, the garage has undergone a serious winter makeover. Arni Sribhen notes that foundational team members have departed, leaving new additions to mix with what remains at the 18-time IndyCar SERIES champions. How long it takes for the engineering stand to gel with Alex Palou, Christian Lundgaard, and Kyffin Simpson is a burning question. A slow start to these brand-new relationships could easily prove to be a season-killer before May.
Then there is Christian Lundgaard, stepping into the fold after logging back-to-back top-five finishes in the championship standings with Arrow McLaren, yet finishing third last season wasn't enough to secure his seat there. Eric Smith highlights the intense pressure facing Lundgaard as he approaches his first campaign with Ganassi, particularly with the schedule opening up on two street circuits where concrete walls punish overdriving, plus a trip to Phoenix Raceway—an oval where McLaren had seemingly questioned his ability to deliver results.
For Paul Kelly, the underlying narrative is about whether Ganassi can return to its golden eras of intra-team warfare. During the team's two biggest historical peaks, elite pairings like Jimmy Vasser and Alex Zanardi in the mid-1990s, or Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti in the late 2000s and early 2010s, pushed each other to the absolute limit. That dynamic has been entirely absent over the last four seasons as Palou utterly laid waste to his teammates and the rest of the field.
The stats tell a brutal story of Palou's recent dominance: the closest any teammate got in the last four years was a 78-point gap by Scott Dixon in 2023, while Palou crushed Dixon by 259 and 300 points in the last two seasons alone. Now that Dixon has departed for Arrow McLaren, the big question is whether newcomer Christian Lundgaard can finally drag the team back to its days as a true two-headed monster.
