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Max Chilton’s Possible Long-Term Contract Is A Wise Move

By Brittany Frederick

Max Chilton waits on pit lane. Photo Credit: Chris Jones/Courtesy of IndyCar
Max Chilton waits on pit lane. Photo Credit: Chris Jones/Courtesy of IndyCar /
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Chip Ganassi Racing is reportedly looking to keep IndyCar rookie Max Chilton long-term, and that move could benefit both CGR and IndyCar.

Is Max Chilton the future of Chip Ganassi Racing’s IndyCar program? Reports Tuesday say that CGR is hoping to keep the rookie driver in the No. 8 entry with a multi-year contract, though no deal is in place yet.

“We are working really hard to retain Max for hopefully more than one additional year if we can make that happen,” CGR managing director Mike Hull told Racer. “He will benefit greatly if we are able to do that together.

“It’s a terrific opportunity for Max to be able to excel, and the benefit will come to all of us when he continues with Ganassi Racing.”

Hull is one of the top men in IndyCar – he also calls the shots every weekend for four-time champion Scott Dixon – so if he believes that Chilton is worth sticking with, then the team should listen.

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But the argument for Chilton staying at Ganassi goes beyond that, to the future of the team and the future of IndyCar.

In his first year since coming over from Formula One Chilton has been quietly fighting to find his place. It didn’t help that the bar for the 2016 rookie class was raised by fellow F1 transplant Alexander Rossi winning the Indianapolis 500, but he’s yielded just two Top 10 finishes over 15 races.

However, his results don’t really tell the complete story. Chilton has been steadily showing improvement; he posted his best qualifying position of the year last time out at Watkins Glen. And if he holds serve in the IndyCar championship this weekend at Sonoma, his 19th place result will be one spot better than the 20th place achieved by Sage Karam and co-driver Sebastian Saavedra in the No. 8 last year.

So in one season Chilton has been generally on par with the tandem he replaced. And he’s also delivered in two ways that Karam did not – he’s demonstrated an ability to consistently get the car home in one piece, and proven himself to be much more collected off the track.

Not damaging the car means money that Ganassi is able to save, which is no footnote considering how critical funds are to race teams in 2016. And not to disparage Karam, but Chilton must be one of the quietest guys in the IndyCar paddock. He’s soft-spoken, humble and you can’t imagine him getting into a fight with anyone.

So why not keep him?

Hull’s quote above addresses the one primary criticism of Chilton, and he’s exactly right. It’s not fair to expect every driver to be an immediate success; a select few are (see again: Dixon), but many need time to find their form. The way they do that is by having the time to settle with a team and continue to develop.

Look at Gabby Chaves. He was the 2015 Rookie of the Year for IndyCar, but we didn’t get to see how much better he could’ve been because he lost his full-time ride and ended up having to piece together a handful of drives for a whole other race team.

If we really want to see what Chilton is made of, we have to give him time to grow, and that’s more than just another one-year deal where he doesn’t have to keep worrying about his future.

That’s the primary word: future.

Ganassi has to be looking long-term not just at the No. 8 but its entire team. Dixon and Tony Kanaan should be able to drive as long as they want, but whenever they do decide to hang up their helmets, the team needs to have talent ready in the pipeline.

Charlie Kimball isn’t going to be the entire CGR squad by himself. You need someone else and someone who isn’t having their first year on the team be that transition year. You could go after a big-name free agent like Josef Newgarden, and hope you can lock him up for a multi-year contract, but continuing to develop your own talent that you already have in the system and know already works with your team members isn’t such a bad idea either.

IndyCar’s rookie class has been very promising this year with the arrivals of Rossi, Spencer Pigot and not-really-a-rookie Conor Daly. You could even throw RC Enerson in there, even though he’s only driven two races. But this is where teams, and the league, should look to build as much as possible.

Don’t let what happened to Chaves happen to these guys. Keep them around, let them develop both on and off the track so that when it becomes their time to be the front-runners of IndyCar they’ve built up their resumes, their fan bases and we want to see them race.

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Max Chilton’s made a tremendous effort to not only win IndyCar races but represent the league well. His results haven’t been there, but one bad season does not an IndyCar driver make. Just ask Simon Pagenaud.

Signing Chilton to a long-term contract is good for him, good for Chip Ganassi Racing, and it could be good for IndyCar. Let’s hope that he returns to the grid in 2017.