IndyCar: Scott Dixon to return to Chip Ganassi Racing in 2019

By Asher Fair | Aug 13, 2018

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - MAY 25: Scott Dixon of New Zealand drives the #9 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images) /

Four-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon is set to return to Chip Ganassi Racing in the 2019 IndyCar season for his 17th straight full-time season driving for the team.

Four-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon has driven for Chip Ganassi Racing since the 2002 CART season, and he has driven full-time for the team ever since his IndyCar career began in the 2003 season. That is set to continue to be the case through at least the 2019 season.

According to RACER, the official announcement regarding the 38-year-old Kiwi’s return to Chip Ganassi Racing for the 18th consecutive season and 17th consecutive full-time season next year is scheduled to be made later this morning, and a teleconference discussing the matter is scheduled to take place at 2:00 p.m. ET this afternoon.

Dixon, who currently leads the IndyCar championship standings by 46 points (494 to 448) over Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi with four races to go in the 17-race 2018 season, has racked up 43 victories over the course of his IndyCar career, a total that trails only the win totals of A.J. Foyt (67 wins) and Mario Andretti (52 wins) on the all-time IndyCar wins list.

More from IndyCar

Through 13 races so far this season, Dixon has earned three victories despite the fact that his start to the season was “slow” by his standards, as he did not finish on the podium in any of the season’s first four races. The only other season in his IndyCar career during which he failed to finish on the podium in all of the first four races was the 2005 season

Dixon won the first race of the Chevrolet Dual in Detroit on the streets of Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan before he won the DXC Technology 600 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas the following weekend. His most recent victory came in the Honda Indy Toronto on the streets of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

In the last nine races, Dixon has racked up his three victories, six podium finishes and eight top five finishes. He had just one top five finish, a fourth place finish in the Desert Diamond West Valley Casino Phoenix Grand Prix at ISM Raceway in Avondale, Arizona, in the season’s first four races. He has finished no lower than 12th in a race this year, and his average finish is 4.54.

Next. Top 10 IndyCar drivers of all-time. dark

Are you excited that one of IndyCar’s greatest drivers of all-time is set to return to the sport driving for Chip Ganassi for at least one more season? Do you believe that Scott Dixon will enter the 2019 season as a five-time champion seeking his sixth career IndyCar championship? Do you believe that he will stick around long enough to tie or potentially break A.J. Foyt’s all-time IndyCar championships record of seven?

Right now, the focus for Dixon is finishing out this season strong, and with the four tracks remaining on this year’s schedule being four tracks at which he has had past success (Pocono Raceway, Gateway Motorsports Park, Portland International Raceway and Sonoma Raceway), he knows exactly what he needs to do to secure his fifth career IndyCar championship.