IndyCar: Will Jimmie Johnson be replaced in 2023?

With Jimmie Johnson retiring from full-time competition after the 2022 IndyCar season, will Chip Ganassi Racing replace him for 2023?

Jimmie Johnson announced that he will be stepping away from full-time racing for 2023, a move that vacates one of Chip Ganassi Racing’s four IndyCar seats.

Johnson wrapped up a 19-year full-time career in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2020 and moved to IndyCar in 2021 as the driver of Chip Ganassi Racing’s #48 Honda in the road and street course races in 2021.

In 2022, he took on the oval races as well and spent the season competing full-time. Through two years, he never finished higher than 16th place in a road or street course races, but he did finish in sixth at Texas Motor Speedway and fifth at Iowa Speedway this past season. He finished in 21st in the championship standings in his lone season as a full-time driver.

With Johnson no longer driving the #48 Honda full-time next year, will Chip Ganassi Racing replace him?

There are several layers to this seemingly simple question. Johnson confirmed before he made this decision that he has the financial backing from Carvana for whatever his 2023 racing schedule might include, and that still might include IndyCar races. Should that indeed include IndyCar races, he wants to be back with Chip Ganassi Racing, as he feels like he is part of the “family”.

So Chip Ganassi Racing could end up doing something similar to what they did in 2021, with Johnson in the #48 Honda part-time. In that case, would the #48 Honda have another part-time driver or other part-time drivers, or would it simply be a part-time entry for Johnson only?

The two less complicated options are that the team replace Johnson with a full-time driver, or they drop the #48 Honda as a full-time entry.

Should they replace him, David Malukas has emerged as a possibility, even though he is under contract with Dale Coyne Racing and HMD Motorsports through at least 2023. HMD Trucking is owned by his father Henry, so it stands to reason, but HMD Motorsports are keen to promote Indy Lights champion Linus Lundqvist to the team.

But at this point, there aren’t enough Honda engines for an expansion, so unless Takuma Sato, who is also under contract through 2023, decides to retire, that isn’t exactly the most likely scenario.

That is, unless Chip Ganassi Racing downsize. So Chip Ganassi Racing could use this as sort of a leverage to get Malukas “loaned out” to the #48 Honda, since they could always sign somebody else (and there are several options available), thus leaving Lundqvist out of the picture.

Malukas has even stated that there are “hush hush” options on the table for 2023, despite having been “confirmed” by his current organization for next year.

Dale Coyne Racing would stick with two cars, but Lundqvist would be in one of them. Malukas would be with a bigger team, and of course, his father would get to watch him in a, with all due respect, more competitive car. Everybody wins.

But the downsizing option isn’t as far-fetched as it seems either.

Marcus Ericsson is set to return to the #8 Honda, Scott Dixon is set to return to the #9 Honda, and Alex Palou is set to return to the #10 Honda after a bizarre sequence of events which included McLaren announcing him as part of their team for 2023.

All three drivers finished in the top six in both the 2021 and 2022 championship standings, so a three-car team wouldn’t be a bad idea.

It’s something that Chip Ganassi Racing have done before. After running four cars in 2017, they downsized to two in 2018. They ran two again in 2019 before expanding to three in 2020, and they only expanded to four again when Johnson joined the team in 2021.

There is always the chance that Johnson’s schedule will include only the Indy 500, as he has said that his 2023 schedule is likely to only include “bucket list” events, and a downsize would still make it possible for an Indy 500 one-off, whether it be for Johnson or Tony Kanaan or somebody else.

In that event, they could really run this car as a fourth or a fifth entry, depending on their replacement decision. Kanaan, who was the oval driver of the #48 Honda in 2021, ran only the Indy 500 in 2022, and he did it in a fifth (one-off) entry for which he secured the funding on his own. With Johnson already having the funding secured for 2023, this too should be considered.