Just before the long-awaited announcement that Christian Lundgaard is set to join Chip Ganassi Racing as Scott Dixon's replacement behind the wheel of the No. 9 Honda for the 2027 NTT IndyCar Series season and beyond, RACER.com reported another small yet significant development in the Ganassi driver change saga.
Chip Ganassi Racing will not allow Dixon to officially depart for Arrow McLaren until January 1, 2027, as they have opted to keep him on gardening leave through the end of 2026.
The 2027 season is set to start on Sunday, March 7, 2027, meaning that about two-thirds of Dixon's offseason is technically set to be spent as a Ganassi driver.
Scott Dixon gardening leave enforced by Ganassi
There is nothing unusual about this decision, since Dixon's contract does indeed run through the end of the calendar year. Non-compete clauses of this nature are nothing new, even though they aren't always enforced
But anybody expecting 25 years of goodwill from the most successful driver-team partnership in IndyCar history to override Dixon's now-former team's desire to get one-up on Zak Brown and company and be a thorn in their side has to think again.
Could some say it's petty? Maybe. But those same fans will tell you that IndyCar is in great need of the kind of rivalries that the new-look Ganassi and McLaren squads look poised to deliver for years to come.
On the other hand, of course, Lundgaard is set to join Ganassi with immediate effect, after that announcement was made later in the day on Tuesday.
The decision to release Lundgaard, who finished a team-leading third in the championship standings with two wins and a team-best seven podium finishes in 2026, which was just his second with McLaren, has always been viewed as baffling.
Dixon is more than two decades older than Lundgaard and has clearly taken a step backward, evidenced by his first winless season in 22 years this past year.
McLaren still had a chance to keep Lundgaard but also brought in Felix Rosenqvist, who is actually the driver set to replace Lundgaard, with Dixon set to take over Nolan Siegel's No. 6 Chevrolet instead.
While Rosenqvist is this year's Indy 500 winner, the team already cut ties with him once back in 2023, and they would have actually done so in 2022 had Alex Palou been available.
And for all that's been made about Lundgaard's alleged struggles on ovals, Rosenqvist's Indy 500 win remains his only oval podium in eight years, leading to further speculation that perhaps it was Pato O'Ward who had more to do with the decision than he is willing to let on.
It's hard to argue that Ganassi didn't get the best deal here, and it's hard to argue that Lundgaard didn't actually fall upward into a better opportunity than he would have had, had his previous team actually appropriately valued what he brought to the team. Heck, he beat Palou in road course points, which is no easy task.
Now McLaren must wait to officially begin working with Dixon, a reality that team principal Tony Kanaan even admitted "is not ideal" at a point in time where they are clearly in win-now mode. That is especially true for the Indy 500, as McLaren continue to pursue the "Triple Crown".
Perhaps Lundgaard's Ganassi deal will also prove to be "not ideal" for McLaren in the long run, if he can prove to be every bit the thorn in their side that fans believe he will be after he was kicked to the curb for no obvious reason.
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