Chip Ganassi Racing has announced it will return to the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship in 2021 with a single Cadillac DPi-V.R entry.
CGR, which also runs a pair of Chevy Camaro ZL1 1LE entries in the NASCAR Cup Series, has seven IMSA championship titles to its name, along with eight class wins in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The team left IMSA at the end of the 2019 season after Ford elected to pull its factory funding for the Ford GT GTE program, but has expressed a desire to return to top-level prototype racing in the American series since its departure.
“Seven-time IMSA Champions and eight-time Rolex 24 At Daytona Winners Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) announced their return to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with Cadillac by fielding a Daytona Prototype international (DPi) entry beginning with the 2021 season,” the team said in a prepared statement. “Driver lineups and partnership details will be announced in the off-season in preparation for the 2021 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.”
Cadillac Racing lost Wayne Taylor Racing, one of its strongest DPi teams, to rival Acura for the 2021 IMSA season. CGR could help offset any challenges it would have otherwise faced losing its strongest customer, given its strong reputation and winning history. While CGR last ran a GTE program for Ford, it also previously ran the Ford EcoBoost DP program on behalf of the Dearborn-based automaker between 2014 and 2016.
“We are very excited to welcome Chip Ganassi Racing to the Cadillac competition family,” Cadillac VP Rory Harvey said in a prepared statement. “Their success across many forms of racing, including sports cars, will be a great addition to our IMSA WeatherTech line-up. Chip’s pedigree at winning the Rolex 24 At Daytona eight times as well as their championships in this form of racing gives Cadillac another stalwart team to compete for the 2021 IMSA DPi championship.”
“We can’t wait to get back to IMSA and fight for the overall win after several years competing in the GTLM class,” added Ganassi. “Our relationship with General Motors has expanded from the NASCAR Cup Series and we couldn’t be happier. Partnering with Cadillac is a tremendous opportunity for our team and we want to start delivering for them in January at the Rolex 24 At Daytona.”
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Comments
Good to get rid of Wayne!
why?
Glad to see Cadillac is continuing it’s race program. Surprised it’s CGR though but he should bring Cadillac to a higher level. Taylor will be back once BoP settles in the Acura in 2021 as they escaped it in 2020 while the other competitors did not.
The BOP will bounce both was as it always does.
Money was scarce this year and Wayne was offered a lot of money so I can’t blame him. Many teams may not run next year in many series due to the lack of money from virus issues.
I am just glad GM got Chip to come back.
Cadillac has been dominating since at least 2018… What the hell are you talking about?
Wayne Taylor wasn’t the only team to run Cadillacs… And they don’t run any factory squad, each Cadillac team, gets a factory engineer to work on the engine and electronics since they have to be factory based parts.
Settle down Sheldon…Dominating wasn’t the issue. We know they have been a force in many sanctions with many outstanding drivers. Money is the factor. Taylor made it clear that his Cadillac could take first every year but has to abide by the BoP and he’s been complaining just as the other Cadillac teams for the last 2 years. Even the Mazda’s.
The engineers that service the engines come from the engine builder that being Richard Childress Raceing. The engines and most of the engine parts are developed and built there. all GM does is to write the checks to Richard. Very little production content in engine other than block and head castings. Even the ECUs are aftermarket. Was Bosch’s they (IMSA) may have changed suppliers. Oh I forgot GM does supply the Decals.
Watch, I expect Jimmy Johnson and Chase Elliot will be in this car at least for Daytona.
I just heard that Kevin Magnussen has a big chance together with Renger van der Zande.
what is the point of this series?? What does GM get out of it?
And they race for brand exposure, every major luxury car brand, outside of Rolls-Royce has a presence in motorsports… That’s what they get.
What Sheldon said and testing individual parts on the race cars so they could eventually go into production cars. Surviving the seasonal race series with these modified parts make there way into every day production cars. Even fluids and oils.