1988 CART PPG Indy Car World Series

Danny Sullivan won four races, nine pole positions, and had 11 top five finishes en route to the championship title. Sullivan got off to a slow start, but at Indy, he and his Penske teammates (Rick Mears and Al Unser) dominated the month of May. The Penske team swept all three spots on the front row, and led 192 of the 200 laps. Sullivan himself qualified second and dominated the first half of the race. He dropped out just beyond the halfway point when a wing adjuster failed and sent his car into the wall. He rebounded over the next six races, posting two wins and no finish worse than 4th.

Sullivan's nearest competitors during the season were Al Unser Jr. and Bobby Rahal. Unser Jr. left Doug Shierson Racing after a winless 1987 campaign and returned to Galles Racing for 1988, and also got use of the coveted Chevrolet engine. Unser won at Long Beach and Toronto, then won a controversial race at the Meadowlands. Battling for the lead in the late stages of the race, he tangled with Emerson Fittipaldi, sending Fittipaldi into the tire barrier.

Back-to-back defending CART champion, and 1986 Indy winner Bobby Rahal returned for his last season at Truesports. The team dropped the Cosworth DFX and the took up development of the Judd AV engine. The engine was known to be down on horsepower, but excelled in fuel mileage and reliability, particularly in the 500-mile races. Rahal finished 4th at Indy, second at the Michigan 500, and won the Pocono 500. His ten top five finishes kept him in contention for the title, but with only one win, he was struggling to keep pace with the Chevy-powered teams.

After winning the Michigan 500, Danny Sullivan took the points lead for the first time all year. The lead was short-lived, however, as he wrecked at Pocono. Rahal and Unser Jr. finished 1-2 at Pocono, and the top three in the standings were separated by only 5 points with five races remaining.

At Mid-Ohio, Rahal crashed out, and his title hopes began to fade. Sullivan and Unser were separated by 1 point with four races to go. All three drivers finished strong at Road America, and the championship battle pushed on. The turning point of the season came at Nazareth. Al Unser Jr. blew his engine, Rahal was not a factor, but Sullivan dominated. Sullivan started from the pole, and led the final 74 laps to score a crucial victory. With only two races left, Sullivan had a commanding 25-point lead. At the second-to-last race of the season at Laguna Seca, Sullivan pulled out a hat trick by winning the pole, leading the most laps, and winning the race. With still one race left, Sullivan clinched the 1988 CART title, holding an insurmountable 35-point lead. It was Sullivan's first and only championship title and Penske's first since 1985.

With the championship decided for Sullivan, the season finale at Miami became a race to see who would finish second in points. Rahal held an 8-point lead over Al Unser Jr., with Mario Andretti and Rick Mears also lurking in 4th and 5th, respectively. Unser Jr. dominated the race, leading 82 (of 112) laps and winning for the second time at the Tamiami Park circuit. Rahal blew an engine, Mario Andretti dropped out, and Mears finished second. The results saw a shake up in the standings, with Unser Jr. finishing second in points, Rahal third, and Mears slipping ahead of Andretti by 3 points for 4th and 5th.

Other stories from 1988 included A. J. Foyt returning to a full-time schedule (from 1980-1987, he only ran a partial schedule), and the Porsche Indy car team expanding to full-time with driver Teo Fabi. Rookie John Andretti suffered a devastating crash at the Pocono 500, but would recover before the end of the season. Jim Crawford, who suffered serious leg injuries in a crash in 1987, returned to the cockpit with a notable run at Indianapolis where he led 8 laps and finished 6th, the best result to-date for the Buick V-6 engine.

Another story was the continued downward spiral of March. After Portland the Patrick Racing Team changed from the latest March to a Lola fleet which consisted of the current model and a year old Lola.

The following teams and drivers competed for the 1988 Indy Car World Series.

Team	Chassis	Engine	Tires	No	Drivers	Rounds
Full-time
Newman/Haas Racing	Lola T8800	Chevrolet	G	6	Mario Andretti	All
Patrick Racing	March 88C	Chevrolet	G	20	Emerson Fittipaldi	1-5
	Lola T8700 Lola T8800					6-15
Galles Racing	March 88C	Chevrolet/Cosworth	G	3	Al Unser Jr.	All
Team Penske	Penske PC-17	Chevrolet	G	5	Rick Mears	All
				9	Danny Sullivan	All
				1	Al Unser	3
				60		9-10
Porsche North America	Porsche 2708	Porsche	G	8	Teo Fabi	All
Truesports	Lola T8800	Judd/Cosworth	G	1/4	Bobby Rahal	All
Kraco Racing	March 88C	Cosworth	G	18	Michael Andretti	1-9
	Lola					10-15
Doug Shierson Racing	March	Cosworth	G	30	Raul Boesel	1-2, 4-5
	Lola					3, 6-15
Raynor Racing	Lola	Cosworth	G	10	Derek Daly	All
Arciero Racing	March	Cosworth	G	12	John Jones	All
Vince Granatelli Racing	Lola/March	Cosworth	G	2/4	Roberto Guerrero	All except 7-8
				2/4	Al Unser	7-8
				58/71/85	Gordon Johncock	3, 9-10
Machinists Union Racing	March	Cosworth	G	11	Kevin Cogan	All except 8-11
					Scott Pruett	8, 11
				55	Scott Atchison	All except 3, 13
				29/11	Rich Vogler	3, 9-10
		Buick		28	Pancho Carter	3
Dick Simon Racing	Lola	Cosworth	G	7	Arie Luyendyk	All
				22	Dick Simon	1, 3-4, 9-10, 13
					Scott Pruett	2
					Didier Theys	5-8, 11-12, 14-15
				23	Fulvio Ballabio	2, 11-12
					Tero Palmroth	3, 5
					Jean-Pierre Frey	14-15
A. J. Foyt Enterprises	Lola	Cosworth	G	14	A. J. Foyt	All except 9
					Johnny Rutherford	9
	March			48	Rocky Moran	3
		Chevrolet		84	Stan Fox	3
Bettenhausen Motorsports	Lola/March	Cosworth/Judd	G	16	Tony Bettenhausen Jr.	All except 5 and 15
					Dennis Vitolo	15
Alex Morales Motorsports	March	Cosworth	G	21	Howdy Holmes	All
Hemelgarn Racing	Lola	Judd/Cosworth/Buick	G	91	Scott Brayton	All except 11-12 and 14
				71	Ludwig Heimrath Jr.	2-3, 5-8, 11-12, 15
					Ken Johnson	14
				81/71	Tom Sneva	3, 9
Gohr Racing	March	Cosworth	G	56	Rocky Moran	2, 5-8, 11-12, 14-15
					Bill Vukovich III	1, 3, 9-10
Curb Racing	Lola	Cosworth	G	98	John Andretti	All except 11-12 and 14-15
Leader Card Racing	Lola	Cosworth	G	24	Randy Lewis	All except 13
				16	Dominic Dobson	5
Part-time
Dobson Motorsports	Lola	Cosworth	G	17/92	Dominic Dobson	3, 14
Dale Coyne Racing	March	Chevrolet	G	19	Dale Coyne	3-11, 13-15
					Dominic Dobson	2
Los Angeles Drywall	March	Cosworth	G	27	Dick Ferguson	2
					Ed Pimm	3
Bernstein Racing	Lola	Buick	G	15	Jim Crawford	3
				17	Johnny Rutherford	3
KargoStopper	Lola	Cosworth	G	88	Darin Brassfield	11, 14
BDR Racing	March	Cosworth	G	43	Steve Bren	14
Gary Trout Motorsports	March	Cosworth	G	33	Steve Chassey	3
				35	Ed Pimm	11-12
Andale Racing	March	Cosworth	G	69	Bernard Jourdain	14-15
U.S. Engineering	March	Cosworth	G	77	Phil Krueger	6, 9-10
Kent Baker Racing	March	Cosworth	G	97	Phil Krueger	3
Scheid Tire Centers	March	Cosworth	G	46	Gary Bettenhausen	3
Calumet Farms	March	Chevrolet	G	84	George Snider	3
GF Racing	March	Cosworth	G	25	Giupponi Franca	11, 14
					José Romano	12, 15
Indiana Carbon	March	Cosworth	G	87	Spike Gehlhausen	3
Mergard	March	Cosworth	G	36	Harry Sauce	3
Performers, Inc.	March	Cosworth	G	77	Tom Bigelow	3

• "1988 CART Results". racing-reference.info. Retrieved 2015-12-21.
• "1988 CART PPG IndyCar World Series standings". race-database.com. Retrieved 2011-01-15.
• Åberg, Andreas. "PPG Indy Car World Series 1988". Driver Database. Retrieved 2009-05-19.
• "1988 PPG Indy Car World Series". Champ Car Stats. Retrieved 2009-05-19.
• "Official Box Score: 72nd Indianapolis 500-Mile Race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway". Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Archived from the original on 2008-05-14. Retrieved 2009-05-19.
• "Standings after Miami". Champ Car World Series. Archived from the original on 22 October 2008. Retrieved 2009-05-19.

• 1988 Indianapolis 500
• 1988 American Racing Series season