2008 Champ Car season

The 2008 Champ Car World Series season would have been the 5th season of the Champ Car World Series and 30th season of the series dating back to the 1979 formation of Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART). It was scheduled to begin on April 20, 2008, and end on November 9. The season was canceled on February 21, 2008, because of the buyout of Champ Car by the rival IndyCar Series, resulting in the reunification of American open-wheel racing.[1]

2008 Champ Car season
Champ Car World Series
Season
Races14
Start dateApril 20
End dateNovember 9
Awards

As the IndyCar Series was already scheduled for a race in Japan the same weekend, the 2008 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, which also could not be moved, was run as originally planned, with teams that had been part of Champ Car in 2007 participating in Long Beach using the same Champ Car rules and vehicles as the previous season but still receiving IndyCar rankings points. The race was treated as a farewell to the Champ Car World Series, and won by Will Power. The following year, the event fully became part of the IndyCar schedule.

The Rexall Grand Prix of Edmonton and the Gold Coast Indy 300 in Australia were also retained and added to the IndyCar Series schedule.[1] The schedule originally included what would have been the first Monterey Grand Prix since 2004 and the planned debut of the Champ Car Grand Prix of Spain.

Later on, Vancouver (2004), Toronto (2009), Houston (2013), Road America (2016), Portland (2018), and Laguna Seca (2019) would also be revived by the unified series.

Races

The 2008 Champ Car schedule was announced in November 2007 before the unification announcement

Rnd Date Race Name Circuit City/Location
1 April 20 United States Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Streets of Long Beach Long Beach, California
2 April 27 United States Grand Prix of Houston JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park Houston, Texas
3 May 18 United States Champ Car Grand Prix at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca Monterey, California
4 June 1 Belgium Champ Car Grand Prix of Belgium at Circuit Zolder Circuit Zolder Heusden-Zolder, Belgium
5 June 8 Spain Champ Car Grand Prix of Spain at Circuito Permanente de Jerez Circuito de Jerez Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
6 June 22 United States Champ Car Grand Prix of Cleveland Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport Cleveland, Ohio
7 June 29 Canada Champ Car Mont-Tremblant Circuit Mont-Tremblant Mont-Tremblant, Quebec
8 July 6 Canada Steelback Grand Prix of Toronto Exhibition Place Toronto, Ontario
9 July 20 Canada Rexall Grand Prix of Edmonton Edmonton City Centre Airport Edmonton, Alberta
10 July 27 United States Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland Portland International Raceway Portland, Oregon
11 August 10 United States Road America Grand Prix Road America Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin
12 September 14 Netherlands Champ Car Grand Prix of Holland at TT Circuit Assen TT Circuit Assen Assen, Netherlands
13 October 26 Australia Gold Coast Indy 300 Surfers Paradise Street Circuit Surfers Paradise, Australia
14 November 9 Mexico Gran Premio Tecate Presentado por Banamex Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez Mexico City, Mexico

Team and driver lineup

The following teams and drivers were expected to compete for the 2008 Champ Car season. All teams would have used a Cosworth 2.65-litre turbocharged V8 engine, a Panoz DP01 chassis, and Bridgestone tires.

Team No. Driver(s) Primary Sponsors
United States Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing 1 United Kingdom Justin Wilson[2] McDonald's
2 United States Graham Rahal[2] Hole in the Wall Camps
United States Forsythe/Pettit Racing 3 Canada Paul Tracy Indeck
7 France Franck Montagny
United Kingdom Minardi Team USA 4 Venezuela E. J. Viso PDVSA
14 Netherlands Robert Doornbos OzJet
Australia Team Australia 5 Australia Will Power Aussie Vineyards
15 New Zealand Matt Halliday Walker Racing
United States Rocketsports Racing 8 Brazil Enrique Bernoldi[3] Sangari
United States Dale Coyne Racing 11 Brazil Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne Racing
19 Brazil Mario Moraes Sonny's BBQ
United States KV Racing Technology 21 Canada Alex Tagliani PKV Racing
22 Spain Oriol Servià[4]
United States Pacific Coast Motorsports 29 United States Alex Figge Pacific Coast Motorsports
96 Mexico Mario Domínguez Visit Mexico City
United States Conquest Racing 24 France Franck Perera[5] ARES
34 France Nelson Philippe

See also

References
  1. "2008 IRL IndyCar Series". Champ Car Stats. Archived from the original on May 2, 2009. Retrieved May 19, 2009.
  2. "Justin Wilson, Graham Rahal To Make Up Newman/Haas/Lanigan Lineup". champcarworldseries.com. January 29, 2008. Archived from the original on February 6, 2008. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
  3. "Rocketsports Signs Former F1 Driver". champcarworldseries.com. January 28, 2008. Archived from the original on March 4, 2008. Retrieved January 28, 2008.
  4. "Oriol Servià Signs With PKV". champcarworldseries.com. January 5, 2008. Retrieved January 10, 2008.
  5. "Conquest Racing Confirms Atlantic's 'Fearless' Franck Perera For 2008 Champ Car World Series Season". champcarworldseries.com. February 6, 2008. Archived from the original on March 4, 2008. Retrieved February 6, 2008.
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