Two-Car Cadillac DPi Effort Filled with Champions, Past Rolex 24 Winners
By Mark Robinson
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Chip Ganassi Racing, the eight-time Rolex 24 At Daytona winning team including six overall victories, has put together a formidable two-car lineup as it chases another conquest in 2022.
CGR announced its driver lineups Friday for the Nos. 01 and 02 Cadillac DPi-V.Rs that will compete in the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class. Renger van der Zande returns behind the wheel of the No. 01 V-Performance Academy Cadillac, where he won one race and finished fourth in the DPi standings in his first year with the team.
Joining van der Zande for the full IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season in the No. 01 will be Sebastien Bourdais, who drove a Cadillac the past two seasons for JDC-Miller MotorSports and picked up a win last year in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts. Two of CGR’s IndyCar Series drivers, Scott Dixon and Alex Palou, fill out the roster for the historic 60th Rolex 24 on Jan. 29-30. It gives the No. 01 a whopping 11 IndyCar championships among its driver quartet (Dixon six, Bourdais four and Palou last year), plus van der Zande’s 2016 WeatherTech Championship crown in the Prototype Challenge class.
Van Der Zande, Dixon and Bourdais also own multiple Rolex 24 At Daytona victories. Van Der Zande scored back-to-back overall victories in 2019 and 2020 with Wayne Taylor Racing, the latter of which came with Dixon as part of the driver lineup. That was Dixon’s third overall Rolex 24 victory – the first two coming in 2006 and 2008 with Chip Ganassi Racing – and he also won the 2018 Rolex 24 in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class in a Ford GT for the Ganassi squad, giving him a total of four Rolex winner’s watches. Bourdais won the Rolex 24 overall with Action Express Racing in 2014 and scored Ford Chip Ganassi Racing’s first of two-straight GTLM wins at Daytona in 2017.
Meanwhile, the No. 02 Cadillac Accessories Cadillac will see team newcomers Earl Bamber, a two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans overall winner, and Alex Lynn drive for the full season. Kevin Magnussen, van der Zande’s teammate in the No. 01 last season, will co-drive the No. 02 for the Rolex 24 this year, as will Marcus Ericsson, yet another driver from CGR’s IndyCar Series stable.
“Our Cadillac drivers lead by example,” said Mike Hull, CGR managing director. “Each have already won on the world stage. They unselfishly mirror each other’s performance on and off track. Their equal experience combined with skill set is driven through zero agenda.
“In today’s world of equal performance standards, the driver’s contribution is the ultimate separator. Our roster has eight of the very best in equal Cadillacs. Bamber, Bourdais, Ericsson, Dixon, Lynn, Magnussen and van der Zande – this group drives as one.”
CGR entries have claimed the prototype/overall victory in the famed 24-hour race at Daytona International Speedway in 2006, ’07, ’08, ’11, ’13 and ’15, as well as GTLM class triumphs in 2017 and ’18.
Action this year begins at Daytona with the Roar Before the Rolex 24 from Jan. 21-23, which includes test sessions and the 100-minute qualifying race that sets the Rolex 24 starting grid. Rolex 24 race week runs Jan. 27-30, with the twice-around-the-clock event on the 3.56-mile road course starting at 1:40 p.m. ET Saturday, Jan. 29.