Dario Franchitti: Why Target Chip Ganassi Racing is a winning machine

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When I first came over to America in 1997, Chip’s team was the one to beat. The previous year, I’d been sitting with Norbert Haug of Mercedes-Benz after DTM races watching Jimmy Vasser and Alex Zanardi winning the championship, they were always at the front and that was true in ’97. In ’98 at Team Green, I could start fighting with them more and more, and in ’99 we were battling Juan [Montoya] for the championship.

Then, at the end of 2001, I was talking with Chip about the following year and I remember it was the night before my wedding and I had a contract from him, ready to sign so it was a question of whether I wanted to stay with Barry Green or switch to Chip Ganassi Racing. In the end, it just came down to loyalty to Barry and the sponsors because Team Green had been a good team to drive for.

From then on, I was quite happy about what then evolved into Andretti Green Racing but I always kept an eye on how Ganassi were doing. They went through a tough spot in ’04 and ’05, and then in ’06 they picked it up big style…while I was going through a tough spot. I had such a terrible year that, to be honest, I wasn’t really looking for a ride: I was more concerned about the keeping the one I had! But in ’07 I won the championship with AGR after a good hard battle with Ganassi and Scott Dixon and then I left IndyCar and I was racing for Chip but in NASCAR.

In the end, it was just circumstances that brought us together and back to IndyCar. By the time I went to Detroit in ’08 to watch my brother Marino in the sports car race, Chip had had to close my NASCAR Nationwide program which left me at a bit of a loose end, to say the least. That was not a good year at all. Stock cars just weren’t for me. But a day or two before that Detroit weekend, Dan [Wheldon] had decided he was leaving Ganassi…

Now Chip and I had talked about the IndyCar program during the season but the discussions had never gone very far. I was trying to make NASCAR work for me, so I had felt I needed to show Chip that was my focus, but once that Nationwide team closed, it was game on. And I was watching the IndyCar boys run through Turns 1 and 2 at Belle Isle and I thought, “Yeah, I want to get back to doing that.” And it all came together that day.

I was a bit nervous, I admit, about driving for a team I’d been competing against forever. I’d had no insight into how the team operated at all, had no communication with the IndyCar side of things at all. I’d known Mike Hull from conversations we’d had in the motorhome lot after races in years past, and I knew Chris Simmons from working with him at Andretti but I didn’t know many of the guys.

I remember I had a few shocks when I drove an oval again in an IndyCar, just because of how precise you had to be compared with a stock car. Then I drove on that little road course, MSR Houston, and I watched the way the team worked and then we went to Australia for that non-championship race in Surfers Paradise, and I got even more of an insight into their methodology. And it was during practice I thought: “No wonder they were so difficult to beat all those years.” The way they went racing, the people they had, the attitude they had and the facilities they had – mind blowing. I remember thinking, “OK, so this is the level I have to operate at…”

Chip has a will to win like you wouldn’t believe. If he wins the race on Sunday, he gets home to Pittsburgh and on Monday he’s like, “Right, what have we done to make sure we win the next one too?” He’s surrounded himself with guys who have a similar outlook – Mike Hull, Barry Wanser, Scott Harmer, Julian Robertson, Eric Bretzman and my race engineer Chris Simmons [BELOW] … None of the crew chiefs, engineers, anyone on the team are ever satisfied with having won something in the past: they want to win the next one. Look at the drivers: Dixie has got endless desire to win. He’s won a lot of championships and races and he has a lot of money in the bank, and so it would be very easy for him to step back. But he has absolutely no interest in doing that, he’s not wired that way.

That’s what keeps Ganassi on top: it’s a team, but it’s each individual person having the right attitude. I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with very good teams, but these guys are brilliant. When I joined, I had something to prove anyway after the NASCAR debacle but the team around me meant I went about it the right way. I won that first championship with them in ’09 and then another and another, but then I knew when I signed with Chip what was required of me, and I think all the guys on the team are like that, and I loved every bit of racing with him. Every bit of it.

We talk about how good this team is, that it’s a winning machine, but they’re my friends too. Some of the stuff that we went through as a group proved to me they’re an exceptional bunch of people too, and that includes Chip. He has that desire to win, yes, and he’s that personality at the top who’s pushing everybody, but I’ve also got to say that he’s a reasonable man: I mean, I’ve had two cross words with him in six years – one when the NASCAR deal fell through, and one when I brought my backpack onto his plane and he got a bit grumpy about it and I got a bit grumpy back. And that was it! And if you’re in trouble, he’s the guy to have in your corner. There’s a lot of good stuff he does that he doesn’t say anything about – helping people out – but that’s the side to him that he doesn’t want people to know about.

People wonder how anyone could have kept a big partner like Target for so long but it’s really simple – Target just want us to win. We’ll do events at Long Beach, at Sonoma, chatting to sponsors, but they’re so low maintenance because they’re just into what we’re doing, they’re excited to be part of a winning partnership. We go up to Minneapolis to visit their headquarters, and the way they are is energizing; on a simple business level, they’re dynamic and full of ideas and it’s interesting to learn from watching how people conduct themselves in that business. But they’re genuinely into their racing and long before they reached this 25-year milestone, they were a part of the team. So if you’re waving from the center step of the podium, obviously there’s personal satisfaction, and you’re proud for the guys in the team, but I think it only takes a couple of races to realize you’re also representing a brand, and there’s a whole bunch of people across the continent cheering for you because they work for Target. That’s a hell of a good feeling.

Obviously I’m no longer going to get that opportunity, but I’m glad I had the opportunity for a while; we had some proper success together. And I’m glad I can continue that relationship. Actually there’s another thing about Chip: I don’t really know how much he needed me, but when he said, “I’d love you to carry on being part of the team,” while I was recovering from the smash in Houston, that was exactly what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it because I knew he meant it sincerely. And in return, I hope I can really bring a lot to the table.

Dario Franchitti was talking to David Malsher

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