Ganassi swaps engineers for Kanaan, Kimball

The first engineering change of the season has taken place at Chip Ganassi Racing. Team veterans Tony Kanaan and Charlie Kimball have swapped engineers, with Todd Malloy (above, pictured with Kanaan) moving from Kanaan's No. 10 Honda to Charlie Kimball's No. 83 entry. Kimball's engineer Eric Cowdin (below) will return to Kanaan's timing stand, which reunites a duo that earned the Brazilian an Indy Lights championship in 1997, 2004 IndyCar title and an Indy 500 win in 2013.

According to Ganassi, after Kimball's rough start to the season a jump-start was one of the key motivations behind the move.

"I think it was more of a change for the 83 than it was the 10," he told RACER. "We just made a change and we're keeping our fingers crossed it's the right thing to do. It seems to be working in both camps."

This marks the third respective engineer change for Kanaan and Kimball at CGR. Kanaan worked with Chris Simmons in his first season with the team before his former Indy Lights rival was assigned to engineer Scott Dixon and Malloy was hired from Bryan Herta Autosport to fill the vacancy. On the No. 83, Brad Goldberg engineered Kimball for many years, but moved across to the new Ford Chip Ganassi Racing IMSA program in 2016.

With a familiar face on his timing stand, Kanaan led all Honda runners in qualifying with the sixth-fastest average speed of 192.539mph. Facing a longer learning curve with a new driver/engineering combo, Kimball and Malloy set the 15th-fastest average in qualifying with a 190.565mph run.

Entering Phoenix, Kanaan holds 11th in the standings and Kimball, whose results have been less than rewarding, is 20th of the 21 full-time entries in the series.