Key engineering talents Simmons and Bunnell to depart Ganassi

Chip Ganassi Racing will part ways with two of its greater engineering talents at the end of the year.

In a call with RACER last week, the defending 18-time IndyCar Series champions confirmed the upcoming departure of Chris Simmons (pictured above), whose tenure with CGR dates back to the 2000s and includes three championships and two Indianapolis 500 victories as race engineer to Dario Franchitti and two titles with Scott Dixon. Simmons also engineered Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan during Kanaan’s time with the team.

Since 2020, Simmons has held the role of performance director, and in that position, the former open-wheel driver sparked CGR’s transformation into the dominant team of the decade where Dixon (2020) and Alex Palou (2021, 2023-2026) combined to win six out of seven championships.

Simmons, like the Arrow McLaren-bound Dixon, will spend the rest of the year honoring the non-compete clause in his CGR contract. RACER understands Simmons will join Arrow McLaren once the non-compete term has been completed. Other than Palou, the pursuit of Simmons has been one of the most intense efforts by CGR’s rivals in recent years as he's been viewed many as the key figure behind its dominance.

Akin to hiring away the head coach from the Super Bowl-winning team, Simmons’ vast knowledge in all areas of CGR’s engineering program and the entirety of its competition efforts is both a major loss for Ganassi and an immense boost to Arrow McLaren as it pursues its first IndyCar championship and its first Indy 500 win.

CGR also confirmed the exit of Ross Bunnell, who engineered Dixon from 2023-2024 before being assigned to Meyer Shank Racing by Ganassi in 2025 where he engineered Felix Rosenqvist and won this year’s Indy 500. Dixon was vocal about his displeasure with Ganassi’s decision to shift Bunnell from his No. 9 Honda to MSR’s No. 60 Honda, and moments after the checkered flag waved at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in September, Bunnell informed CGR of his intention to leave.

Along with Dixon and Simmons, he has a non-compete clause to clear before he is able to start with Arrow McLaren where Bunnell is tipped to resume his race engineering relationship with Dixon.

Rosenqvist has already joined Arrow McLaren where he’ll be reunited with Dixon as part of its reconfigured lineup led by team veteran Pato O’Ward.

CGR is also facing another potentially seismic loss with its most tenured race engineer in Julian Robertson. Having joined the team in the 1990s and been part of all 18 titles across CART, the IRL, and today’s IndyCar Series, Robertson is considered a living legend among IndyCar race engineers, and after a long career dating back to the 1980s in Formula 1, he’s understood to be contemplating retirement after leading Palou to all five of his championships. The team says it hopes to retain Robertson for one more championship run.

If he elects to stop, it would represent one of the biggest year-to-year engineering losses in IndyCar history with the technical guru behind Palou’s No. 10 Honda, the performance director who oversees all aspects of how the team competes, and its top next-generation engineer who won the Indy 500, leaving during the same offseason.

In 2026, CGR had Robertson paired with Palou, Brad Goldberg engineering Dixon, Luke Goldenstein engineering Kyffin Simpson, Bunnell with Rosenqvist at MSR, and Angela Ashmore engineering his MSR teammate Marcus Armstrong. With the upcoming departures, it’s unclear who among the remaining engineers will be assigned among the CGR roster of Palou, Christian Lundgaard, and Simpson, and MSR’s revised lineup up of Armstrong and Mick Schumacher.