Engineering changes for Ganassi's IndyCar teams
Yesterday at 04:34 PM
Chip Ganassi Racing has made significant changes to most of its race engineering rosters for the upcoming season.
In the downsizing from five entries to three for 2025, the defending IndyCar Series champions have recruited former Newman/Haas Racing and RuSport Champ Car engineer Luke Goldenstein to engineer Kyffin Simpson in the No. 8 Honda and moved 2022 Indianapolis 500-winning engineer Brad Goldberg to Scott Dixon's No. 9 Honda.
Goldenstein joins the team from Colorado's JDX Racing outfit while Goldberg steps across to Dixon and Ganassi's highest-profile engineering position after generating considerable success with former CGR driver Marcus Ericsson and 2024 IndyCar Rookie of the Year Linus Lundqvist.
Dixon's most recent engineer, Ross Bunnell, has been paired with Meyer Shank Racing's Felix Rosenqvist under the new Ganassi technical alliance forged between the teams. Angela Ashmore, Goldberg's Indy-winning assistant race engineer who was promoted to full race engineer last season with Marcus Armstrong in the No. 11 Ganassi Honda, has been reunited with the New Zealander who was signed by Meyer Shank during the offseason.
With Ashmore and Bunnell attached to MSR via Ganassi, the last engineering combo to detail is the No. 10 Honda of three-time title winner Alex Palou, and the Spaniard’s entry is the only car from the CGR stable with no changes to report as Julian Robertson returns for his fifth season on Palou's timing stand. Having generated three championships in a four-year span, there's no chance the team's strongest driver/engineer combo would subject to change.
The return of Goldenstein, who also worked for Ganassi as a performance engineer during its “G2” days when a second operation was established to field cars for Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball, is welcomed by CGR’s director of racing teams.
"This is gonna be really good," Taylor Kiel told RACER. "Luke, originally, we had hired to come in and be an engineer on our new Indy NXT program. We were also really keen to ensure Kyffin's program is staffed equally and has all the opportunities that the other two IndyCar teams have, and the more we considered it, Luke stood out as somebody that can fit in seamlessly and has experience. He’s going to do a great job for us."
Goldberg's elevation to engineer Dixon is another change that is expected to reap considerable rewards.
"That’s obviously a big change and everybody understands what a quality person and race engineer he is," Kiel said of Goldberg. "You talk about an organic story of somebody that quite literally was raised in the organization and has done everything from an engineering perspective.
"And now he’s got the hot seat, so to speak, on the 9 car, sitting next to Mike , next to Chip , and obviously, race engineering a living legend. He’s super stoked on the opportunity. We’re super stoked that Brad’s accepted the challenge and we’re just trying to put all the pieces in place to make sure that, organizationally, we go from strength with strength."
Kiel is equally excited for what Ashmore and Bunnell can bring to MSR.
"Ross is a fantastic engineer in our system, and the same for Angela," he said. "We needed to strengthen that MSR partnership to make sure that we’re extracting the most out of that relationship, so it was a good opportunity to bring a fresh perspective. The super important thing with moving people around is it’s all about having a lot of really good people that are interchangeable. Let’s make sure we’re keeping fresh eyes and fresh perspectives on things and not letting anything get stale, and we feel like that's what's been created."
