1999 was my first year watching CART, and what a year, but this race always perplexed me - why didnt Team Kool Green swap Paul and Dario? Had they done so it's conceivable that Dario would have beaten Montoya to the title, and coming from F1 with Ferrari team orders, it seemed like a normal and sensible decision to swap them and the team dropped the ball.
Team orders were not unheard of in CART either but usually they wouldn’t be as flagrant as the same era in F1. Barry Green’s comment was that he didn’t want to risk the Newman/Haas duo getting by if he tried to swap his drivers by having Tracy drop back, which probably seemed like a safe call at the time. Still, considering Dario finished the season tied on points with Montoya and then lost out in the tiebreaker (7 wins for Montoya, 3 for Franchitti), the call does not look great in retrospect.
You are a very reliable source of epic cart racing. Thank you 🙏
1999 was my first year watching CART, and what a year, but this race always perplexed me - why didnt Team Kool Green swap Paul and Dario? Had they done so it's conceivable that Dario would have beaten Montoya to the title, and coming from F1 with Ferrari team orders, it seemed like a normal and sensible decision to swap them and the team dropped the ball.
Team orders were not unheard of in CART either but usually they wouldn’t be as flagrant as the same era in F1. Barry Green’s comment was that he didn’t want to risk the Newman/Haas duo getting by if he tried to swap his drivers by having Tracy drop back, which probably seemed like a safe call at the time. Still, considering Dario finished the season tied on points with Montoya and then lost out in the tiebreaker (7 wins for Montoya, 3 for Franchitti), the call does not look great in retrospect.
Are you going to ReUL the Chicago race? It was blocked.
Yes, processing now.
I ask, what happened with Chip Ganassi and what did he watch this race?