2008 Champ Car season

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2008 Champ Car season
Champ Car World Series
Season
Races14
Start dateApril 20
End dateNovember 9
Awards
← 2007
2009 (ICS) →

The 2008 Champ Car World Series season would have been the 5th season of the

American open-wheel racing.[1]

As the IndyCar Series was already scheduled for a race in Japan the same weekend, the 2008 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, which also could not be moved, was run as originally planned, with teams that had been part of Champ Car in 2007 participating in Long Beach using the same Champ Car rules and vehicles as the previous season but still receiving IndyCar rankings points. The race was treated as a farewell to the Champ Car World Series, and won by Will Power. The following year, the event fully became part of the IndyCar schedule.

The Rexall Grand Prix of Edmonton and the Gold Coast Indy 300 in Australia were also retained and added to the IndyCar Series schedule.[1] The schedule originally included what would have been the first Monterey Grand Prix since 2004 and the planned debut of the Champ Car Grand Prix of Spain.

Later on,

Laguna Seca
(2019) would also be revived by the unified series.

Races

The 2008 Champ Car schedule was announced in November 2007 before the unification announcement.

Rnd Date Race Name Circuit City/Location
1 April 20 United States Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Streets of Long Beach Long Beach, California
2 April 27 United States Grand Prix of Houston
JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park
Houston, Texas
3 May 18
Champ Car Grand Prix at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
Monterey, California
4 June 1 Belgium Champ Car Grand Prix of Belgium at Circuit Zolder Circuit Zolder Heusden-Zolder, Belgium
5 June 8 Spain Champ Car Grand Prix of Spain at Circuito Permanente de Jerez Circuito de Jerez Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
6 June 22 United States Champ Car Grand Prix of Cleveland Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport Cleveland, Ohio
7 June 29 Canada Champ Car Mont-Tremblant Circuit Mont-Tremblant
Mont-Tremblant, Quebec
8 July 6
Steelback Grand Prix of Toronto
Exhibition Place Toronto, Ontario
9 July 20 Canada Rexall Grand Prix of Edmonton
Edmonton City Centre Airport
Edmonton, Alberta
10 July 27 United States Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland Portland International Raceway Portland, Oregon
11 August 10
Road America Grand Prix
Road America Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin
12 September 14 Netherlands Champ Car Grand Prix of Holland at TT Circuit Assen TT Circuit Assen Assen, Netherlands
13 October 26 Australia Gold Coast Indy 300 Surfers Paradise Street Circuit Surfers Paradise, Australia
14 November 9 Mexico Gran Premio Tecate Presentado por Banamex Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez Mexico City, Mexico

Team and driver lineup

The following teams and drivers were expected to compete for the 2008

Champ Car season. All teams would have used a Cosworth 2.65-litre turbocharged V8 engine, a Panoz DP01 chassis, and Bridgestone
tires.

Team No. Driver(s) Primary Sponsors
United States Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing 1 United Kingdom Justin Wilson[2] McDonald's
2 United States Graham Rahal[2]
Hole in the Wall Camps
Forsythe/Pettit Racing
3 Canada Paul Tracy Indeck
7 France Franck Montagny
United Kingdom Minardi Team USA 4 Venezuela E. J. Viso PDVSA
14 Netherlands Robert Doornbos OzJet
Australia Team Australia 5 Australia Will Power Aussie Vineyards
15 New Zealand Matt Halliday Walker Racing
United States Rocketsports Racing 8 Brazil Enrique Bernoldi[3] Sangari
United States Dale Coyne Racing 11 Brazil Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne Racing
19 Brazil Mario Moraes Sonny's BBQ
United States KV Racing Technology 21 Canada Alex Tagliani
PKV Racing
22 Spain Oriol Servià[4]
United States Pacific Coast Motorsports 29 United States Alex Figge Pacific Coast Motorsports
96 Mexico Mario Domínguez Visit Mexico City
United States Conquest Racing 24 France Franck Perera[5] ARES
34 France Nelson Philippe

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "2008 IRL IndyCar Series". Champ Car Stats. Archived from the original on May 2, 2009. Retrieved May 19, 2009.
  2. ^ a b "Justin Wilson, Graham Rahal To Make Up Newman/Haas/Lanigan Lineup". champcarworldseries.com. January 29, 2008. Archived from the original on February 6, 2008. Retrieved January 29, 2008.
  3. ^ "Rocketsports Signs Former F1 Driver". champcarworldseries.com. January 28, 2008. Archived from the original on March 4, 2008. Retrieved January 28, 2008.
  4. ^ "Oriol Servià Signs With PKV". champcarworldseries.com. January 5, 2008. Retrieved January 10, 2008.
  5. ^ "Conquest Racing Confirms Atlantic's 'Fearless' Franck Perera For 2008 Champ Car World Series Season". champcarworldseries.com. February 6, 2008. Archived from the original on March 4, 2008. Retrieved February 6, 2008.