Honda Drivers, Teams Ready for 2019 NTT IndyCar Series
• Honda drivers, teams begin defense of 2018 championships
• Lineup features eight IndyCar Series race winners, including three series champions, four Indianapolis 500 winners
• Season opens Sunday in St. Petersburg, Florida
TORRANCE, Calif. (March 6, 2019) – Eight race winners, four Indianapolis 500 champions and three former series title holders – with a combined 10 series championships – make up the talented Honda-powered lineup for the 2019 NTT IndyCar Series, opening this weekend at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
Eleven wins from 17 races in 2018 brought Honda the company’s seventh IndyCar Manufacturers’ Championship, highlighted by a 1-2 finish in the Drivers’ Championship for Honda-powered Scott Dixon and Alexander Rossi. Honda’s Indy car win total of 237 in 25 years of North American open-wheel racing – including 12 Indianapolis 500 victories since 2004 – is unmatched by any other manufacturer in the same period. In addition, for the second year in a row, each full-time Honda team scored at least one IndyCar Series race victory.
Six Honda teams will field 14 Honda-powered entries at Sunday’s 2019 season opener on the Florida Gulf Coast, all utilizing the Honda HI19TT engine and Dallara IR15 chassis, which features a universal aero kit introduced for all competitors in 2018.
“We had an excellent season in 2018, but this is a new year, with both new opportunities and new challenges,” said Art St. Cyr, president of Honda Performance Development, the racing arm for American Honda in North America. “This is the largest field of full-time entries supplied by HPD since 2013, and we’re also expecting one of the largest Indianapolis 500 entries in recent years. Everyone at HPD has worked extremely hard to prepare for another highly competitive IndyCar Series season, and we’re looking forward to getting our title defense under way this weekend in St. Petersburg.”
Honda and HPD will present an impressive lineup at Sunday’s season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. It begins with defending, five-time IndyCar series champion and 2008 Indianapolis 500 victor Scott Dixon, and includes 2017 Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato; 2012 series and 2014 Indianapolis 500 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay; four-time consecutive Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais; 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner Alexander Rossi; and multi-race winners Graham Rahal and James Hinchcliffe.
All will utilize the twin-turbocharged Honda Indy V6 engine, designed, manufactured, developed and maintained by HPD. Designated the HI19TT, the engine will be used throughout the 2019 season.
Honda has been a fixture in North American open-wheel racing since 1994, and has played an active role in the growth of the NTT IndyCar Series as both a Manufacturers’ Championship competitor and single engine supplier, with a record that includes 237 individual race wins and seven manufacturers’ championships.
The company scored its first Indianapolis 500 victory in 2004 with Buddy Rice; Manufacturers’ Championships in 2004 and ’05; and became engine supplier to the entire IndyCar Series in 2006. Honda supplied racing engines to the full, 33-car Indianapolis 500 field every year from 2006-2011, and for six consecutive years — and the only six times in event history – the ‘500’ ran without a single engine failure.
Since the return of multi-manufacturer competition in 2012, Honda has scored four more Indy 500 triumphs, by Dario Franchitti in 2012, Hunter-Reay in 2014, Rossi’s historic victory in 2016’s historic 100th race and Sato’s popular victory in 2017. The 12 wins by Honda at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway lead all other major automobile manufacturers.