The start of the 2022 IndyCar season will see changes for Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR), with a number of staff to get new roles.
Six-time champion Scott Dixon has worked alongside fellow Kiwi Blair Julian for decades with Julian serving as the crew chief on Dixon’s car in recent seasons.
Ahead of the 2022 championship, Julian has been promoted to a new managerial job at CGR.
CGR managing director Mike Hull spoke to RACER about the changes for the upcoming season.
“Blair is moving to a new role to be a team manager for the IndyCar operation as time goes forward,” Hull said.
“So he’s in the process of moving to that role. Barry Wanser is still there, managing the team and everything on the competition side, but Blair’s doing a lot of the administrative tasks and learning how to do them now, which is a full-time job since we’re still running four cars.
“Because we had a lot of depth and strength on the IndyCar team, we’re able to do that. And looking toward the future with for future projects, we want to be able to work with Blair to be able to manage projects going forward, because we don’t have enough managers in training at the moment. So we have the ability to be able to move people around to do that.”
Tyler Rees will step into the crew chief role for the 2022 season, returning to work with Dixon after most recently working on Jimmie Johnson’s car.
“Tyler was the crew chief on one of our Ford GTs for four years, went to the back of Dixon’s car when that program ended, then went to Jimmie Johnson’s car, did a great job there, and you know, he actually started out with Dixon,” he said. “So he’s back with Dixon again.”
The 2022 season will see Dixon vying for his seventh championship, with the season set to kick off at St Petersburg on February 27.
Main image: Chris Owens