The 2006 Bridgestone Presents the Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford was an auto racing championship for American open-wheel cars that was sanctioned by Champ Car. It was the 28th season of the Champ Car World Series and it encompassed the 95th national championship season alongside the rival IRL IndyCar Series' 2006 season. The season spanned 14 races, beginning in Long Beach, California on April 9 and ending in Mexico City, Mexico on November 12. The Drivers' Championship was won by Sébastien Bourdais of Newman/Haas Racing.
Reigning two-time champion Bourdais won the series championship for the third consecutive time with Newman/Haas Racing, becoming the first driver to win three American open wheel National Championships in a row since Ted Horn in 1948, and the first non-American driver in history to win three titles. For this season the Lola B02/00 chassis (which the series had introduced under its previous CART identity in 2002) continued as the sole chassis for the series for a second consecutive season in what would prove to be the final season of usage for this particular chassis as Champ Car would replace it with a new spec chassis - the Panoz DP01 for 2007. This was also the last CART/Champ Car season prior to the 2008 re-unification of American open-wheel racing to feature a round held on an oval track as the only round on the 2006 Champ Car schedule held on oval at Milwaukee would be dropped for what would prove to be Champ Cars' final season in 2007.
Teams and drivers The following teams and drivers competed in the 2006 Champ Car World Series (CCWS). All teams competed with the Lola B02/00 chassis, the Ford-Cosworth XFE engine, and tires supplied by Bridgestone.
TeamDriver Conquest Racing27 Andrew RangerAll34 Charles Zwolsman Jr. All CTE Racing - HVM4 Nelson PhilippeAll14 Dan Clarke All Dale Coyne Racing11 Jan Heylen All19 Cristiano da Matta1–4 Mario Domínguez5–11 Juan Cáceres 12 Andreas Wirth 13–14 Forsythe Championship Racing3 Paul Tracy1–13 David Martínez 147 Mario Domínguez1–4 A. J. Allmendinger5–13 Buddy Rice 14 Newman/Haas Racing1 Sébastien BourdaisAll2 Bruno JunqueiraAll PKV Racing6 Oriol ServiàAll12 Jimmy Vasser120 Katherine Legge All Rocketsports Racing8 Antônio Pizzonia 1 Nicky Pastorelli 2–6, 8–11 Mario Domínguez12–1418 Tõnis Kasemets 5–8, 12 Antônio Pizzonia 11, 13–14 RuSPORT9 Justin WilsonAll10 A. J. Allmendinger1–4 Cristiano da Matta5–9 Ryan Briscoe 13–14 Team Australia5 Will Power All15 Alex TaglianiAll Sources: Key Symbol Meaning Eligible for Rookie of the Year
Team changes Every team that fielded cars on a full-time basis in 2005 returned for the new season. In early 2005, Formula One and CCWS champion Emerson Fittipaldi began reorganizing his Fittipaldi Racing team after it was temporarily shut down at the end of the 2003 season. The team was rumored to debut in 2006, but seemingly ceased operations sometime in 2005. After a twelve-year absence from the series, EuroInternational announced their intentions to enter at least ten races in 2006 before fielding two full-time entries in 2007, when the series was set to introduce their new Panoz DP01 chassis. The announcement was met with uncertainty from fans, which was only heightened by its lack of confirmation by the series. Eventually, EuroInternational revealed they would not compete in the CCWS in 2006 because of how hard it was for them to acquire a Lola chassis, though they did race in the second-tier Atlantic Championship Series. Several teams from the Indy Racing League (IRL), including Panther Racing, were reportedly planning to enter the CCWS in 2006, but ultimately never did.
Driver changes
After spending six months recovering from injuries sustained in a crash during the 2005 Indianapolis 500, Bruno Junqueira completed over 200 laps during a three-day testing session at Sebring International Raceway in December 2005 and announced his return to Newman/Haas Racing for 2006. Junqueira's teammate, two-time and defending series champion Sébastien Bourdais, signed a one-year contract extension with Newman/Haas Racing which included an exit clause if an opportunity arose to compete in Formula One. Bourdais admitted that he initially held off on extending his contract because he had attempted to secure a seat with BMW Sauber, though the costs of terminating Jacques Villeneuve's contract were too expensive for the team.
Newman/Haas Racing failed to gain enough funding to field a third entry for Oriol Servià, who substituted for Junqueira for the last eleven races of the 2005 season and finished second in the Drivers' Championship standings. Meanwhile, Jimmy Vasser opted to solely compete in the season-opening Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach before retiring from American open-wheel car racing, forcing PKV Racing to find a replacement driver. The team tested with Ryan Briscoe, Franck Montagny, Giorgio Pantano, and Ryan Dalziel, but ultimately chose Servià as he had more experience in the series. Servià was teamed with Katherine Legge, a three-time winner in the Atlantic Championship who became the first female driver to race full-time in the series.
Legge and Servià's hirings at PKV Racing left Cristiano da Matta without a ride for 2006, as he had already fell out with the team's management following a string of poor results towards the latter half of the 2005 season. Da Matta later joined Dale Coyne Racing, though he was essentially forced to drive for the team without a salary. Reigning Eurocup Mégane Trophy champion Jan Heylen initially sought an opportunity to race for Conquest Racing, but the team's seats were occupied by 2005 Atlantic Championship Series champion Charles Zwolsman Jr. and Andrew Ranger, the latter of whom intended only to compete at Long Beach and the three races in Canada before obtaining enough sponsorship to complete the entire season in May. After partaking in a test session with Dale Coyne Racing along with Nicky Pastorelli at California Speedway, Heylen was selected as da Matta's teammate for 2006. Dale Coyne Racing announced Heylen's hiring only hours prior to the first practice session for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.
As his contract with Forsythe Championship Racing was set to expire at the end of the 2005 season, series veteran Paul Tracy expressed interest in competing in NASCAR. In August 2005, he tested an ARCA car owned by Richard Childress at Michigan International Speedway, and later declared his intentions to drive part-time in the second-tier Busch Series in 2006 before fully switching to NASCAR in 2007. Despite doubts that Tracy would return to the Champ Car World Series in 2006, he opted to continue racing in the series that year alongside teammate Mario Domínguez. By April 2006, Tracy spoke to the media about talks for an extension of his current contract with Forsythe Racing, and a new five-year deal with the team was announced the next month.
Ahead of the previous season's Lexmark Indy 300, Will Power signed a three-year contract with Team Australia and subsequently replaced the outgoing Marcus Marshall, as he was let go by the team near the end of the 2005 season because of their straining relationship with him, while Alex Tagliani remained with the team. Rumors circulated that Team Australia planned on running a third car for Australian driver Ryan Briscoe; however, Briscoe only wound up competing with the team in the final three races of the 2005–06 A1 Grand Prix season.
After 2005 Rookie of the Year Timo Glock left the CCWS to race in the GP2 Series, DHL pulled their sponsorship of Rocketsports Racing and the team was left scrambling to find another driver. They planned to hire Franck Montagny before being approached with a sponsorship effort headed by four Brazilian businessmen, which called for Brazilian drivers Antônio Pizzonia and Enrique Bernoldi to race under the name of Team Brazil. The two drivers completed a testing session at Houston Motorsports Ranch in March, but a deal was not reached in time for the start of the season, forcing Rocketsports Racing to field a single entry for Pizzonia at Long Beach. Negotiations continued throughout the season, although nothing ever materialized.
Comedian and actor Cedric the Entertainer joined the CCWS as a co-owner of HVM Racing, which had been renamed to CTE Racing - HVM to commemorate his partnership with the team. Although Ronnie Bremer had signed a contract to remain with the team for 2006, a lack of sponsorship led to the deal being voided less than two weeks before the start of the season. CTE Racing - HVM's two seats were taken by Nelson Philippe, who spent the last two seasons racing for Conquest Racing, and rookie Dan Clarke, who finished fifth in the 2005 British Formula 3 International Series.
Mid-season changes On April 28, Nicky Pastorelli was announced as Rocketsports Racing's "full-time" driver, after two testing appearances with the team during the month. Pastorelli had won the Euro Formula 3000 series in 2004, was a Formula One test driver for Jordan Grand Prix in 2005, and was scheduled to remain as such with the renamed Midland F1 Racing, but that opportunity fell through in December when one of Pastorelli's investors backed out of the deal. On May 25, Rocketsports Racing announced it would field a second car for rookie Tõnis Kasemets in six unspecified races, beginning with the fifth round of the season at Portland. After four races in a row, Kasemets would only race again at Road America in September, competing in five events instead. Kasemets became the first Estonian to drive in Champ Car, after finishing second in the Atlantic Championship with three wins against the also promoted Charles Zwolsman Jr. and Katherine Legge. On June 9, following the race at the Milwaukee Mile, the RuSPORT team announced that they were replacing A. J. Allmendinger with Cristiano da Matta, who switched after just four races with Dale Coyne Racing. The change came as a total surprise, as Allmendinger had been the cornerstone of the team since its founding in 2002. The move was caused by profound differences between both parties over RuSPORT and Allmendinger's joint potential to overcome Bourdais' early domination. On June 12 Forsythe Racing announced they were parting company with Mario Domínguez over "changes in the engineering structure of the team (that) no longer suit both parties". Domínguez had clashed twice with his teammate Paul Tracy and Bruno Junqueira in the first four races. On June 14, the open seat was filled, as A. J. Allmendinger was announced as Domínguez's replacement, just five days after being fired himself. On June 16, Mario Domínguez took over as the driver of the No. 19 car for Dale Coyne Racing, vacated a week before by Cristiano da Matta. Domínguez claimed to have been fired from Forsythe in order to keep A. J. Allmendinger in the series, as the only American driver in the field. Since July, the line-up at Rocketsports Racing underwent a number of changes: On July 5, it was announced that the No. 8 car driven by Nicky Pastorelli would not compete at the Toronto event, after one of Pastorelli's sponsors had defaulted. The sponsorship problem was solved in time for the next round in Edmonton, as announced on July 18. On August 23, Antônio Pizzonia was announced to return in a one-race deal at Montréal, this time on the No. 18 car. After Tõnis Kasemets raced at Road America, Pizzonia finished the season in the car, being announced for the Surfers Paradise race, and then for the Mexico City finale. On September 18, Mario Domínguez was signed to complete the season in the No. 8 car for the final three races, switching from Dale Coyne Racing. Nicky Pastorelli was out again due to his continuing financial issues, and while the team hoped to have him in the No. 18 for the final two races, it went with Pizzonia instead.