Indycar World Championship

The Indycar World Championship is the premier tier of the American open wheel racing ladder, established in 2000 to succeed the Indycar National Championship. The formation of the World Championship was met with mixed reception, but has helped establish the series competing for the title become an international racing presence since the beginning of the 2010s. Presently, the Indycar World Championship is contended within the AT&T Champ Car World Series, which has been organized by Horizon Corporation since the 2020 season.

## Pre-Formation Turmoil

Talks between the Federation Internationale Course d'Artificielle (FICA) and the North American Motor Racing Association (NAMRA) began during the summer of 1995 regarding giving the then Armor All IndyCar World Series a World Championship classification. Despite the series name, American open wheel racing had never been granted World Championship status to this point. The driver's champion of every season was acknowledged as the National Champion. The talks between FICA and NAMRA were meant to be top secret conversations, but in the winter of 1995-1996, transcripts of some of the meetings were leaked to the public, creating a load of international intrigue into the series, including sponsorships. Neither NAMRA or FICA acknowledged the leaks, but held more conversations throughout the 1996 season. During the off-season, NAMRA had decided it did not want to pursue World Championship status for the series, which it confirmed to an internal memo to teams set to compete in the 1997 season. The news was not received well by several high profile teams. Highlight Racing, a Swiss-based team, led the group of teams pushing for World Championship status beginning in the 1997 pre-season, a group joined by Escuderia Aguila, one of the most historic teams to compete in the Indianapolis 500, as well as Frostfire Racing, a Slovenian team, Zamora Autosport, a Portuguese family-run team, and Archway Racing, the only American team to spearhead the pro-reclassification efforts. The team principals began pressuring NAMRA officials during the 1997 season into reconsidering their decision, which NAMRA upheld after the 1997 season finale, which featured a podium sweep by pro-reclassification teams, who subsequently did not show up to the podium celebrations as a staged act of discontent with NAMRA. The group of teams then brought the behind the scenes issues into the forefront of the American racing media, releasing a public statement threatening to leave the Armor All IndyCar World Series at the end of the 1999 season to form their own series in line with FICA's World Championship guidelines as they had been proposed back in early 1996.

## Formation of the Indycar World Championship

In the Fall of 1998, NAMRA, the teams competing in the Armor All IndyCar World Series, and FICA ratified regulations for the new Indycar World Championship, which would become active for the 2000 season. FICA required the series to move away from a V12 engine formula, with the series putting in place a naturally aspirated V8 engine formula beginning with the 2000 season. FICA's guidelines also forced the series away from H-pattern gearboxes in favor of more modern paddle shift transmissions attached to the steering wheel. Another requirement fell on the chassis itself, requiring the presence of a roll bar structure that enforced a minimum of eight inches of clearance in the case of roll over crashes. The series had experienced multiple driver fatalities due to the lack of a roll bar on the cars in the 1990s with drivers suffering fatal skull fractures as a result. NAMRA had initially declined the reclassification due to the requirement it would face to modernize and replace multiple areas of competition, and the costs it would require. However, the teams were largely in support of the new regulations, including those that were not a part of the efforts to pressure NAMRA into compliance. A new chassis would be introduced for the 2000 season, built by Dallara, which ended the era of multiple chassis in the series, and up until the 2020 season, a fixed engine formula would be common place in the new Indycar World Championship. The 1999 National Championship season saw a rapid rise in interest from European markets, with Rita Liechti and Highlight Racing becoming the last National Champions until the 2022 Microsoft IndyCar Series revived the title as a second tier trophy in the American open wheel ladder system.

The 2000 Armor All IndyCar Series began the new era of open wheel racing in the U.S. 24 cars contended the full season, with the Indianapolis 500 seeing 36 entries vie for 33 starting spots. These were lower than numbers in 1999, but track attendance, global television audience, and sponsorship investments grew, meaning the dip in teams would be temporary as new teams made the leap into the series. Miguel Espinoza would make history, adding to his four National Championships with the very first Indycar World Driver's Championship. Escuderia Aguila would also take the World Team's Championship as a result, as the Argentinian powerhouse bested Highlight Racing and Frostfire Racing for the top honors in 2000. Importantly, the 2000 season marked the first season since 1988 that a driver was not injured or killed during the season under any circumstances, a testiment of Dallara's new chassis and the safety it offered even as most tracks still used bare concrete or armco barriers.

## Seasons

The following table includes every season of Indycar World Championship competition, including the IndyCar World Series, and Champ Car World Series. The 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 seasons are undergoing a canonical re-write to remove timeline inconsistencies and clean up areas of unneeded flaws. These seasons will be filled in as they are rewritten.