2022 AT&T Champ Car World Series season

2022 Indycar World Championship season

The **2022 AT&T Champ Car World Series season** is set to be the 23rd season of the Indycar World Championship, and the 110th season of American open wheel racing. The premier event of the season is the 109th Indianapolis 500 Mile Race.

Hazel Lacasse enters the season as the defending Indycar World Driver's Champion and Indianapolis 500 Champion, while Alpine-Renault enter the season as the defending Champ Car Engine Champion. Rockstar Phantom Motors, the 2021 Indycar World Team's Champion, was bought by Velocity Autosport and dissolved into the Miami-based team, guaranteeing a new Team's Champion will be crowned for 2022.

## Background

The 2022 Champ Car season will be the first to feature the IR-22 chassis, an evolution of the IR-20 chassis built by Andromeda Automotive Initiative. The upgraded car features more advanced ground effects in the sides and floor panel of the car, as well as a new protective windscreen to protect drivers following the deaths of Tim Kourting and Giuliano Ansaldi at the 107th Indianapolis 500. The season will be contested with three engine suppliers; Alpine-Renault, Chevrolet, and Honda. Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai have homologated engines that can compete in the Firestone Triple Crown events as they are the engine suppliers for the Microsoft IndyCar Series, the established second tier of the American racing ladder.

### Rule Changes

* Each full time entry will be limited to six engines throughout the year. If an entry receives a new engine beyond the sixth, a 10 place grid penalty will be applied for each time a new engine is required. This move is to push the engine manufacturers and the teams to develop more efficient and reliable parts for the powertrain.
* All drivers must submit to a minimum of seven drug tests throughout the season, which will be administered by the United States Anti Drug Agency (USADA). Drivers who fail a drug test for hard substances such as methamphetamines, opiates, alcohol, and marijuana/psychadelics, will be suspended for a minimum of 6 months, and must undergo a treatment program approved by Horizon Corporation. The rule was put in place after Rachel Koivuniemi failed a drug test the day of the 2021 season finale, resulting in a suspension from FICA for four months.

### Formation of IWCDA

On 14 December 2021, the Indycar World Championship Driver's Association (IWCDA) was created as an arm of the NAMRA Driver's Association (NAMRA-DA). The project is the work of Stephanie Porter-Kelley, who retired at the end of the 2021 season. Porter-Kelley was an outspoken supporter of creating such an entity, and is the primary operating officer of the entire organization. The IWCDA, specific to drivers competing in the Champ Car World Series, tasked itself with outlining important changes needed for the 2022 season, with the series organizer, Horizon Corporation, either addressing or refuting all of the concerns.

#### Confirmed Rule Alterations

Several of the IWCDA's requests were accepted by Horizon Corporation during the pre-season testing phase of the 2022 season. Most of the applied changes were in regards to officiating and infractions.

* Beginning in the 2022 season, the head steward of race control must have been a former driver within the Indycar World Championship. The IWCDA requested that the position be a fixed role, meaning the person selected would be working on a full time basis. Prior to 2022, stewards were rotated on a race by race basis. Horizon Corporation announced on 30 January 2022 that Sonya Bartlett would be the official Champ Car senior race steward, with her decisions on infractions being the final decisions.
* IWCDA presented a revised penalty code for infractions to Horizon Corporation on 5 January 2022, aimed towards appropriately and consistently penalizing drivers for infractions. The revisions were adopted as presented on 30 January 2022, and are as follows.
* IWCDA sent in a proposal that would see races halted if a driver were to be seriously injured or killed in a crash during a race. If a driver were to be killed, the race would be either immediately called, or cancelled if the race had not yet completed half of the scheduled race distance. Horizon Corporation accepted the proposal in February 2022.

#### Refuted or Delayed Alterations

Horizon Corporation and the IWCDA clashed on several issues, ranging a wider variety of topics, during the 2021-2022 offseason period, the following of which were either denied or remain in negotiation.

* The IWCDA requested an alteration to the driver minimum salary, from USD$200,000 to $300,000, which was rejected by Horizon Corporation outright. Negotiations were brief but uneventful on the subject during the first pre-season test at Sebring.
* The IWCDA requested that a salary cap, independent of car development spending limits, be put in place to prevent teams from gouging the driver's market for talent. Negotiations remain ongoing, however, multiple teams have protested the idea, on a similar basis as to why the driver salary increase was rejected.
* The IWCDA requested an alteration to the AAI IR-22 design to permit more airflow to enter the cockpit. With the new chassis, the windscreen deflects air away from the drivers, raising the cockpit temperatures to about 135 degrees Fahrenheit at its worst limits. Horizon Corporation forwarded the complaint to AAI, who presented drivers with adapted helmets that connected an air hose from the helmet to removeable wind veins attached to the inside of the bar supporting the windscreen. Further alterations would not be made to the car in regards to the cockpit.
* The IWCDA proposed a reduction in road and street course event distance. The proposal intended to shorten road and street course race lengths from 200-210 miles in length, to around 190 miles in length, or 300 kilometers, to align with international Grand Prix distances. Horizon deferred conversations on the matter until after the 2022 season began.

## 2022 Teams and Drivers

The following teams and drivers are scheduled to contest at least one round of the 2022 Champ Car season.

### Team Changes

* Rockstar Phantom Motors announced on May 10, 2021 that it was being bought by Velocity Autosport, with the sale finalizing on December 31, 2021.
* Black Rose Racing sold its open wheel assets to Atomic Autosport at the end of the 2021 season. Atomic Autosport confirmed it would not compete in the full 2022 Champ Car season, instead focusing on the Nissan Atlantic Championship. It would later announce it would field Evangeline Porter for the 109th Indianapolis 500 Mile Race.
* Swift Knight Autosport will switch to Chevrolet engines after one year with Alpine-Renault. It also scales down to two cars full time for 2022 as it also competes in the lower tiers of the American open wheel ladder.
* Striker Motorsports will use Alpine-Renault engines for the 2022 season, switching away from Chevrolet in a deal with Swift Knight Autosport.
* Cat Devil Racing will scale back to two full time cars in 2022.
* Eastern Atlantic Motorsports will become Dragon Motorsports in 2022, becoming a three car team with the addition of Camyron Jackson as a co-owner.
* Apex Racing Team will only contest the Firestone Triple Crown in 2022, while also competing full time in the Microsoft IndyCar Series and the GTPlanet Fandom Series.
* Kearny-Fuchida Drive Force will compete in the full 2022 Champ Car season after two years of competing only in the Firestone Triple Crown. The team will receive technical assistance from Dragon Motorsports.
* Obsidian Racing Team will expand to two full time cars in 2022, remaining with Chevrolet.
* Red Bull Highlight Racing will also expand to two full time cars in 2022, as it switches to Chevrolet after two years with Mercedes-Benz.
* Speed Demon Motorsports will step up to the Champ Car World Series in 2022, after competing in the Nissan Atlantic Championship in 2021. It will field two full time cars with Honda engines.
* Vantare Racing makes their Champ Car debut in 2022 as a single car effort using Alpine-Renault engines.

### Driver Changes

* Stephanie Porter-Kelley retired at the end of the 2021 season after a 19 year career in top-tier racing series. Matheus Michelin will replace her at Striker Motorsports in the #60, after spending one year at Swift Knight Autosport.
* Andrew Draco retired at the end of the 2021 season, electing to retire rather than participate as an Indy 500-only driver for Velocity Autosport.
* David Wessel moves to the #50 for Swift Knight Autosport after Rockstar Phantom Motors was bought out.
* Ryan Stevens was moved down to the Microsoft IndyCar Series for Swift Autosport, after the team downscaled to two cars in Champ Car.
* Nicole Liechti will drive for Red Bull Highlight Racing in 2022 after five years with Black Rose Racing.
* Asada Kito will compete in the full Champ Car season in 2022 for Obsidian Racing Team. Kito competed for the team in the GP1 Championship from 2017 to 2021.
* Shufen Zhang will debut in Champ Car for Dragon Motorsports. Zhang will become the first Taiwanese driver to participate in an Indycar World Championship race.
* Valerie Feng will race full time alongside Kunimitsu Kinoshita for Cat Devil Racing in 2022. Feng raced in the Firestone Triple Crown in 2021 in addition to the full Nissan Atlantic Championship season.
* B.K. Glover will return to full time Champ Car competition in 2022 for Panasonic Team Impulse, pairing alongside Hazel Lacasse and Sakura Ishibashi. Jake Carter will also debut for the team as a Firestone Triple Crown driver, alongside Thomas Rogers. Both Carter and Rogers will compete full time in the Microsoft IndyCar Series.
* Akira Sato and Shinichi Kamiya move up from the Nissan Atlantic Championship to race in Champ Car for Speed Demon Motorsports. Sato previously raced the Firestone Triple Crown in 2020 for Cat Devil Racing, while Kamiya was promoted from the Obsidian Racing Team driver development program.
* Elise Alexander will make her Champ Car debut in 2022 for Striker Motorsports. The daughter of 2006 Indycar World Champion, Michael Alexander, Elise comes from the Nissan Atlantic Championship where she won 3 races in 2021.
* Marcus Petrovic will debut for Vantare Racing in 2022, completing the all-Serbian team effort.
* Evangeline Porter will return to full time Champ Car competition for the first time since the 2017 season, driving for Atomic Autosport. Porter was initially slated to appear in the 2022 GTPlanet Fandom Series season, but pivoted to a year in Champ Car after the stock car series encountered serious supply delays for their seventh generation chassis.
* Natalia Vulicevic will make her Champ Car debut in 2022 for Atomic Autosport, competing in the 2022 Firestone Triple Crown for the team.
* On 18 December 2021, it was announced Artyom Kozlov would make their Indianapolis 500 debut in 2022 for Striker Motorsports, in a deal with Team Impulse.
* Obsidian Racing Team announced on 14 January 2022 that it would reunite with Zoe Sharp for the 109th Indianapolis 500. Sharp won the 2010 Indycar World Driver's Championship with the team, and the 2011 Indianpolis 500. Sharp would end up contesting the entire season after Velocity Autosport elected to do ovals only for a second consecutive season..
* Frostfire Racing would return to the series after several years, contesting in the full Firestone Triple Crown with former Champ Car driver, Nera Takurasi. The team announced it officially on 1 March 2022, after months of speculation after the team purchased an CC-22 chassis, and participated in the oval test at Auto Club Speedway before the season began. The team would later add

### Mid-Season Changes

* Two time Indycar World Driver's Champion, Andrew Draco, returned to fill in for David Wessel after Wessel was injured in a crash at Texas Motor Speedway. Draco drove the #50 for Swift Knight Autosport at Kansas, Indianapolis, and Belle Isle.

## Calendar

The 2022 Champ Car calendar was ratified by the North American Motor Racing Association (NAMRA), and FICA on December 1, 2021. The season will feature 20 races, competing on a variety of superspeedways, intermediate ovals, short ovals, natural terrain road courses, and temporary street circuits across five countries and three continents.

### Schedule Changes

* The Coca-Cola 300 would be moved to a different track for the third time in three years, as it will now be hosted at the Kansas Speedway. Chicagoland became a Microsoft IndyCar Series event.
* The second race in the European leg would be moved from the Brno Circuit to the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours, as a manufacturer supported event for Alpine-Renault.
* Kentucky Speedway would stop hosting Champ Car events to focus on hosting Microsoft IndyCar Series events, for the first time in nearly two decades.
* North Carolina would replace Kentucky on the calendar, taking a late season date after years of discussions dating back to 2017.

## Points Standings

### Indycar World Driver's Championship standings

##### Key

* Positions highlighted in **bold** indicate the driver started the event from pole position.
* Positions highlighted in *italics* indicate the driver led the most laps of the race.
* **(R)** denotes Champ Car Rookie of the Year contender.
* **(RotY)** denotes Champ Car Rookie of the Year winner.

## Behind The Scenes Credits

* Liveries for the 2022 Champ Car season were created by CRC community members RACECAR, and BKGlover.
* The 2022 season will use the IR20 mod created by NASCARfunfacts.com
* Track mods from Freddy and Sean Enterprises, NASCARfunfacts.com, Hillcrest Racing, BBMC, Action Packed Tracks, NR Track Designs, and others were used for the 2022 season.
* CRC community members Arrow, Sakura, Valkyr, BKGlover, Ruby, RACECAR, Kaoru, KuniKinoshita, amaterasu, AngelOfFire, MikuPrincess80, LITTLEBLACKO932, Swiftsmith, Michelin, Cuban, Blackmon, LargeMarge, and RRDZ developed characters for the 2022 season.

## See Also

* CRC's YouTube Channel
* 2022 Microsoft IndyCar Series, the second tier of the American open wheel ladder.
* 2022 Nissan Atlantic Championship, the third tier of the American open wheel ladder system.
* 2022 GTPlanet Fandom Series, the 3rd season of American stock car racing organized by Fantasy Promotions.
* 2022 Red Bull IROC, the first season of the International Race of Champions.