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INDYCAR: Chevrolet Weighing Additional Engine Partnerships
Chevy announced its fourth team partnership for the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series on Tuesday, and GM's Mark Kent tells SPEED.com more could be on the way.
Marshall Pruett  |  Posted November 02, 2011  
Could Chevrolet add another team to the four powerhouse entrants it has secured for 2012? (IndyCar Series)
Most of the top teams have been signed to engine contracts for 2012, but as final car counts continue to fluctuate within some of those programs, a window of opportunity continues to exist for one or two teams to secure a prized engine deal from Honda or Chevrolet.

Honda Performance Development Technical Division Manager Roger Griffiths told SPEED.com in late September that they’d be open to slightly expanding their 2012 roster if a team presented a serious chance to win races, or if one of their contracted teams fielded fewer cars than was originally expected.

The same is true for Chevrolet, according to GM Racing Director Mark Kent, who told SPEED.com on Wednesday that the final car counts for its four 2012 teams—Andretti Autosport, KV Racing, Panther Racing and Team Penske—will dictate whether more of the General’s twin-turbo, 2.2-liter V6 engines will be made available to the paddock.

“I would say that the door is not closed,” he said. “The door is still open. We’re basically in a holding pattern right now while we wait for two things to be finalized. The first one is how many cars each of our four current teams will field for 2012—how many engines they will need.

“In addition to that, we need to stand back and see what Honda and Lotus are going to do and how many teams they are going to sign up. The last thing we want to do is have quality teams out there without an engine option. Based on the results of those two items, we will finalize out car count and team count.”

While some of the remaining teams are believed to have Honda engine contracts in place (Newman/Haas, Rahal Letterman Lanigan and Bryan Herta Autosport), a few that could be particularly competitive in 2012 like Dale Coyne Racing and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing would seem to be perfect candidates for a Chevy contract.

For now, and with the success of the four confirmed GM teams in 2011 (entries from Andretti, KV, Panther and Penske took nine of the top 15 spots in the final standings) and positive results from its first few engine tests in mind, Kent is confident that everything is headed in the right direction for Chevy’s return to the IndyCar Series.

“We’re very pleased with our team lineup as it stands today,” he said. “To be competitive in the IndyCar Series, you need good engines, good drivers and you need good teams. We have a lot of confidence in Ilmor Engineering and their capability to work collaboratively with us to provide an engine that’s capable of winning. And with the team lineups and their drivers, we have four of the five strongest teams in the IndyCar paddock today and we’re looking forward to 2012.”


Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, covering IndyCar and sports cars. He also contributes to Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
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