SONOMA, Calif. - One race before the Verizon IndyCar Series season finale, the GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma (Sunday, 6:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN), Chevrolet has wrapped the Manufacturer’s Championship, and done so for a sixth consecutive season.
Chevrolet celebrated its 100th start back in the championship at Watkins Glen International, and has 66 wins. This year they will have at least nine wins and if one of its eight drivers entered this weekend wins Sunday, they’ll have extended their streak of winning double digit races for six straight years.
Team Penske has won all nine races while Ed Carpenter Racing, A.J. Foyt Enterprises and Harding Racing have all added top-fives to their haul.
.@TeamChevy's #INDYCAR team owners stopped to take a quick 📸 in celebration of their manufacturer's championship. pic.twitter.com/IP6rQ4AnpS
— Team Penske (@Team_Penske) September 16, 2017
Perhaps the funniest moment of a press conference today celebrating the title came when A.J. Foyt told Jim Campbell, vice president, Performance Vehicles and Motorsports, and Mark Kent, Director of Motorsports Competition - Chevrolet, “I apologize for as bad we’ve ran this year.” The room exploded in laughter thereafter.
Jokes and humor aside, it was another successful year for Chevrolet, and also saw them complete a sweep of the three titles in the manufacturer aero kit period.
“It’s very rewarding because we believe that the aero kits allowed us the opportunity to accomplish everything we wanted to do. We wanted the aero kits to provide some visual differentiation. They did that. We wanted the aero kits to provide us an opportunity to demonstrate our engineering prowess, out-engineer our competition. And we did that as well,” Kent said.
“From our perspective, the aero kit era was very successful for us. But as we move forward, we’re looking forward to the next chapter of IndyCar competition with the universal kit. We won before the aero kits, we won with the aero kits, we’re looking forward to continue winning with the new aero kit.”
Chevrolet works in tandem with technical partners Pratt & Miller and Ilmor Engineering and Campbell made sure to thank them as well.
“A big thank you to our technical partners at Ilmor. Paul Ray is here, Steve O’Connor, Steve Miller, Wayne Bennett. Thank you for your partnership on everything related to our engine program. And everybody at Pratt & Miller, thanks for what you’ve done on the aero kit as well, really integrating that all together.
“Jay (Frye), thanks for having us. We love competing in the IndyCar Series.”