Scott Dixon feels 'it's just time for change' after 25 years at Chip Ganassi Racing

LEXINGTON, OH – It took Scott Dixon six months to come to the decision but for the first time since 2002, he will be in search of a new IndyCar team. Chip Ganassi Racing announced Thursday that Dixon’s 25-year tenure with the team will end at the conclusion of the season.

In a statement, CGR owner Chip Ganassi said Dixon was presented a “multi-year offer” to end his career with the team. Instead, Dixon — who confirmed he will be a full-time driver in IndyCar in 2027 — will end his career elsewhere, despite what he called a “fantastic” offer from Ganassi.

“I think everybody has different views of how things should finish or where they’ll finish, and things like that,” Dixon told media at The Local At 97, just more than four miles away from Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. “Chip has always been a good friend and I’d like to call him family. And ultimately, I think through this whole situation and through the chats, that kind of stuff has been nothing but professional.”

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Dixon, a six-time IndyCar champion who has won 59 races, is looking to go somewhere where he can win. Only AJ Foyt has more championships (seven) and wins (67) than Dixon, but the 45-year-old hasn’t won a championship since 2020 and is winless through 10 races this year, sitting 10th in the IndyCar standings.

While Dixon has been unable to reach the mountaintop of the sport in six years, he’s seen teammate Alex Palou become a legend in his own right. Palou, who pilots the No. 10 Honda for CGR, has won four of the past five IndyCar championships, and leads the championship race this year as well. Another championship would put Palou alone for third all-time behind Dixon and Foyt.

Palou has gradually become the top priority at CGR as he’s dominated IndyCar in the 2020s. While Dixon has maintained a high level of racing (especially until this year), he has been a step behind his 29-year-old teammate. Now, Dixon will look to upstage Palou with another team.

“You always want to be competitive,” Dixon said. “The fire still burns really strong. I think change is inevitable at some point. And all I can really say is I have a lot of fantastic memories with this team, and everybody there is like family, so it definitely wasn’t a decision taken lightly or (that I) didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. It’s just time for change, and we’ll see what happens.”

That change is heavily speculated to be with Arrow McLaren, although Dixon wouldn’t reveal if he’s agreed to a new deal. Dixon is friends with Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan, who he was CGR teammates with from 2014 to 2017, and again for the 2021 and 2022 Indianapolis 500s.

Dixon also has a personal link to McLaren Racing, as he and McLaren Racing founder Bruce McLaren grew up in Auckland, New Zealand. The personal link to the McLaren brand could entice Dixon as much as anything.

From Arrow McLaren’s side, it would be gaining a legend to pair next to Pato O’Ward, an accomplished driver who’s yet to win an IndyCar championship or Indy 500. O’Ward is Arrow McLaren’s only driver under contract in 2027, and he — like Dixon — has been a casualty of Palou’s excellence, most notably in his second-place finish to Palou in the 2025 championship.

Dixon signing with Arrow McLaren would extend the back-and-forth between CGR and Arrow McLaren that has taken place over the past few years. Arrow McLaren notably signed Palou to a contract in 2022, but after disputes between all three parties, Palou never joined the team, which resulted in a lengthy lawsuit that led to the UK Commercial Court ordering Palou to pay $12 million to McLaren Racing. Palou and McLaren settled out of court for an undisclosed amount in the weeks following the ruling.

Now, with Dixon on the open market, another opportunity for Arrow McLaren to take a prized driver from CGR has presented itself.

“I race hard. I race to win, and I don’t believe people steal things,” McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown said in 2023. “I think other people lose things and leave the door open. I always hear people say, ‘Oh, they stole my driver,’ or, ‘They stole my sponsor,’ but you lost them. You left the door open, so I made a move.”

Dixon said, “We’ll have to see where that goes” in regard to his next (and likely final) stop in IndyCar. But with the cloud of an expiring contract looming over him all year, Dixon has decided that his two-and-a-half-decade run at CGR has reached its conclusion.

Zion Brown is IndyStar’s motorsports reporter. Follow him at@z10nbr0wn. Get IndyStar’s motor sports coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Motor Sports newsletter. Subscribe to theYouTube channel IndyStar TV: IndyCar for a behind-the-scenes look at IndyCar and expert analysis.

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