Sam Hornish Jr. is leaving the IndyCar Series for a full-time ride in NASCAR, joining a long list of open-wheel stars who are flocking toward America’s most popular racing series.
The three-time IndyCar champion will drive the No. 77 Dodge next season for Penske Racing with Mobil 1 as the sponsor.
“I feel like this is something that is a new and unique challenge for me,” Hornish said Thursday. “It may or may not be the right way to look at it, but I feel like I accomplished just about everything in Indy cars.”
Roger Penske officially will introduce Hornish as the third driver for his NASCAR team on Saturday night at the Penske Racing Museum in Phoenix. He’ll join a team that already fields cars for Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman.
He’ll join Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti and Jacques Villeneuve as former Indianapolis 500 winners and IndyCar series champions now racing NASCAR. Patrick Carpentier is also moving to stock cars after a long open-wheel career, and AJ Allmendinger fled Champ Car for NASCAR this season.
Scott Speed, who spent the past two years in Formula One, also has migrated to stock cars and will drive in the low-level ARCA Series next year to prepare for NASCAR.
Hornish, the 2006 Indianapolis 500 winner, has been leaning toward moving to NASCAR for some time. But his struggles in making races – he’s failed to qualify for all six Cup races he’s entered – had led many to speculate he might stick with IndyCars another year.
Bourdais has high hopes. Four-time champion Sebastien Bourdais didn’t hesitate when asked about his expectations for the season-ending Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday, his final race before moving on to Formula One.
“I want to win. This is my last race in the series,” Bourdais said. “I have mixed feelings. I’m very excited about the challenge of Formula One, but at the same time, I’m sad to leave the guys who worked with me over the last few years.”
Bourdais clinched his fourth title in the last race in Australia.
F1 plot thickens. Formula One’s spying scandal took another twist when Renault was accused by the sport’s governing body of possessing confidential information belonging to rival team McLaren.
FIA has summoned Renault officials to a hearing to answer a charge of having “unauthorized possession of documents and confidential information.”
