At its inception in 1983, the team was a single-car outfit with Mario Andretti — the 1978 Formula One World Champion — as lead driver. Carl Haas brought in Lola as chassis manufacturer, re-introducing the constructor to the sport. Lola was quickly picked up by other teams and by the end of the decade had become one of the dominant chassis manufacturers in the paddock, displacing March. Andretti won two races in 1983 and finished third in points. In 1984, he won six races, nine poles, and ten top-ten finishes to claim Newman/Haas's first CART season championship.
In 1985, Andretti won three of the first four races but suffered a broken collarbone mid-season. Alan Jones — who would also become lead driver for the Carl Haas-owned Haas Lola Formula One team later that year — substituted for Andretti in one race at Road America, finishing third. Andretti's second place at the 1985 Indianapolis 500 was the team's best result at that event; he lost the race to Danny Sullivan. In 1987, the team switched to the Ilmor Chevy Indy V-8 powerplant, with Andretti winning the season opener at Long Beach — the engine's first Indy car victory.
Newman/Haas expanded to a two-car team in 1989, adding Michael Andretti alongside his father. Michael won the 1991 CART championship and finished second in points in 1990 and 1992. Despite consistent on-track success, both Andrettis failed to win at Indianapolis. Michael finished second in 1991 and was leading with 11 laps to go in 1992 before dropping out. The team switched to the Ford Cosworth XB engine starting in 1992.
Michael Andretti left for McLaren in Formula One for 1993 and was replaced by Nigel Mansell, the reigning Formula One World Champion. In his CART rookie season, Mansell won five races and had ten top-3 finishes, clinching the 1993 CART title to become the only driver in history to hold both the Formula One and Champ Car titles simultaneously. Mario Andretti also won at Phoenix that year — his final Indy car victory. At Indianapolis, Andretti led the most laps but slipped to fifth due to a penalty and handling problems. Mansell, still unfamiliar with rolling restarts after a safety car period, was passed for the lead with 16 laps remaining and finished third behind winner Emerson Fittipaldi and second-placed Arie Luyendyk.
The 1994 season was more maligned. Mario Andretti, on his "Arrivederci Mario" retirement tour, scored no wins and only three top-five finishes. Mansell also scored no wins; Bernie Ecclestone bought out Mansell's contract to return him to Formula One. Mario's final Indianapolis 500 lasted only 23 laps due to a fuel system failure; Mansell was knocked out of the same race in a crash with Dennis Vitolo.
Michael Andretti returned to the team in 1995 alongside Paul Tracy. Andretti scored one win and finished fourth in points; Tracy scored two wins and finished sixth. At season's end, Newman/Haas firmly aligned with the CART contingent in the open-wheel split, and Tracy departed to Penske.
Michael Andretti and Christian Fittipaldi drove together for five seasons from 1996 to 2000, with Roberto Moreno as an occasional substitute. Andretti won ten races during this period, finishing second in points in 1996; Fittipaldi scored two wins, with a best points finish of fifth in 1996. In 1997–1999 the team used the Swift chassis, which proved unsuccessful, and returned to Lola in 2000. Andretti departed after the 2000 season, in part due to the team's refusal to enter a car at the rival IRL's Indianapolis 500.
For 2001, Cristiano da Matta was brought in from PPI Motorsports. He won in his very first race for the team at Monterrey and finished the year with three wins. Long-time sponsor Kmart had pulled out following its 2002 bankruptcy; new sponsor Eli Lilly replaced it. In 2002, da Matta dominated the season with seven wins, including four consecutive at Laguna Seca, Portland, Chicago, and Toronto, finishing seventy-three points ahead of second-place Bruno Junqueira. At season's end, da Matta departed for a Toyota Formula One programme and Fittipaldi moved to NASCAR.
Newman/Haas remained in what became the Champ Car World Series while several top teams, following Team Penske's lead, defected to the IRL for 2003. Both Honda and Toyota also departed for the IRL, leaving Ford as the only manufacturer. The team signed Sébastien Bourdais and Bruno Junqueira. Junqueira — who had driven for Chip Ganassi Racing in 2001 and 2002 before that team moved to the IRL — won twice and finished second in points. Bourdais, winner of the 2002 Formula 3000 championship with Super Nova Racing, won at Brands Hatch, Lausitzring, and Cleveland, earning series Rookie of the Year.
In 2004, Bourdais had a breakout season with seven wins, including three consecutive at Portland, Cleveland, and Toronto, to claim his first championship. Junqueira won at Montreal and Surfers' Paradise; he also ran at Indianapolis in the team's return to the 500, finishing fifth and leading 16 laps in the rain-shortened event. The team scored a 1-2 in the series standings. In 2005, Bourdais won the championship again with five additional victories; Junqueira suffered a fractured vertebra at Indianapolis and missed the rest of the season, with Oriol Servià substituting and winning at Montreal. In 2006, Bourdais won seven races including all four of the first four events for his third consecutive title.
The 2007 season proved to be the final one for Champ Car. Bourdais won a career-high eight races, including five of the last seven, for his fourth straight championship. Graham Rahal joined the team as Junqueira's replacement and finished fifth in points. Newman/Haas's win at Houston was the team's 100th in the series. Before season's end, Scuderia Toro Rosso announced that Bourdais would drive alongside Sebastian Vettel in Formula One from 2008. Justin Wilson was tabbed to replace Bourdais in the now-unified IndyCar Series.
Following the 2008 open-wheel unification, Newman/Haas competed full-time in the IndyCar Series with Justin Wilson and Graham Rahal. The team achieved two victories: Graham Rahal won at St. Petersburg and Wilson won at Detroit — the latter coming just weeks before the death of team co-owner Paul Newman. Those were the team's 106th and 107th and final wins in Indy car racing. In 2009, Graham Rahal returned while Wilson was replaced by Robert Doornbos, who left mid-season; Oriol Servià finished out the year.
In 2010, unable to find sponsorship at the season's start, Graham Rahal was released and the team ran a single car for Hideki Mutoh. Rahal returned for five races after finding sponsorship, finishing fifth at Toronto. For 2011, the team entered Oriol Servià in one car, with James Hinchcliffe added as a second driver for selected events including Indianapolis. The team had purchased two Dallara DW12 chassis to run in 2012 but before the season started announced it would not compete due to a lack of sponsorship. The team formally disbanded after a return in 2013 failed to materialize. Mike Lanigan, a partner from 2007 to 2010 — during which the team operated as Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing — became a part-owner of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Both founding owners have since died: Paul Newman in 2008, Carl Haas in 2016.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
Gallery · 4 related images
