Ganassi wants to join Penske in IMSA DPi, but not now

Chip Ganassi

Chip Ganassi and Roger Penske race against each other in NASCAR and IndyCar and soon they may be racing against each other in IMSA's top DPi category.

Chip Ganassi Racing runs the dual Ford CGR IMSA GT Le Mans and WEC GTE that is set to run through 2019, the team's managing director says there are no active plans to run a factory Daytona Prototype international effort prior to the conclusion of the Ford GT project.

"We would like to be in the prototype category, but it makes it hard with the current GT program," Ganassi team manager Mike Hull told RACER. "We'd need to see the Ford project all the way through before anything in the prototype category could be possible. It certainly isn't going to be next year, and I don't know about 2019 at this point. We're at least 18 months away from figuring out the next steps."

"We spoke to Honda about it quite a long time ago, but Penske was already there and we didn't know about it and Honda didn't tell us, which was fair," he added. "We've talked to Ford about it but at the moment, they've looked at DPi but don't have serious interest in it, and they're our partner program. GM is already with Wayne Taylor and Action Express, so while we're partners in NASCAR, I don't think there's anything there for us in prototypes. We want to be in prototypes again, but the timing is open at this point."