The 2001 FedEx Championship Series season, the twenty-third in the

CART A cart or dray (Australia and New Zealand) is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people. It is different from the flatbed tr ...

era of U.S. open-wheel racing, consisted of 20 of the 22 originally scheduled races, beginning in

Monterrey Monterrey ( , ) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León, Mexico, and the third largest city in Mexico behind Guadalajara and Mexico City. Located at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the city is anchor ...

, Mexico on March 11 and concluding in

Fontana, California Fontana is a city in San Bernardino County, California. Founded by Azariel Blanchard Miller in 1913, it remained essentially rural until World War II, when entrepreneur Henry J. Kaiser built a large steel mill in the area. It is now a regional h ...

on November 4. What would have been the third race in the season, the Firestone Firehawk 600 in Fort Worth, Texas was canceled after qualifying due to safety concerns. The

FedEx FedEx Corporation, formerly Federal Express Corporation and later FDX Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business services based in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "Fe ...

Championship Series Drivers' Champion was Gil de Ferran, while the Rookie of the Year was Scott Dixon. Off the track, the 2001 season was an unmitigated disaster for CART, featuring two race cancellations, a disastrous European tour that coincided with the September 11 attacks, infighting amongst engine manufacturers that saw litigation and the announced future departure of Honda and Toyota, the loss of the series' television contract, the loss of longtime tracks Michigan and Nazareth, and the withdrawal of Team Penske at the conclusion of the season. Team Penske and Team Motorola joined

Chip Ganassi Racing Chip Ganassi Racing, LLC (CGR), also sometimes branded as Chip Ganassi Racing Teams, is an American auto racing organization with teams competing in the IndyCar Series, NTT IndyCar Series, International Motor Sports Association, IMSA WeatherTech ...

in having concurrent IRL teams to run in the

2001 Indianapolis 500 The 85th Indianapolis 500 (aka “the 2001 Indianapolis 500”) was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana on Sunday, May 27, 2001. Race rookie Hélio Castroneves, a three-year veteran of the CART series, led the final 52 lap ...

, with Penske's Castroneves winning the race. In an unusual move, CART "sanctioned" the participation of teams in the race; This was an attempt to allow Penske's primary sponsor, Marlboro, to appear on cars in the 500 as they were prohibited from being in more than one racing series by the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. This legal maneuver was not successful, and Penske's cars ran without advertising. DaimlerChrysler shut down their CART program as an engine manufacturer via Mercedes-Benz brand as DaimlerChrysler decided to move to NASCAR Winston Cup Series via

Dodge Dodge is an American brand of automobiles and a division of Stellantis, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Dodge vehicles have historically included performance cars, and for much of its existence Dodge was Chrysler's mid-priced brand above P ...

brand in the same year.

Drivers and constructors

The following teams and drivers competed in the 2001 CART Championship Series season. All cars ran on Firestone Tires.

Season summary

Schedule

Oval/Speedway
Dedicated road course
Temporary street circuit * The original calendar called for 22 races on five continents, by far the most ambitious calendar CART had ever attempted. With the race at Texas being canceled and the Rio 200 being dropped, the 2001 season ultimately had the same number of races as the previous year. * For the first time, CART would race in the United Kingdom and Germany and also return to Mexico for the first time in almost twenty years. * The original calendar released on August 5, 2000, had the first round of the season at Jacarepaguá in Brazil, but disagreements with the track owners several months later led to the event being dropped. * The events at Homestead-Miami and Gateway were dropped after negotiations with the owners of the track; rival series Indy Racing League secured the contracts instead, and both tracks were featured in the 2001 Indy Racing League season. * The removal of Gateway from the calendar meant that Memorial Day weekend would be empty, allowing several teams and drivers the opportunity to compete at the Indianapolis 500.

Race results

Final driver standings

# Kenny Bräck also awarded 1 point for his pole position in

Fort Worth Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

. The race was canceled after qualifying due to excessively high speeds. # Toranosuke Takagi was penalized 2 points for rough driving in Toronto. # Alex Zanardi's car was impacted from the side by Alex Tagliani's car at EuroSpeedway Lausitz. He lost both of his lower legs in the impact. This signaled the end of his open-wheel racing career.

Nation's Cup

* Top result per race counts towards Nation's Cup.

Chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...
Constructor's Cup

Engine Manufacturer's Cup

References

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