For the inaugural 1996 season of the Indy Racing League, see 1996 Indy Racing League.
1996 CART IndyCar season
PPG Indy Car World Series
Season
Races
16
Start date
March 3
End date
September 8
Awards
Drivers' champion
Jimmy Vasser
Constructors' Cup
Reynard
Manufacturers' Cup
Honda
Nations' Cup
United States
Rookie of the Year
Alex Zanardi
← 1995
1997 (CART) →
The 1996 PPG Indy Car World Series season was the eighteenth in the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) era of American open-wheel car racing. It consisted of 16 races, beginning in Homestead, Florida on March 3 and concluding in Monterey, California on September 8. This was the first season after the split with the Indy Racing League and the last year that CART operated under the name "IndyCar", with the trademark reverting to Indianapolis Motor Speedway at season's end. The Indianapolis 500 was replaced by the U.S. 500, held at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan.
The PPG Indy Car World Series Drivers' Champion was Jimmy Vasser, whose Honda/Reynard won four of the first six races, including the inaugural US 500. Rookie of the Year was Alex Zanardi. The competition soon starting catching up to Vasser, who had to fend off two late challenges from veterans: Al Unser Jr.'s consistent performance saw him come close to tying Vasser late in the season, but his hopes evaporated after a last-lap crash at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and an engine failure while leading on the final turn at Road America. Michael Andretti's resulting victory there and in Vancouver put him in contention at the final race, but a disappointing result at Laguna Seca gave Vasser the championship. Rookie driver Jeff Krosnoff and a course worker died in an accident at the Toronto round, and one week later, Emerson Fittipaldi was in a serious accident at the start of the Marlboro 500 and had to retire.
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The 1996PPGIndyCarWorldSeries season was the eighteenth in the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) era of American open-wheel car racing. It consisted...
The 1997 CART PPGWorldSeries season was the nineteenth in the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) era of American open-wheel car racing. It consisted...
2016. "USAC Gold Crown Series standings for 1995". Racing Reference. Retrieved January 26, 2016. "PPGIndyCarWorldSeries1996 standings". Driver Database...
body for open-wheel racing, CART, which called its main series the "CART PPGIndyCarWorldSeries" despite the body not sanctioning the 500. In 1992, during...
promoting their own series collectively instead of relying on a neutral body to do so. Through the 1980s, CART's IndyCarWorldSeries became the pre-eminent...
list of the teams that currently compete or used to compete in the NTT IndyCarSeries. Key: Races Entered = Number of individual races entered; Races Started...
Indy NXT, previously Indy Lights, is an American developmental automobile racing series sanctioned by IndyCar, currently known as INDY NXT by Firestone...
joined the CART/PPGWorldSeries in 1983 for Forsythe Racing in the No. 33 Skoal Bandit March 83C-Cosworth DFX. He made his Indycar debut at the Kraco...
Ferran placed 14th in the 1995 PPGIndyCarWorldSeries, and won the PPGIndyCarWorldSeries Rookie Of The Year award. In 1996, de Ferran was a consistent...
He is the founder of Reynard Motorsport, which was a successful racing car manufacturer before it went bankrupt in 2002. As a student, Reynard was keenly...
frequently. The latest event, held in 2023, was called the PPG 375. The first Championship/Indycar races in the Dallas/Fort Worth area took place at Arlington...
competing in sports cars and Indycars, winning races in both types, including the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1979 and several Indycar races in 1977 and 1978...
IndyCar racing in 1996, Fittipaldi races only occasionally. In 2008, he became one of only three people in history to have a Corvette production car...
of America in 2014. Luyendyk won a total of seven Indycar races, including three in the CART series, all of them on ovals. Luyendyk started racing in...
14, 1996) was an American race car driver. A competitor in the CART PPGIndyCarWorldSeries, he was killed in a racing accident during the 1996 Molson...
1995, switching to the Indy Racing League for the 1996–97 season. On June 21, 2010, it was announced that the IndyCarSeries would return to New Hampshire...
CarWorldSeries (1979–2007) Indy Racing League/IndyCarSeries (1996–present) Colton Herta is the youngest winner of a major American open-wheel car race;...
races in Formula One, IndyCar, the World Sportscar Championship, and NASCAR. He has also won races in midget car racing and sprint car racing. Andretti won...
Jim Trueman PPGIndyCarWorldSeries Rookie of the Year Award. For the 1996IndyCar season he drove the No. 8 Pennzoil Reynard 96i-Honda Indy V8 and qualified...
was part of the Champ Car WorldSeries from 1986 to 2007. After a one-year hiatus, it has been part of the NTT IndyCarSeries schedule since 2009. The...
driver who competed primarily in the CART series and Champ Car. Vasser won ten CART series races and won the 1996 CART championship with Chip Ganassi Racing...
Global Information
Jimmy Vasser
Reynard
Honda
Alex Zanardi