UNFAVOURED BUT UNDERACHIEVING

In this disruptive series, should Chip Ganassi Racing have been the disruptive team? The names of driver pairing Sara Price and Kyle Leduc didn’t carry much weight on an entry sheet that featured Sebastien Loeb and Johan Kristoffersson. But the American outfit lays a claim to being the lost champion.

Of the 19 waypoints marking the Senegal course, Leduc was fastest through 13 of them. He and Price were second only to qualifying topper X44 on the Dakar beach in Q1, third in Q1 in Greenland, second again behind X44 in Q2 in Sardinia. And they were nailed on for victory on the Italian island with a 45s lead in the final until a toe link failed. And that was the tone of CGR’S campaign: blinding pace, woeful reliability and the occasional massive shunt for Leduc, who deployed a win or bust mentality.

Team boss Dave Berkenfield doesn’t look for excuses. He says: “The challenge is you make your own luck, so you can’t really put the blame on anyone but the team. A brand-new car for the first season, there’s a level of expectation that it might not always be smooth and that’s what you have to deal with.”

While he says nothing is “locked in” for 2022 with regards to the driver line-up, Berkenfield does concede that if both Leduc and Price are to stay put then there must be a change of approach to prove CGR is an equal to the series’ heavy hitters.

He continues: “Obviously, we’ve seen lots of little moments of really good stuff from Kyle and Sarah. The pace is there. I’m less worried about that. I’m more worried about consistency and driving smart. For our team right now, it’s defining the racecraft, getting the car to the finish and bringing Kyle and Sarah into that mindset.”

Should the machinery have been more up to the task, and had Leduc found a middle ground between seeking out the trees or a trophy, then the crew would have been a serious title contender. Nevermind finishing eighth of the nine teams and with less than half the points of Rosberg X Racing and X44.