Mystery Monday: Max Chilton – “My first IndyCar season was fun but frustrating. I’d love another crack at it…”

I’m loving racing in the states. It’s a big, colourful and enthusiastic place with an infectious approach to everything. And that’s true of the racing, too.

How did the whole American thing come about? It’s a question I’ve been asked quite often. It’s thanks to Trevor Carlin that I made the move Stateside really. I raced for Trevor in Formula 3 and GP2 and had done a lot of testing for him over the years including the GP3 car when he moved into that series.

The backstory is that I’d had a strange winter at the end of 2014. I wasn’t going to be continuing in F1 with Marussia in 2015 and had nothing set in stone for the year ahead. The end of 2014 had been terrible following Jules Bianchi’s accident at Suzuka and it seemed the team was in a bit of trouble.

I’d heard about the Nissan LMP1 World Endurance Championship and Le Mans programme, which sounded mega, but initially didn’t get anywhere with enquiries. And that’s when Trevor invited me to test his new Indy Lights car. I knew he’d be doing it properly and a chance to try the IndyCar feeder-series car was too good to pass up.

After that first test, the team asked me to do the first race, at St Petersburg. I qualified on the front row alongside team-mate Ed Jones so the speed was there straightaway. I committed to the series with Trevor and then got the call from Nissan inviting me to join the team for the Le Mans 24 Hours, which meant missing a few Indy Lights races. A factory Le Mans seat was a big deal, so I just had to do that. It’s a real shame it didn’t work out, but it meant the American thing had some more mileage.

After Le Mans I returned to the US and scored my maiden Indy Lights win at Iowa. It was great to crack the ovals and that helped me get a handle on what was to come in 2016. You have to carry the speed in as effortless a way as possible and be super-smooth, not unlike taming superfast classic European road courses like Spa and Monza.

I got calls over the winter from a number of top IndyCar teams and was thrilled to be able to join Chip Ganassi Racing, which has won a hell of a lot of races and championships with great drivers like Alex Zanardi, Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti. I soon started to feel like IndyCar could be a fantastic career path for me.

The cars are fun to drive. They have a huge amount of downforce but aren’t overly powerful. The gearboxes are fairly agricultural, so they need working hard.

Being part of the ultra successful CGR squad was a serious eye-opener. I was in at the deep end but with a huge amount of guidance from their hugely experienced engineers and Dario as a mentor.

My results were up and down. It was a frustrating season in many ways, but I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be easy and I learned a lot. It was great to be able to carry over my understanding of ovals from my year in Indy Lights – in fact, my best qualifying of the year was fourth at Iowa, where I’d won in Lights last year. My best race result – seventh – also came on an oval, at Phoenix early in the year.

Finishing the Indy 500 on the lead lap, in 15^th but less than half a minute behind the winner, was pretty satisfying, too. It’s one of the biggest races of the year, right up there with the Monaco GP and Le Mans 24 Hours, and pounding round the banking at 220mph-plus for three hours in front of a huge crowd is a real thrill.

I’d love another chance to race in IndyCar, particularly at The Brickyard. I felt that in the last quarter of the year the speed and consistency was really starting to come. Unfortunately, whenever I got qualifying nailed something happened in the race. I’m in talks with Ganassi about a second year. There are also suggestions that Trevor Carlin might graduate to IndyCar via the acquisition of an existing team. I’d love to see that happen, but whether it will do so in time remains to be seen.

Either way, I’m pushing hard to be on the grid for the opening IndyCar race of 2017. It would be great to put everything I learned this year to good use.

I hope I can make it to the 20^th Goodwood Revival, too, as I’d love to race there again. I’ve been out having fun in an AC Cobra recently and really fancy a crack at the RAC TT Celebration race. It’s the one everyone wants to win in what is a fantastic event.

Max Chilton was talking to Henry Hope-Frost.

Photography courtesy of LAT