Chip Ganassi Racing × OpenAI
Chip Ganassi Racing and OpenAI have teamed up to explore how AI can transform racing. Together, we’re turning the smallest details into an advantage on the track.
When racing met research
Chip Ganassi Racing has long pursued performance at the highest level, with 17 championships and five wins in the last six seasons. In a sport driven by innovation, they set out to be the first team to harness the power of AI for a competitive edge.
That ambition led to an unexpected connection. OpenAI researcher Joyce Ruffell, a lifelong motorsports fan, met CGR’s EVP of Business Operations, John Olguin, at a Women in Motorsports event in Indianapolis. What began as a serendipitous introduction quickly evolved into a partnership.
In its first year, the focus was using AI to make sense of the team’s vast data—from car sensors to race and pit crew performance. Now, it’s about connecting those insights and freeing engineers to think strategically, where gains of just tenths of a second can decide a race.
R&D: The series
Follow the journey of OAI researcher Joyce Ruffell and the CGR team as they search for a competitive edge in every piece of data in their pursuit of a historic 18th IndyCar title.
Driven by data
Racing is intensely data-driven, with inputs from historical records, every test and race session, car sensors, and even pit crew performance. OpenAI is helping Ganassi Racing collect and connect that data—freeing engineers to think strategically and uncover efficiencies that, in tenths of a second, can decide a race.
Over 200 sensors are on a Ganassi IndyCar, generating nearly one billion data points per hour during a race.
“We have been working with the Chip Ganassi team to build a number of race day tools with the intention of helping them get data faster, more accurately, and more efficiently.”
The core team
OpenAI researchers and engineers and Chip Ganassi Racing are working together to redefine how research is applied on and off the track.
Joyce Ruffell
Chip Ganassi
Alex Palou
Roy Ziv
Will Plummer
Barry Wanser
Limited-edition merch
Our partnership went beyond the lab and the track. In celebration of our shared culture, we collaborated with Chip Ganassi Racing on a drop that explored where performance meets research.
“Ganassi is bringing its racing knowledge. OpenAI is bringing its frontier intelligence. And we’re putting that together to make decisions and go faster.”
