Dragon Racing

Dragon Racing (formerly Luczo-Dragon Racing) is an American auto racing team that is involved in many areas of motorsport. Dragon Racing was founded in 2007 by Jay Penske and Stephen J. Luczo. The team competed in the IndyCar Series from 2007 until 2014, and in 2014 Dragon Racing became one of the founding Formula E teams. It is set to compete under a new name Dragon / Penske Autosport for the 2020–21 season.

Not to be confused with current IndyCar and endurance racing team DragonSpeed.

Dragon / Penske Autosport
Founded2007
Founder(s)Jay Penske
Stephen J. Luczo
BaseLos Angeles, California, United States
Silverstone, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom.
Team principal(s)Jay Penske
Current seriesFormula E
Former seriesIndyCar Series
Current drivers Sérgio Sette Câmara[1]
Nico Müller
Websitehttp://www.dragonracing.com

Notable Dragon Racing drivers include Jérôme d'Ambrosio, Sébastien Bourdais, Loïc Duval, Ryan Briscoe, Paul Tracy and Tomas Scheckter.

History

Luczo Dragon Racing

The team debuted as Luczo Dragon Racing in 2007. The team fielded a one-off entry at the 2007 Indianapolis 500 with driver Ryan Briscoe. Jay Penske and Stephen J. Luczo were co-owners. Briscoe qualified 7th and finished 5th at Indianapolis 500. The car was notable for being painted in a "retro" paint schemes to resemble Rick Mears' 1988 Indianapolis 500 winning car, with Norton software as the lead sponsor.

Scheckter's LDR car practicing for the 2008 Indy 500

Luczo Dragon ran a six-race schedule in 2008 including the Indianapolis 500 with IndyCar veteran Tomas Scheckter,[2] this time without support or cars from Penske Racing. While qualifying well, qualifying 3rd and leading numerous laps at the Indy 500 before being knocked out by mechanical trouble.

The team expanded to a full-time entrant in 2009, fielding 2008 Indy Lights champion Raphael Matos.[3] Matos and the Dragon Racing team went on to win the Rookie of Year honors in 2009 and scored multiple top-10 finishes.

Dragon Racing

In February 2011, Jay Penske re-branded the team as Dragon Racing in April 2011 and jointly announced that Paul Tracy had signed a five-race deal to compete for the team. Additionally the team entered two cars in the Indy 500[4] for drivers Scott Speed and Ho-Pin Tung. Tung crashed his car during qualifying and suffered a concussion crashing with only two corners to go, Tung would have qualified in the top 5. Scott Speed was unable to get his car up to speed, and the team let him go during practice.[5]

In January 2012, Dragon Racing had operations in Indianapolis and Los Angeles. It entered two cars in the 2012 IndyCar Series season; one driven by Katherine Legge, and the other driven by four-time Champ Car champion Sébastien Bourdais,[6] but on June 1, 2012, it was revealed that they would reduce operations to just 1 team with Bourdais driving the street courses and Legge on the ovals. Bourdais finished 25th in points with a best finish of fourth. Legge finished 26th with a best finish of 9th.

On February 12, 2013, it was announced that Sebastián Saavedra would be joining the team for the 2013 season in the No. 6 car while Bourdais would return in the No. 7.[7] Bourdais and team continued to dominate at Road and Street courses capturing three podium finishes, including two in the double-header in Toronto. Saavedra finished 21st in points, last among full-time drivers, with two top-10 finishes. In 2014, the team left IndyCar racing to focus on the new Formula E electric powered series.[8]

Formula E

On 25 September 2013, it was announced that Dragon Racing would be joining Formula E with Jay Penske leading the team.[9] Dragon would be the second American team to join as Andretti Autosport had already announced their entry by then.

2014–15 season
Loïc Duval driving the SRT01-e at the 2015 Berlin ePrix.

In July 2014, Dragon announced Mike Conway as their first driver.[10] Later that month, Jérôme d'Ambrosio was announced as the second driver.[11] Conway would actually not make his debut as his seat was taken over by Oriol Servià, who also got signed back in March 2014.[12] Servià only competed in the first four races however, despite finishing on points in all of them. Loïc Duval then stepped in for the rest of the season, beginning from the 2015 Miami ePrix.[13]

After a very successful second half of the season, Dragon finished second in Teams' Championship with 171 points.

2015–16 season

Dragon decided not to build their own powertrain for the 2015–16 season and instead made a deal with Venturi to supply their VM200-FE-01 powertrains to the team.[14] Dragon did not change their driver lineup from the previous year and continued to use d'Ambrosio and Duval.

After a slight dip in performance, Dragon finished fourth in Teams' Championship with 143 points.

2016–17 season
Jérôme d'Ambrosio with the Penske 701-EV at the 2017 Berlin ePrix.

Prior to the 2016–17 season, Dragon made a deal with Faraday Future, who became the title sponsor of the team and also a technical partner. The partnership would come to a close at the end of 2017.[15] Dragon ended the Venturi partnership and became a manufacturer, developing their own powertrains.[16] The pairing of d'Ambrosio and Duval was once again retained, though Mike Conway, the team's supposed first driver in the 2014–15 season, subbed for Duval at the 2016 Paris ePrix.[17]

As a manufacturer, Dragon fell into eighth place in Teams' Championship, scoring only 33 points with no podium finishes.

2017–18 season

Duval left the team and was replaced by Neel Jani. Jani would only make a single appearance at the 2017 Hong Kong ePrix double-header,[18] with José María López replacing Jani for the rest of the season.[19] The team ran two different liveries simultaneously. for each of their drivers. D'Ambrosio was given a red metallic car while Jani/López ran a white car.

Despite scoring 41 points, which was more than in the previous year, Dragon fell to ninth place in Teams' Championship.

2018–19 season
José María López with the Penske EV-3 at the 2019 Marrakesh ePrix.

For the 2018–19 season, the team got rebranded to GEOX Dragon, reflecting the new sponsorship deal with Geox.[20] D'Ambrosio left the team to join Mahindra Racing, which prompted Dragon to promote their reserve driver Maximilian Günther to the empty seat.[21] Prior to the 2019 Mexico City ePrix, Günther was replaced by Felipe Nasr.[22] Günther got back into the seat at the Rome ePrix as Nasr had other commitments.[23] Nasr would never return to Dragon again, however.

Dragon would once again worsen their position as they only scored 23 points, which was enough for tenth place in Teams' Championship.

2019–20 season

In addition to being a manufacturer, Dragon also became the new suppliers of the NIO 333 FE Team. NIO bought the year-old Penske EV-3 powertrains and rebadged them as NIO.[24] For the 2019–20 season, Dragon introduced a new driver lineup consisting of Brendon Hartley and Nico Müller.[25] In March 2020, Dragon committed to their manufacturer status for another two seasons.[26]

Sponsors
Sponsor[N 1] 2014–15 2015–16 2016–17 2017–18 2018–19 2019–20 2020–21
Faraday Future[27] T
Geox[20] T T
Penske Media Corporation[N 2]
McAfee[28]
InstaForex[33]
MixBit
Molex[34]
Fenix[35]
Mouser Electronics[36][N 3]
Panasonic[36]
LeEco[37]
Argo Group[30]
Saudi Research and Marketing Group
AVX Corporation[38]
Neom[39]
Vizio
Past logos
  • 2018–2020

Drivers

Indycar

Formula E

Racing results

Complete Formula E results

(key) (results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Chassis Powertrain Tyres No. Drivers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Points T.C.
Dragon Racing
2014–15 Spark SRT01-e SRT01-e1 M BEI PUT PDE BUE MIA LBH MCO BER MSC LON 171 2nd
6 Oriol Servià 7 7 9 9
Loïc Duval 7 9 Ret 3 15 8 3
7 Jérôme d'Ambrosio 6 5 8 14 4 6 5 1 11 2 2
2015–16 Spark SRT01-e Venturi VM200-FE-01 M BEI PUT PDE BUE MEX LBH PAR BER LON 143 4th
6 Loïc Duval 4 16† 4 6 4 8 Ret Ret Ret 4
7 Jérôme d'Ambrosio 5 14† 3 16 1 7 11 16 9 3
Faraday Future Dragon Racing
2016–17 Spark SRT01-e Penske 701-EV M HKG MRK BUE MEX MCO PAR BER NYC MTL 33 8th
6 Loïc Duval 14 18 6 Ret Ret 15 Ret 5 13 Ret 19
Mike Conway 14
7 Jérôme d'Ambrosio 7 13 8 14 Ret NC 13 13 Ret 10 11 9
Dragon Racing
2017–18 Spark SRT01-e Penske EV-2 M HKG MRK SCL MEX PDE RME PAR BER ZUR NYC 41 9th
6 Neel Jani 18 18
José María López 6 Ret 12 8 17† 10 18 12 Ret Ret
7 Jérôme d'Ambrosio NC 15 15 8 11 9 7 12 19 3 13 Ret
GEOX Dragon
2018–19 Spark SRT05e Penske EV-3 M ADR MRK SCL MEX HKG SYX RME PAR MCO BER BRN NYC 23 10th
6 Maximilian Günther 16 12 Ret 19† 5 Ret 14 5 Ret 19†
Felipe Nasr 19 Ret Ret
7 José María López Ret 11 9 17 11 Ret 16 13 10 20 DSQ 12 Ret
2019–20 Spark SRT05e Penske EV-4 M DIR SCL MEX MRK BER I BER II BER III 2 11th
6 Brendon Hartley 19 9 Ret 12 19
Sérgio Sette Câmara DSQ 17 Ret 21 15 19
7 Nico Müller DNS Ret 12 Ret 20 Ret 14 12 20 17 22
Notes
  • ^1 – In the inaugural season, all teams were supplied with a spec powertrain by McLaren.
  • † – Driver did not finish the race, but was classified as he completed over 90% of the race distance.

Other teams supplied by Dragon
Year Team Chassis Powertrain Tyres No. Drivers Points T.C. Source
2019–20 NIO 333 FE Team Spark SRT05e NIO FE-0051 M 0 12th [24]
3 Oliver Turvey
33 Ma Qinghua
Daniel Abt
Notes
  • ^1 – The powertrain is a rebadged Penske EV-3.[24]

Complete IndyCar Series results

(key)

Year Chassis Engine Drivers No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Luczo Dragon Racing
2007 HMS STP MOT KAN INDY MIL TXS IOW RIR WGL NSH MDO MCH KTY SNM DET CHI
Dallara IR-05 Honda HI7R V8 Ryan Briscoe 12 51
2008 HMS STP MOT LBH KAN INDY MIL TXS IOW RIR WGL NSH MDO EDM KTY SNM DET CHI SRF2
Dallara IR-05 Honda HI7R V8 Tomas Scheckter 12 23 24 25 27 21 26
2009 STP LBH KAN INDY MIL TXS IOW RIR WGL TOR EDM KTY MDO SNM CHI MOT HMS
Dallara IR-05 Honda HI7R V8 Raphael Matos 2 20 8 20 22 6 12 16 8 12 10 18 16 9 9 9 9 14
de Ferran Dragon Racing
2010 SAO STP ALA LBH KAN INDY TXS IOW WGL TOR EDM MDO SNM CHI KTY MOT HMS
Dallara IR-05 Honda HI7R V8 Raphael Matos 2 4 8 14 20 16 29 16 14 4 21 13 7 21 29 16 18 17
Davey Hamilton 21 33 18
Dragon Racing
2011 STP ALA LBH SAO INDY TXS MIL IOW TOR EDM MDO NHM SNM BAL MOT KTY LSV
Dallara IR-05 Honda HI7R V8 Paul Tracy 8 16 12 13 16 26 C3
Ho-Pin Tung Wth
88 27
Scott Speed 20 DNQ
Patrick Carpentier DNQ
2012 STP ALA LBH SAO INDY DET TEX MIL IOW TOR EDM MDO SNM BAL FON
Dallara DW12 Lotus DC00 V6t Katherine Legge 6 23 23 19 26
Chevrolet IndyCar V6t 22 15 18 15 24 9
Lotus DC00 V6t Sébastien Bourdais 7 21 9 17 18
Chevrolet IndyCar V6t 20 24 14 15 4 22 23
2013 STP ALA LBH SAO INDY DET TXS MIL IOW POC TOR MDO SNM BAL HOU FON
Dallara DW12 Chevrolet IndyCar V6t Sebastián Saavedra 6 20 20 27 19 32 22 10 14 13 19 23 16 15 19 21 8 14 12 24
Sébastien Bourdais 7 11 16 15 14 29 24 11 20 22 14 16 2 3 12 10 3 8 5 12
  1. ^ With support from Team Penske.
  2. ^ Non-points-paying, exhibition race.
  3. ^ The 2011 Las Vegas race was abandoned following a Lap 11 fatal crash that damaged the circuit. Under INDYCAR rules, 101 of 200 laps had to be completed for a legal race.

Footnotes
  1. This list only includes companies whose logos have appeared on the team's cars. Mandatory logos of series' partners are also excluded from the list.
  2. Including various subsidiaries in Variety (all seasons),[28] India.com (2014–2015, 2015–2016),[29] Boy Genius Report (2015–2016, 2017–2018, 2019–2020),[27] Robb Report (2016–2020),[30] Rolling Stone (2018–present),[31] Women's Wear Daily (2020–present)[32] and Billboard (2020–present).[32]
  3. Including a parent company in TTI, Inc.[34]

References
  1. "Sérgio Sette Câmara will compete for DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT in Season 7 of the FIA Formula E World Championship". DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT. 20 November 2020.
  2. Cavin, Curt; Ballard, Steve (1 February 2008). "Scheckter likely back at Indy 500". The Indianapolis Star. Gannett Company. Retrieved 19 July 2015.
  3. DiZinno, Tony (7 October 2008). "Matos, Luczo Dragon latest to confirm 2009 plans". Motorsport.com. Motorsport.com, Inc. Retrieved 19 July 2015.
  4. Miller, Robin. Tracy To Lead Restructured Dragon Racing Archived 10 April 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Speed TV, April 2, 2011, Retrieved 2012-01-14
  5. "Tung joins Schmidt Dragon for Sonoma". GPUpdate.net. JHED Media BV. 24 August 2011. Retrieved 19 July 2015.
  6. Glendenning, Mark (12 January 2012). "Sebastien Bourdais secures full-time IndyCar return with Dragon Racing". Autosport. Haymarket Publications. Retrieved 19 July 2015.
  7. "Saavedra in at Dragon, to pair with Bourdais". IndyCar Series. IndyCar. 12 February 2013. Retrieved 19 July 2015.
  8. Formula E, Electric Racing: Part 3, Editorial Triple League Racing, March 3, 2014. Retrieved April 20, 2014.
  9. Joseph, Noah (3 October 2013). "Jay Penske's Dragon Racing signs on for 2014 Formula E Championship". Autoblog. Verizon Media. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  10. Biesbrouck, Tim (2 July 2014). "Dragon Racing announces Mike Conway for Formula E campaign". Electric Autosport. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  11. Joseph, Noah (23 July 2014). "Jay Penske's Dragon Racing signs Jérôme d'Ambrosio for Formula E". Autoblog. Verizon Media. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  12. Biesbrouck, Tim (24 March 2014). "Oriol Servia teams up with Dragon Racing Formula E Team". Electric Autosport. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  13. "Formula E Miami: Audi's Loic Duval to make debut with Dragon Racing". Autosport.com. Motorsport Network. 9 March 2015. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  14. Smith, Sam (16 July 2015). "Exclusive: Dragon Racing to run Venturi powertrain". Motorsport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  15. Mitchell, Scott (27 November 2017). "Dragon's Formula E technical partnership with Faraday Future over". Autosport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  16. Smith, Sam (15 December 2015). "Exclusive: Dragon Racing to become Formula E manufacturer". Motorsport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  17. Van Osten, Phillip (20 April 2017). "Conway gets Paris ePrix call from Dragon". F1i. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  18. Smith, Sam (2 January 2018). "Neel Jani and Dragon Split After Two Races". e-racing365. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  19. "Dragon signs Lopez as Jani replacement". Eurosport. 5 January 2018. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  20. Deeny, Godfrey (26 November 2018). "Dragon signs Lopez as Jani replacement". Fashion Network. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  21. Douglas, Scott (13 November 2018). "Gunther completes Dragon line-up for 2018-19". The Checkered Flag. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  22. Smith, Sam (13 February 2019). "Nasr's New Challenge; Reserve Driver Confusion at Dragon". e-racing365. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  23. Smith, Sam (26 March 2019). "Guenther Returns to GEOX Dragon for Rome". e-racing365. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  24. Smith, Sam (15 October 2019). "New NIO 333 Car Breaks Cover". e-racing365. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  25. Smith, Sam (18 September 2019). "Nico Mueller Completes GEOX Dragon Lineup". e-racing365. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  26. Smith, Sam (23 March 2020). "Dragon commits to Formula E manufacturer status". The Race. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  27. Heisler, Yoni (1 June 2016). "White-hot electric car startup Faraday Future jumps into Formula E racing". Boy Genius Report. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  28. Mai, HJ (12 March 2015). "Formula E Team Dragon Racing Expects To Sell All Sponsorship Properties By End Of Season". SportsBusiness Daily. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  29. "india.com brand joins Formula E racing: Jerome D'Ambrosio rides india.com branded car for Dragon Racing". India.com. 27 June 2015. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  30. "FFDR welcomes new sponsors at Buenos Aires". e-racing.net. 20 February 2017. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  31. Kilshaw, Jake (22 May 2018). "Dragon Partners with Rolling Stone Brand". e-racing365. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  32. "DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT Reveals Season 7 Livery". DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT. 27 November 2020. Retrieved 27 November 2020.
  33. Carp, Sam (2 January 2018). "Dragon Racing secure one-year extension with InstaForex". SportsPro. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  34. Manners, David (30 November 2017). "Mouser, TTI and Molex sponsor Dragon Racing Formula E team". Electronics Weekly. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  35. Mai, HJ (4 April 2016). "U.S. Teams Stress Importance Of Long Beach ePrix To Remove Corporate America's Doubts". SportsBusiness Daily. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  36. "Panasonic sponsors Dragon Racing". e-racing.net. 11 March 2016. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  37. Masurekar, Gaurav (10 October 2016). "LeEco sponsors Faraday Future Dragon Racing team for its debut at the 2016–17 FIA Formula E Championship". Motoroid. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  38. "AVX Announces Support for the GEOX DRAGON All-Electric Formula-E Racing Team". Digital Engineering 24/7. 14 February 2019. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  39. Brooks, Augustus (15 November 2019). "Formula E's Geox Dragon Unveils New Livery for Season 6". Robb Report. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
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