INDIANAPOLIS – The list of drivers that Target/Chip Ganassi Racing Engineering Manager Julian Robertson has worked with reads like an IndyCar Hall of Fame.

After completing his university education in Great Britain in 1985 he went straight to the Lotus Formula One team, where he stayed through the 1991 F1 World Championship season. He came over to IndyCar with Dick Simon Racing in 1992 before moving over to Chip Ganassi’s team midway through the 1993 season.

Robertson worked with Arie Luyendyk, a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner, Michael Andretti, Alex Zanardi, Jimmy Vasser, 1999 Indy 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya, 2008 Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon, three-time Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti and 2013 Indianapolis 500 champion Tony Kanaan – just to name a few of the greats of the sport.

“All of them are a little bit different – they all have their own characteristics,” Robertson said. “Zanardi was a great race winner – great at setting up a race car. Vasser was really fast for a number of years and won the championship in 1996 and that was the first championship for Target/Chip Ganassi Racing. Then Scott Dixon won the first IRL (Indy Racing League) championship for the team in 2003. They are all really good – like Dario towards the end.

“Everyone drives a little different and has their own characteristics. Fast drivers don’t all drive the same – they all have their own characteristics.”

With so many Indianapolis 500 victories and IndyCar championships going all the way back to Vasser’s CART title in 1996, Robertson and Target/Chip Ganassi Racing can step back and say, “Wow, look at all that we have accomplished together.”

“It’s a great group of people,” Robertson said. “The team has grown. Back when I started it was a relatively small team and has just grown larger and larger. The nature of the team is it tends to suck in good people and tends to keep them. A lot of the people have been here a long time and have been and are an integral part of that success. A lot of it is the continuity that keeps building through the years and the trust everybody has for each other and the expertise in this building is what keeps everyone competitive.”

Engineering is a key part of any successful racing operation and Robertson is in charge of gathering all of that data from the four cars on the team and then disseminates the data to the cars.

“There is an awful lot of engineering data and there are several aspects to engineering,” Robertson explained. “Preparation is a key one. Before we go to a track we will have run a lot of computer simulations, done some aerodynamic analysis – all of that kind of thing to optimize the car before we get there so we unload the car fast right out of the box.

“Sometimes you unload fast right out of the box and sometimes not so good. That is when the good teams show they can catch up during a race event and start making changes to the car that make a difference and push you back up to the front.”

Working with a four-car team Target/Chip Ganassi Racing has one big engineering room in one of the transporters and the engineers for each car are in that room.

“We all know what is going on all the time and we discuss plans and every car learns from every other car and that way we push the whole program forward,” Robertson said. “They are not independent units as such – it feeds the main program to drive everyone faster.”