Will Vasser retire?

UPDATE Third-place finishes in the past two Champ Car World Series races have convinced Jimmy Vasser he still can compete against drivers nearly half his age. Still to be answered is whether he has the desire to keep doing it. The Champ Car season ends Nov. 6 in Mexico City. Two weeks later, Vasser turns 40. He is sixth in the standings, one point behind 23-year-old A.J. Allmendinger. "I'm not contemplating resigning my Champ Car seat because of lack of performance. I feel like I'm on top of my machine," the 1996 series champion said after another strong run last weekend in Australia. "We're going to base our decision about my driving or not pretty much on what's best for the race team." Vasser is a partner with series co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven and Dan Pettit in PKV Racing. He wants to sit down with them and discuss his future and expects to have a decision by mid-December. "I can drive another one or two years for sure and still be competitive," he said. "But in today's Champ Car climate, it might be better that we get to work on building for the future." Indy Star 08/27/05 There has been a lot of speculation of whether veteran Champ Car driver Jimmy Vasser will retire after the 2005 season. If performance is any indication, no. He has been faster than his younger teammate Cristiano da Matta most of the year and once again this weekend in Montreal. In fact Vasser had the fastest lap in morning warm-up but the red flag came out at the end and Champ Car took it away. Clearly Vasser still has what it takes to do the job. If anything, we 're a bit surprised that his younger teammate da Matta isn't doing better than he is despite winning a race on pit strategy. One would have thought that coming out of F1 he would be closer to the sharp end of the grid. Then again a Champ Car is harder to drive than a F1 car, so success in F1 does not necessarily equate to success in Champ Car.