Mario Domínguez

Mario Domínguez
Mario Domínguez at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2008
Nationality	Mexican
Born	December 1, 1975 Mexico City
IRL IndyCar Series career
Debut season	2008
Current team	Pacific Coast Motorsports
Car no.	96
Starts	125
Wins	4
Poles	5

Mario Domínguez
CART/CCWS Championship Car
Years active	1996-2007, 2013-
Teams	Herdez Competition Minardi Team USA Pacific Coast Motorsports
Starts	294
Wins	22
Poles	18
Best finish	1st in 2003
Previous series
1999-2001 1993, 1998 1996-1997 1994-1995 1992	Indy Lights Mexican Formula Three Championship Mexican Formula 3000 Championship Mexican Formula Three Nissan Championship U.S. Formula Russell Mazda Championship
Championship titles
1998 1992	Mexican Formula Three Championship U.S. Formula Russell Mazda Championship
Awards
1998	CART Champ Car Rookie of the Year

Mario Domínguez (born December 1, 1975, in Mexico City) is a Mexican racing driver. He has competed in the CART and CCWS Champ Car series and later the IndyCar Series.

Early career

Domínguez first began racing in 1987 driving go-karts. He won three go-karting championships and represented Mexico in the World Karting Championships on three different occasions in Spain (1989), Italy (1990) and France (1991). He then raced in numerous developmental series in Mexico, eventually winning the Mexican Formula Three Championship in 1998 and moving to the American Indy Lights series full-time in 1999, finishing 8th in the championship in 2000 and 4th in the series' final year, 2001. He was slated to make his Champ Car debut in the first race of the 2001 season in his home county's race in Monterrey for the new Millennium Motorsports team, but the car never appeared.

Champ Car

Domínguez made his Champ Car debut the following year in 2002 and became Rookie of the Year, with his first Champ Car victory in 2002 at the Honda Indy 300, although this was in a rain-shortened race largely dictated by the safety car. He was more competitive in 2003, winning the Grand Prix Americas in Miami. In 2004 Domínguez had his best season to date by finishing 5th in the final standings. This success with Herdez Competition allowed him to sign with the Forsythe team for 2005. However, Domínguez saw limited success at Forsythe. After the first four races of the 2006 season where he crashed into his teammate Paul Tracy on the first lap twice, Domínguez and Forsythe parted ways. Before the next Champ Car race in Portland, Domínguez signed on to Dale Coyne Racing to drive the Sonny's BBQ Ford Lola-Cosworth. For the final 3 races of the season, Domínguez secured sponsorship from Mexican state-owned petroleum company Pemex to race for the slightly more competitive Rocketsports team. Along with Champ Car racing, Mario tested a Jordan Grand Prix Formula One racing car at the Silverstone circuit in Northamptonshire, England, in 2005.

In 2007 he signed with Forsythe for the first three races of the season after obtaining sponsorship from Telmex, but was dropped after just a few rounds in favour of Oriol Servià. He remained out of a Champ Car ride until he replaced an injured Tristan Gommendy at PKV Racing at the Rexall Grand Prix of Edmonton. The following week at the San Jose Grand Prix, he signed on with Pacific Coast Motorsports to fill in for Ryan Dalziel, who was injured in a bicycling accident. Dalziel recovered enough to return to racing two weeks later at Generac Grand Prix at Road America, returning Mario to the sidelines. But at the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, Mario was again called on as a substitute after Dan Clarke of Minardi Team USA was suspended for the weekend after causing a multi-car crash in a practice session.

Dominguez practicing for the 2008 Indy 500 - he ultimately crashed during his last qualification attempt

Hit and run incident

On November 9, 2007, Dominguez was involved in a hit and run incident when he crashed against several taxicabs and fled in Mexico City while allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol.^[1] Ana Guevara, then the director of the Sports Institute of Mexico City, heavily criticized Dominguez ^[2] and subsequently, his title of sports ambassador for Mexico City was stripped from him along with a sponsorship of 1.5 million US dollars.

IndyCar Series

In 2008, Dominguez announced that he would enter the remainder of the 2008 IndyCar Series season with Pacific Coast Motorsports, after placing third in the final Champ Car race at Long Beach.^[3] He was bumped from the field at the 2008 Indianapolis 500 and made his first true start in the series in the following race at the Milwaukee Mile. Since his 21st-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway in June, Dominguez's team skipped the next events to re-evaluate their program to be more competitive when they return. They returned on a road course only schedule and participated in the Watkins Glen, Mid-Ohio, Edmonton, and Infineon races to close out the season. His best finish of the season came at Watkins Glen in 13th place. He finished 27th in points.

FIA GT

In 2009, Mario has been offered a drive for the K Plus K Motorsport without the need to bring sponsorship. This will not be his first sportscar events, since he did a couple for a Risi Competizione American Le Mans Series team in 2006, delivering good results.

Motorsports Career Results

American open–wheel racing results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Indy Lights

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	Rank	Points
1992	Landford Racing	PHX	LBH	DET	POR	MIL	NHA	TOR	CLE	VAN	MDO	NAZ	LS 17			NC	0
1998	Herdez Competition Team	MIA	LBH	NAZ	STL	MIL	DET	POR	CLE	TOR	MIS	TRO	VAN 14	LS 7	FON	25th	6
1999	Team Mexico Quaker Herdez	MIA 1	LBH 6	NAZ 17	MIL 16	POR 15	CLE 9	TOR 20	MIS 4	DET 17	CHI 5	LS 16	FON 5			11th	66
2000	Team Mexico Quaker Herdez	LBH 10	MIL 3	DET 5	POR 6	MIS 7	CHI 11	MDO 11	VAN 5	LS 10	STL 6	HOU 12	FON 16			8th	67
2001	PacWest Lights	MTY 4	LBH 4	TXS 6	MIL 2	POR 11	KAN 10	TOR 2	MDO 6	STL 2	ATL 4	LS 10	FON 5			4th	120

CART/Champ Car

Year	Team	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Rank	Points
2002	Herdez Competition	Lola B02/00	Ford XF	MTY 17	LBH 14	MOT 11	MIL 17	LS 15	POR 10	CHI 11	TOR 18	CLE 17	VAN 10	MDO 16	ROA 8	MTL 17	DEN 14	ROC 13	MIA 11	SRF 1	FON 16	MXC 18	18th	37
2003	Herdez Competition	Lola B02/00	Ford XFE	STP 14	MTY 13	LBH 5	BRH 3	LAU 2	MIL 8	LS 10	POR 10	CLE 5	TOR 12	VAN 10	ROA 14	MDO 16	MTL 5	DEN 7	MIA 1	MXC 3	SRF 10		6th	118
2004	Herdez Competition	Lola B02/00	Ford XFE	LBH 5	MTY 3	MIL 8	POR 17	CLE 8	TOR 17	VAN 6	ROA 5	DEN 4	MTL 3	LS 11	LVS 7	SRF 3	MXC 8						5th	244^
2005	Forsythe Racing	Lola B02/00	Ford XFE	LBH 5	MTY 13	MIL 7	POR 4	CLE 17	TOR 13	EDM 5	SJO 5	DEN 2	MTL 10	LVS 4	SRF 18	MXC 12							9th	198
2006	Forsythe Racing	Lola B02/00	Ford XFE	LBH 4	HOU 3	MTY 6	MIL 14																9th	202
	Dale Coyne Racing							POR 14	CLE 6	TOR 11	EDM 8	SJO 5	DEN 13	MTL 10
	Rocketsports Racing														ROA 12	SRF 2	MXC 17
2007	Forsythe Racing	Panoz DP01	Cosworth XFE	LVS 9	LBH 17	HOU 6	POR	CLE	MTT	TOR													18th	78
	PKV Racing										EDM 17
	Pacific Coast Motorsports											SJO 12	ROA			SRF 12	MXC 8
	Minardi Team USA													ZOL 17	ASN

• ^ New points system implemented in 2004

IndyCar Series

Year	Team	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Rank	Points
2008	Pacific Coast Motorsports	Panoz DP01	Cosworth XFE	HMS	STP	MOT^1 DNP	LBH^1 3	KAN															27th	112
		Dallara	Honda						INDY DNQ	MIL 26	TXS 21	IOW WD	RIR	WGL 13	NSH	MDO 19	EDM 24	KTY	SNM 16	DET	CHI	SRF^2

¹ Run on same day.

² Non-points-paying, exhibition race.

Years	Teams	Races	Poles	Wins	Podiums (Non-win)	Top 10s (Non-podium)	Indianapolis 500 Wins	Championships
1	1	7	0	0	1	0	0	0

References

1. http://www.informador.com.mx/deportes/2008/53153/6/investigan-incidente-de-piloto-mario-dominguez.htm
2. http://www.informador.com.mx/deportes/2008/53059/6/ana-gabriela-guevara-critica-a-mario-dominguez.htm
3. Lewandowski, Dave. PCM on board, IndyCar.com, April 24, 2008

• Forsythe Signs Dominguez (March 30, 2005)
• Champ Car Veteran Mario Dominguez Joins Pacific Coast Motorsports (July 25, 2007)

External links

• Mario Dominguez profile provided by CBS SportsLine