Schmidt not seeking Chevy switch

Schmmidt Peterson Motorsports have no plans to leave the Honda fold.

The news comes despite Chip Ganassi Racing recently switching to the Japanese marque from Chevrolet, leaving just three teams confirmed to be running with the American brand in 2017.

"That's our plan," Schmidt told RACER. "It would be much more difficult for us to do what [Ganassi] did by going to Chevy; we're not going to get a subsidy, and we'd have to start all over on the development side. There's pros and cons for calling Chevy, but we're pretty happy with what we did this year with Honda and just need to eliminate some of the mistakes so we can better compete."

In fact, Schmidt is keen to see whether the addition of Ganassi to the Honda stable will see their own form improve.

"The other thing to look at is we've been busting our ass, we're not satisfied with where we ended up in the points, and now we'll have the true validation of the reason [Honda] haven't been a championship contender the past three seasons," he said. "We've heard it was because it was the strength of the lineup; [Honda] needed better drivers or better teams. Now I guess we'll find out.

"Ganassi was the first team to sign up for Honda's shared technical partner program, and they have a lot more to gain from it than any other team at this point. And I'm sure they'll have a lot to give back once they get up to speed," he added. "If nothing else, it will be another extremely strong team pushing Honda hard from the other side, and I don't mind the competition they bring to the show."