PKV part way with leading personnel

Breaking the news on Champ Car's official website, veteran journalist Robin Miller reports that the split with Krisiloff is with immediate affect.

The former IndyCar driver was known to have disagreed with PKV's choice of drivers in 2006, favouring Franck Montagny and Ryan Briscoe over the current line-up of Oriol Servia and Katherine Legge.

McGee, a legendary figure in Champ Car/IndyCar, was apparently asked to fire Krisiloff but refused, opting instead to also leave.

McGee is credited with engineering more race victories than anyone in US open-wheel history during his 40 years at the top of the sport. Before PKV, he worked with Clint Brawner, Patrick Racing, Penske, Team Rahal and Newman/Haas.

Having joined PKV at the end of 2004, McGee has offered to stay on until the team finds a suitable replacement.

Team co-owners Jimmy Vasser and Dan Pettit will, in the mean time, effectively run the team on race weekends and hope to appoint a replacement possibly as soon as Monterrey, the third round of the season, held in 12 days' time.

Vasser told Miller: "Jim and Steve did a great job of getting us to where we are now but to get to where we need to be we've decided to go a different direction.

"This is not what I wanted, because I chose those two guys and I respect them very much. It just didn't work out."

Tensions within PKV Racing over Krisiloff's management style are understood to be key to the split. "Team morale doesn't cost anything, but it's real important and you can't succeed without it, and at the moment there's just too much ill will," Vasser added.

"That's life," said McGee to Miller on Monday. "Steve did everything I asked him to and he did a good job. I'm not through racing. If a quality package comes along, I'll do it. But I don't race for a paycheck, I race to win."

Vasser, meanwhile, will not be racing this weekend. Although he took part in the Champ Car World Series' opening round at Long Beach last month, the 1996 champion will run the team from the pit-wall at Houston this weekend.

Jimmy has not, however, ruled out occasionally racing in other Champ Car events before the season's over.