Tony Kanaan

Antoine Rizkallah Kanaan Filho (born December 31, 1974) is a Brazilian race car driver of Lebanese heritage from Salvador, Brazil. Kanaan is an IndyCar driver who holds the unique distinction of being the only driver in the long and storied history of the Indianapolis 500 to lead the fabled event in each of his first five starts. Kanaan won the 2004 Indy Racing League IndyCar Series championship in dominating fashion driving for 7-Eleven and Andretti Green Racing, winning three times in his Honda-powered Dallara. That season he completed 3,305 laps, the first IndyCar Series driver to complete every possible lap in a season. He also led 889 laps in 13 separate races to establish an IndyCar Series record.

Kanaan was the 1997 Indy Lights champion, driving for Tasman. In 1999 he scored his first major victory in the Champ Car World Series by winning the U.S. 500 at Michigan International Speedway for Tasman. After the Tasman team lost their McDonald's sponsorship package, Kanaan moved on to Mo Nunn's start-up team for the next three years before moving on to the IRL.

Following his championship season, in 2005 he placed second in the championship to his teammate Dan Wheldon. That year, he won his first pole position for the Indianapolis 500 to add to his finishes of second, third, fifth and eighth in the event. Winning the Indianapolis 500 remains one of the few holes in his resume. In September 2005 he tested a Formula 1 car with the BAR-Honda Team at Jerez as a reward for his 2004 IRL championship in a Honda powered car.

Shortly after the end of the 2005 IRL season in October, Kanaan participated in a segment promoting sponsor 7-Eleven's new P'Eatzza sandwich, to be unveiled in April 2006, as part of a task on the US Series 5 of The Apprentice. Synergy had Kannan eating the sandwich in the car in a photo shoot for flyers distributed to college students. (Synergy won the task.)

In 2006 associate sponsor Hershey's had him participate in an updated version of a classic Reese's Caramel commercial for the Caramel Cup brand with a driver in NASCAR who has a win at Indy (something Kannan aspires to do). 2003 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard winner Kevin Harvick, who drives the #29 Reese's Chevrolet in selected races (including the Allstate 400, one of 13 races where Hershey's brands replaces GM Goodwrench as primary sponsor), is walking down a street, listening to music on an iPod, bumps into Kannan, who is holding a jar of caramel. Harvick's Reese's cup is dipped into a jar of caramel held by Kannan. Happy responds, "You got your caramel into my Reese's."

Kanaan is good friend of Brazilian Formula One driver Rubens Barrichello, and they exchanged helmets for the events in May 28, 2006. Barrichello wore Kanaan's helmet livery during the Monaco GP and Kanaan wore Rubens's one during the Indy 500.

Another of Kanaan's long-time good friends and a former teammate from his Tasman days is Helio Castroneves. Kanaan and Castroneves have developed an intense rivalry that has resulted in some hard feelings. Castroneves accused Kanaan of costing him the 2006 IndyCar Series championship by racing him too hard for position in the final race. Kanaan countered that he was not paid to let other people pass him for position. The two apparently no longer speak and other IndyCar Series drivers such as Wheldon have duly noted their concerns.

Kanaan has gotten his 2007 season off in fine fashion, winning in Japan at Honda's Twin Ring Motegi track, and currently standing second in points.

Champcar career results

Year	Team	Wins	Points	Championship Finish
1998	Tasman Motorsports	0	92	9th
1999	Forsythe Racing	1	85	11th
2000	Mo Nunn Racing	0	24	19th
2001	Mo Nunn Racing	0	93	9th
2002	Mo Nunn Racing	0	99	12th

1 win, 0 championships

IndyCar career results

(Races in Bold indicate pole position)

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Rank	Points
2002	Mo Nunn	HMS	PHX	CAL	NZR	IND Ret	TXS	PPIR	RIR	KAN	NSH	MIS	KTY	STL	CHI	TX2			50th	2
2003	Andretti Green	HMS 4	PHX 1	JAP 14	IND 3	TXS 2	PPIR 2	RIR 5	KAN 4	NSH 9	MIS Ret	STL 2	KTY 6	NZR Ret	CHI 6	CAL 3	TX2 14		4th	476
2004	Andretti Green	HMS 8	PHX 1	JAP 2	IND 2	TXS 1	RIR 5	KAN 3	NSH 1	MIL 4	MIS 2	KTY 5	PPIR 5	NZR 2	CHI 3	CAL 2	TX2 2		1st	618
2005	Andretti Green	HMS 3	PHX 3	STP 2	JAP 6	IND 8	TXS 3	RIR Ret	KAN 1	NSH Ret	MIL 4	MIS 4	KTY Ret	PPIR 3	SNM 1	CHI 5	WGL 2	CAL 2	2nd	548
2006	Andretti Green	HMS Ret	STP 3	JAP 3	IND 5	WGL 11	TXS 7	RIR Ret	KAN 5	NSH 12	MIL 1	MIS 4	KTY 5	SNM 11	CHI 7				6th	388
2007	Andretti Green	HMS 5	STP 3	JAP 1	KAN	IND	MIL	TXS	IOW	RIR	WGL	NSH	MDO	MIS	KTY	SNM	DET	CHI	2nd	115

Years	Races	Poles	Wins	Podiums (Non-win)	Top 10s (Non-podium)	Indianapolis 500 Wins	Championships	Teams	Total Points
6	67	6	8	23	23	0	1	2	2,147

Indy 500 results

Year	Chassis	Engine	Start	Finish
2002	G-Force	Chevrolet	5th	28th
2003	Dallara	Honda	2nd	3rd
2004	Dallara	Honda	5th	2nd
2005	Dallara	Honda	1st	8th
2006	Dallara	Honda	5th	5th

0 wins, 1 pole