2001 Indy Lights season

2001 Indy Lights season
PPG/Dayton Indy Lights Championship Powered by Buick
Season
Races12
Start dateMarch 11
End dateNovember 4
Awards
Drivers' champion Townsend Bell
Teams' champion Dorricott Racing
Rookie of the Year Dan Wheldon

The 2001 CART PPG/Dayton Indy Lights Championship Powered By Buick consisted of 12 races. It was dominated by Townsend Bell who captured six victories on his way to the championship. It was the last Indy Lights season, as the series organizer, CART, decided to drop the Indy Lights series and concentrate its efforts on the Toyota Atlantic Championship. Most former Indy Lights teams that wished to stay in business went either to the Atlantic series, which replaced Indy Lights as the support race at most CART events, or the new Infiniti Pro Series, which ran in support of Indy Racing League events.

All teams used the Lola T97/20-Buick spec car. Each round of the championship seldom had more than 12 entries.

The scoring system was 20-16-14-12-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 points awarded to the first 12 (twelve) finishers, with 1 (one) extra point given to the driver who took pole-position, and another extra point given to the driver who led most laps in the race.