Rookies don’t win in IndyCar, or at least, that is often the perceived wisdom.

It does happen, of course. But it is rare. For example, in the series’ jewel-in-the-crown Indy 500, it has occurred only 10 times since the race was first held in 1911. And it takes a very special combination of car, driver and team to achieve it.

Look at the statistics, and you will see that between 1928 and 1966, no first timer triumphed at the Indy 500. Apart from one. And no driver has ever won the IndyCar championship on their first attempt. Apart from one.

The first driver was Graham Hill, who won the Indy 500 on his debut at the ‘Brickyard’ in 1966. The second driver was Nigel Mansell, who won the entire IndyCar series outright on his first attempt in 1993, a feat that has not been equalled to this day.

In so many ways, these two drivers could not have been more different. Hill was the suave showman, as effortlessly characteristic and consummately comfortable in the TV studio as he was in the pit lane. Quick on the track, sure, but just as fast with a wry remark or a witty putdown.

The June 1968 edition of Motor Racing and Sportscar captured Hill’s character perfectly when it posed the question:

“What are you doing here, Graham?”

“Practising for Monaco”, came the reply.

The image, of course, was of the F1 driver immaculately attired in a dinner suit, about to win big on the roulette wheel surrounded by a group of admirers.

By contrast, Mansell did suave about as well as an Anglo-Saxon shield warrior. An absolute fighter on the track, and with the battle injuries to prove it, his brutal approach was matched only by extreme bravery. Always ready to put it all on the line, and sometimes over the line, if that’s what was needed.

None of that is to say that Graham Hill was lacking in courage or true grit either, for he certainly was not. And there were many other similarities between the two drivers. Both, of course, were British. Both were Formula One world champions. Hill took two titles, 1962 and 1968, to Mansell’s one in 1992. Hill is also the only driver to have achieved motorsport’s ‘Triple Crown,’ by winning the Monaco Grand Prix (five times), the Indianapolis 500 and the Le Mans 24 Hours. Mansell scored more Grand Prix wins, though, 31, compared to Hill’s 14. And both were regarded as national heroes.

There was one other significant similarity. Both Graham Hill and Nigel Mansell achieved their IndyCar success at the wheel of a Lola. Something that remains an enormous source of pride and inspiration for all of us at Lola today.

The car that Hill led the pack home in at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway sixty years ago was a Lola T90. It wasn’t the first time Lola raced at the Indy 500; Al Unser finished 9th at The Brickyard in the T90’s predecessor, the T80 in 1965. Conceived by Lola’s founder, chief engineer, and principal designer, Eric Broadley, the T90 was powered by a rear-mounted 4.2-litre Ford quad cam V8 engine capable of delivering up to 500bhp

In his biography ‘Life at the Limit’ (first published in 1969 by William Kimber & Co Ltd), Hill remembers that before he could race the Lola T90 at Indianapolis, he had to pass his ‘Rookie test.’ He also had to start the race after completing only five laps of testing following qualifying.

Then, just three seconds after the starting flag was waved, Hill had to call on every ounce of his skill and rely on the pure precision of the T90’s steering and the sheer agility of its aluminium monocoque chassis to avoid a monumental first corner pile-up that took out 11 of the 33-strong field. “I was having to take avoiding action, weaving in and out among the flying wheels, castings, radius rods and other debris while cars were spinning like tops and crashing and banging into each other like dodgem cars,” he wrote.

Hill pressed on after the subsequent restart on a track made so perilously slippery by spilt oil that even Jim Clark spun twice in his Lotus. Hill’s teammate, Jackie Stewart, had built up a solid lead in another Lola T90, but sadly, the engine failed, and thus Hill took his rookie win.

Lola’s second Indy 500 win came in 1978, with Al Unser in a T500-Cosworth. Arie Luyendyk took the brand’s third, and to date, final win at the Brickyard in 1990 behind the wheel of a Lola-Chevrolet T90/00, setting an average speed record that stood for 23 years.

Both Unser and Luyendyk were very far from Indy 500 Rookies, though. Unser first competed in the race in 1965 (in the Lola T80) and won it twice before his 1978 victory with Lola. He then also took a fourth win in a March chassis in 1987. Luyendyk had raced at the Brickyard five times before his win with Lola in 1990 and would take a second win with G-Force in 1997.

The glamour of Indianapolis was a long way from Lola’s humble beginnings in a small workshop in Surrey, England. The roots of the company’s story go back to 1957, when quantity surveyor Eric Broadley built the 1172cc Ford-engined ‘Broadley Special’ for the ‘Ford Ten Special’ class and raced it with his cousin Graham. The Special was a winner, and almost immediately Broadley began designing a Climax-engined successor, which became the basis for the Mk1.

Eric's career as a racing driver was short-lived, though, and ultimately, he would prove far better at designing cars than piloting them, as he readily admitted: "The Mk1 proved too quick for me. It was a very hairy car and as an inexperienced driver I could not do full justice to it". A year later, using his £2000 savings, Eric formed Lola Cars Ltd and designed and built the very first car to carry the name, which was constructed at Maurice Gomm's West Byfleet workshop. At the time, this area was a hotbed of racing car construction with both Brabham and Cooper nearby.

The company would go on to achieve success across numerous disciplines on racetracks around the world. The 1990s, in particular, were a golden era for Lola in IndyCar. As the decade dawned, Al Unser Jr took the laurels in a Lola T90/00 Chevrolet. In 1991, it was Michael Andretti’s turn in a similar car. In total, Lola won six CART PPG Indy Car World Series titles between 1984 and 1993.

But the most remarkable season, especially from a Rookie perspective, was 1993. At the end of 1992, Nigel Mansell stepped out of his Williams-Renault FW14B as Formula One world champion and into a Newman/Hass Lola T93/00 Cosworth. At the end of the 1993 season, he stepped out of the Lola as the CART PPG IndyCar World Series Champion. The first, and to date, only time a Rookie driver has ever achieved such a feat.

Mansell would almost certainly have won the 1993 Indy 500, too, were it not for the five-second lead he held with just a few laps to go being lost after a restart following a questionable full-course yellow flag decision. As it was, Lola cars filled every finishing spot from second to tenth that year.

Speaking to Sky Sports in 2024 Mansell recalled the many, many hard yards he had to put into securing the title: “I remember doing the special lap at Michigan 500, and I did all four corners flat, and we averaged 233.72mph without a lift – you got to be nuts to do that, there’s no safety barriers. If something went wrong, we knew you’d probably be dead.”

The Lola T93/00, he said, “Was very kind to me. I won the [Michigan] 500 race at my first attempt. Special memories, but pretty scary memories too.”

Those memories remain very special to us at Lola today, as we continue the new era of driving innovation through motorsport, which began with the company’s rebirth in 2022.

Eric Broadley’s goal when he founded Lola all those years ago was to build the best race cars in the world. And he achieved it, many, many times. Now, as we reestablish Lola as a leader in motorsport design and engineering, our goal is the same: to build the best race cars in the world.

Today though, we are operating in a very different dimension, exploring the latest technologies that will underpin the future of mobility across key development areas, including electrification, hydrogen, and sustainable fuels and materials.

Our first project in this new era for Lola Cars is competing in Formula E with the Lola Yamaha ABT team. But while Lola no longer competes in IndyCar, we are still diehard fans of all forms of motorsport.

That’s why we send our very best to all the drivers competing in the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series as it kicks off this weekend for the 115th season of American open-wheel racing. And especially Ciao Collet, Dennis Hauger and Mick Schumacher. Because you never know when a Rookie will take the win.