The 1993 PPG Indy Car World Series season was the 15th national championship season of American open wheel racing sanctioned by CART (d.b.a "IndyCar"). The season consisted of 16 races. Nigel Mansell was the national champion as well as the Rookie of the Year. The 1993 Indianapolis 500 was sanctioned by USAC, but counted towards the CART points championship. Emerson Fittipaldi won the Indy 500, his second career victory in that event.
The biggest story going into the season involved Newman/Haas Racing. Nigel Mansell, the reigning Formula One World Champion made worldwide headlines, switching from Formula One to the CART IndyCar Series. Mansell joined Newman/Haas Racing as teammate to Mario Andretti, taking the seat formerly held by Michael Andretti, who departed for one year to McLaren. Mansell came to the American open wheel series with considerable fanfare and huge media attention. He won the season-opener at Surfers Paradise, the first CART "rookie" to win his first start. At Phoenix, Mansell crashed during practice and was forced to sit out the race due to a back injury. At Indianapolis, he was leading the race with 16 laps to go when he was passed on a restart by Emerson Fittipaldi and Arie Luyendyk, and wound up third. He still won the Indy 500 Rookie of the Year award. Despite having missed the race at Phoenix, Mansell won five races (four of which were on ovals) en route to the CART championship.
After winning his third CART championship in 1992, Bobby Rahal entered the 1993 season driving the R/H chassis (formerly the Truesports chassis). He finished second at Long Beach, but struggled to get his car up to speed, and shockingly, was bumped from the field at Indianapolis. Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_PPG_Indy_Car_World_Series