Scott Dixon earned his first victory of the year in style by shocking Team Penske and Chevy at Road America. The Honda-powered driver also gave his race strategist Mike Hull, who is celebrating his 25th anniversary with the Chip Ganassi Racing organization, a heck of an anniversary gift while padding his championship lead over Simon Pagenaud.
The expected Team Penske Chevy rout, which started with a 1-2-3-4 in qualifying and polesitter Helio Castroneves and teammate Josef Newgarden leading the first 30 laps of the 55-lap event, was somehow disrupted by Dixon and CGR as the New Zealander took command just past the halfway point and spoiled Penske’s party while earning his 41st IndyCar win. Newgarden chased Dixon to the finish line and settled for second, just 0.5779 seconds arrears, and Castroneves, who featured early, took third, 4.1918s behind the Kiwi.
With his win, Dixon earned his first victory at Road America, moved to fourth on the all-time Indy car victory list, CGR took its 103rd Indy car win, and the Verizon IndyCar Series produced its eighth different winner from 10 races so far this year.
All of that aside, how in the world did Dixon pull off such a huge upset?
“Not a track that suits our [aero] configuration, but the power and mileage that [Honda Performance Development] performed today…” he said with a smile. Dixon carried a 13-point lead over Pagenaud entering Road America and was clearly pleased to get his first win and push the margin out to 34 points.
“Finally, for this season, too,” he continued. “We’ve come close and should have won a couple early on. I just want to say a huge thank you to all the fans. It’s so cool to come back to such a fan-friendly environment. This is huge for Honda.”
Fuel pressure issues during the morning warmup led the CGR team to tear Dixon’s No. 9 Honda apart to try and rectify the problem. It left the race winner with plenty of concerns before taking the start from fifth on the grid.
“We didn’t even know if it was going to run,” he said. “We had fuel pressure issues and ran one or two laps in the warmup and tried to fix it, so on the warmup lap we were trying to see if the car was going to run. Thanks to the crew; they had to change the whole fuel cell and everything at the front of the [motor]. I’m just happy to get to Victory circle for the first time this year.”
Newgarden took the lead from Castroneves on Lap 18 and held it until Lap 30. His lead was negated when Takuma Sato crashed on his own at the Kink on Lap 28 and brought out the first yellow of the day. The Lap 30 restart saw Dixon close on the front straight and pull off a brave pass around the outside of Turn 1. From there, Dixon controlled the race and even managed to maintain the lead when the second and final yellow came out for Tony Kanaan’s crash at the Kink and the field returned to green on Lap 49.
“Dixon was fast,” said Newgarden, who led 13 laps. “I thought we had the cars to beat but the yellow came out at the wrong time. I thought we were a little quicker than Dixon but it was tough to get past. I wish we could have gotten the win today.”
Castroneves has been a master of qualifying this year, but wasn’t pleased with failing to transfer it into a win.
“My car really good in the beginning,” he said after leading 17 laps. “It was a good battle with Josef. As soon as we put the Reds back again, Scott ended up getting the best of us. We used everything we’ve got. P3 is one of those bitter results because we know we have a good car.”
Pagenaud put on a smile after the race, but sounded somewhat dispirited on a day where he couldn’t challenge for a podium.
“We got away with another top five,” said the Frenchman, who took fourth. “It was a good day. We had a lot of pace in the car but couldn’t find our way.”
Among the other impressive finishers, Ed Jones took seventh for Dale Coyne Racing, Mikhail Aleshin recovered from 19th to claim 10th for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports after missing all of Friday, and Ed Carpenter Racing’s Spencer Pigot soldiered from 14th to inside the top 10, fell back during an extremely long pit stop, and recovered to earn 12th.
Behind them, Andretti Autosport’s Sato crashed on his own for the second consecutive race, teammate Alexander Rossi tried to make a four-stop strategy work and was quick when he wasn’t banging wheels or bodywork with other drivers – contact with Kanaan led the Brazilian to incur heavy damage and some bumps and bruises after striking the wall.
Road America was its usual gorgeous self, complete with moderate temperatures and beautiful skies for a solid crowd to witness IndyCar’s second visit to the circuit after a long hiatus. It wasn’t the most thrilling race of the year – not by any means – but it did entertain at times.
