Scott Dixon believes the IndyCar season-opener at St Petersburg was “fabricated” by a controversial decision from race control in the middle of the race.
A full-course caution was called on lap 26 when Tony Kanaan made contact with Mikhail Aleshin at Turn 4, which bunched up the field and left early race leaders James Hinchcliffe and Dixon among the drivers disadvantaged in comparison to those at the back who had gone off-strategy.
While Dixon took the restart 11th after making a pitstop, Sebastien Bourdais, who had started last, went on to win the race, while Simon Pagenaud finished second from 14th on the grid.
“I had a car that could have won,” Dixon told Autosport after finishing third. “The way Bourdais got to the front was fabricated.
“You might as well draw the running order out of a hat if that’s what they’re going to do strategy-wise in race control.
“There was no debris there. Actually there was a small piece but you’d have had to hit the wall to get to it.
“So I don’t know what the yellow was for.”
Dixon vowed to speak to race officials after the event, because he felt the decision was out of character.
“Normally those guys understand that it’s a critical stage of the race and they’ve got to let that go,” he said.
“It’s not like [the debris] was on a part of the track that you race on, so you can’t have them flipping the field, otherwise qualifying is meaningless.
“I’m not taking it away from Bourdais. We all fall into these situations sometimes, and he did a good job and congrats on the win.
“But for us it definitely changed the race.”
