Scott Dixon Rebounds For IndyCar Win At Road America

Column By: JOHN DOUGLAS / RPW – ELKHART LAKE, WI – Just under a month removed from one of the scariest Indianapolis 500 crashes in recent memory, Scott Dixon drove to victory on the twists and turns of Road America in Wisconsin. His late race pass on Josef Newgarden, who dominated the middle portion of the event showed Dixon is still here and still a major contender for the Verizon Indy Car Series championship.

The green flag flew with Helio Castroneves leading the field into turn one. Newgarden slotted into second place and immediately the teams up front began fuel savings for a three stop strategy. Others throughout the field chose a four stop strategy and began pushing hard, running qualifying style laps throughout the race to make up time lost on the extra stop.

2016 Indianapolis 500 winner Alex Rossi was the first to hit pit lane on the four stop strategy on lap seven, with Graham Rahal and Mikhail Aleshin following suit one lap later. Rossi would be the only competitor on the four stop strategy to make serious headway during the race running as high as fourth.

Helio and the others up front stayed out until lap 14, when the leaders began to peel off for their first pit stop of their three stop strategy. Though it was close, Helio retained the lead through the pit cycle but Newgarden made up time on his veteran Penske team mate.

Rossi made his second stop on lap 19 and to this point had not enjoyed very good track position, but was still committed to overall pace over fuel economy. The differing strategies favored those who were sparce in their use of fuel to this point and it seemed a well timed caution was the only thing that would get things on a level playing field.

Just one lap after Rossi’s stop Newgarden closed on Helio entering turn one and passed his Penske team mate to the outside. Newgarden began to steadily pull away but had to be mindful of his fuel usage as he did so.

Lap 28 saw the second round of stops for those on the three stop strategy. Again led by Helio Castroneves, over the next two laps each of the three stoppers came to the attention of their crews for fuel and tires with no major issues. Major issues or not, Newgarden stayed out one extra lap over Helio, which gave him the lead on the overlap of stops. Newgarden successfully held off Castroneves’ advances but a caution for Takuma Sato threw a monkey wrench in the plans of most teams’ strategies.

Exiting the kink on lap 29, 2017 Indianapolis 500 champion Sato lost control of his Andretti Auto Sport Honda making light contact with the wall. It’s not often you see someone go off at the kink and get away with it. Sato did.

During the caution period Graham Rahal, Rossi, J.R. Hildebrand and others on the four stop strategy made a stop to refill their tanks and strap on new Firestone rubber.

The restart came on lap 31 with Newgarden leading the field but as they approached turn one for the first time, Dixon put his Ganassi Honda to the outside of Newgarden in much the same fashion Newgarden did himself on his team mate Castroneves. Dixon successfully overtook Newgarden but it wasn’t smooth sailing to an easy victory by any means.

As the Penske team mates tried to close in on Dixon, Will Power wasn’t having the luck his Penske breatheren were having as he made contact with James Hinchcliffe on the restart. After an early race incident where Power had to relinquish a position on track for a questionable overtake, Power struggled to move forward for the rest of the event.

Newgarden continued to struggle after losing the lead to Dixon and eventually fell into the clutches of Castroneves as Newgarden and the fourth Penske car of Simon Pagenaud chose to take on the black sidewall tire during the prior stop. The optional tire is required to be run at some point during each road race on the Indy Car schedule and is pivotal in strategy as the tire is a different and in many cases slower tire overall, though its durability is much higher than the red sidewall tire most teams opted to run as the standard tire.

Castroneves’ day became unraveled on his next stop. What was supposed to be a stop on lap 43, turned into a short pit one lap early as Helio decided to pit when his low fuel light came on approaching the pit lane. Team communication made it clear the team knew how much fuel was left and they believed there was one more lap in the tank. How much difference would that one lap make? We may never know.

As the event entered its final 10 laps, the second and final caution of the event came out as Tony Kanaan slammed the wall at the kink. Kanaan was uninjured but it was clear another altercation with Rossi had occurred as the two diced entering the fast right-hander, putting Kanaan off line in the dirty portion of the track surface.

Kanaan and Rossi have had multiple dust-ups in the past stemming from Iowa last season. Those hostilities reared their head at the prior event at Texas Motor Speedway as well. At the time of this article’s writing, no statements or actions have been made from Indy Car regarding any response the series will take regarding the on going issue between the two.

Dixon had to get a good jump on the final restart to have the advantage on the field. He did just that. Pulling almost two full seconds on the first lap alone, it looked like an easy victory for the fan favorite.

Newgarden had other ideas. With fuel savings out the window, Newgarden began rapidly closing on Dixon as he used up almost 40 of the 65 seconds of push to pass he had left. With just 4 laps to go Newgarden was within one second of Dixon.

Dixon had saved just enough push to pass to hold off Newgarden over the final circuits as the battle intensified. Dixon was victorious just three races after his wild ride at Indy. His win at Road America makes him the fourth winningest driver in Indy Car history. Newgarden, Castroneves, Pagenaud and a resurgent Will Power completed the top five, with Penske cars finishing second through fifth.

“ This isn’t a track that should be suited for us,” a surprised Dixon said in victory lane. “Things went well. Josef made it easier for us because he was on black tires. That made the race for us.”

Newgarden was happy with his second place run but was left questioning how the race got away from them. “Our strategy was spot on. You just can’t predict those yellows. It stings a bit that we didn’t get the win.”

Dixon is the eighth different winner in 10 races so far in the 2017 season. He now leads the points standings over Simon Pagenaud as the series heads to Iowa for the Iowa Corn 300 on July 9th.