IndyCar: Dixon Wins Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio
Six-time champion Scott Dixon extended his streak of winning at least one NTT INDYCAR Series race for 21 consecutive seasons with a pass on Alex Palou on Lap 85 to score his first win of the season for HRC at the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. The Kiwi took advantage of the mistake his teammate and championship points leader, Alex Palou, made in Turn 9 when Palou went wide.
Dixon, who started the race in ninth, was one of four drivers who made this a two-stop race. He became only the third driver this season to win a race. This was his seventh victory at Mid-Ohio.
“As soon as I saw the caution at the start, which we had been talking about, I was like, man, the two-stop is on. We worked pretty hard this morning in the warmup on fuel mileage and making sure we got the car balance kind of where we needed it.”
“First stint was pretty easy. During our second stint, we actually got into a bit of trouble on the soft tires with the left front. I don’t know if it was that tire, but 10 laps in I could see it starting to come apart, and I knew that we were kind of locked in on the two-stopper so that was going to be pretty difficult, so we pushed and kind of used the average on the black tires and used them a little bit more once we got to the final stop.”
“The final stop, actually, they didn’t take any of the front wing out, so it was so loose for that last stint. I was just really looking at the corner and the car would turn itself, which, one, is really physical, but two, it’s really hard to push extremely hard because you start to lock rears, especially into 4 and into 2 and also into 9 where ultimately that got Alex.”
Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou led 75 of the 90-lap race. The Spaniard tried to pass his teammate back for the lead, but could not get close enough to his teammate.
“Once I was second, I knew I had to be more fuel than him and a little bit more OT. I tried, but I couldn’t really make it. I was starting to struggle on tires as well with the rears, so I
couldn’t do the lines to avoid dirty air and so on, like in Turn 2. I tried. I tried. I think less than half a second to close.”
“Yeah, it was tough to pass for sure.”
“But yeah, for sure it hurts, man, finishing second. It hurts to make a big mistake like that when you could have just — it’s easy now to just say, save a little bit there, you don’t need to be on the limit. But when you’re driving, you don’t feel like you’re that in the limit.”
“It is still an amazing result, finishing second, running up front, and overall if you sum up all the weekend, leading 75 laps, getting the pole and just running really, really fast all weekend, it’s been amazing and extending the points lead, as well. But yeah, still, we lost the race here.”
Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard finished third after following Palou for almost 75 laps.
“Yeah, we saw Mr. Perfect (Alex Palou) here make a mistake. You don’t see that very often. I think our day was pretty good. Alex seemed to have a little bit more pace than we did.”
“This morning, I think we showed that we were able to get the number that we needed with the pace, but again, you need the rest of the race to fall your way for that to work out, and we were unsure what Alex was going to do, and we decided to kind of follow him, and I think if we would have stayed with our gut, we could have potentially come away with a better result, but at the end of the day, we’re on the podium.”
“I nearly went off the same lap, same corner as he did. I don’t know what I was looking at, trying to see the 10 car.”
Andretti Global’s Colton Herta came across the finish line fourth, with Lundgaard’s teammate Pato O’Ward rounding out the top five.
The race had only two caution flags for eight laps of yellow.
Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden caused the first caution on Lap 1 when he spun and made light contact in Turn 4. The media-shy American has not been very open with the media lately, refusing to talk with Fox announcers over the last few races after retiring early. Today he made an exception.
The second caution happened on Lap 31 when Ed Carpenter Racing’s Christian Rasmussen’s car stopped off course in Turn 8. Rasmussen did not continue the race.
Results Sunday of The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio
1. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 90, Running
2. (1) Alex Palou, Honda, 90, Running
3. (2) Christian Lundgaard, Chevrolet, 90, Running
4. (5) Colton Herta, Honda, 90, Running
5. (14) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 90, Running
6. (15) Felix Rosenqvist, Honda, 90, Running
7. (8) Marcus Armstrong, Honda, 90, Running
8. (7) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 90, Running
9. (26) Rinus VeeKay, Honda, 90, Running
10. (3) Kyffin Simpson, Honda, 90, Running
11. (4) Nolan Siegel, Chevrolet, 90, Running
12. (10) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 90, Running
13. (24) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 90, Running
14. (6) Louis Foster, Honda, 90, Running
15. (11) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 90, Running
16. (17) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 90, Running
17. (13) David Malukas, Chevrolet, 90, Running
18. (19) Sting Ray Robb, Chevrolet, 90, Running
19. (12) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 90, Running
20. (23) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 90, Running
21. (27) Robert Shwartzman, Chevrolet, 90, Running
22. (25) Jacob Abel, Honda, 90, Running
23. (21) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 89, Running
24. (20) Graham Rahal, Honda, 89, Running
25. (16) Christian Rasmussen, Chevrolet, 36, Contact
26. (22) Will Power, Chevrolet, 11, Contact
27. (18) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 1, Contact
Race Statistics
Winner’s average speed: 111.166
Time of Race: 01:49:41.0967
Margin of victory: 0.4201 of a second
Cautions: 2 for 8 laps
Lead changes: 8 among 4 drivers
Lap Leaders:
Palou, Alex 1 – 27
Simpson, Kyffin 28
Dixon, Scott 29
Palou, Alex 30 – 56
Dixon, Scott 57 – 60
Palou, Alex 61 – 72
Herta, Colton 73 – 75
Palou, Alex 76 – 84
Dixon, Scott 85 – 90
NTT INDYCAR SERIES Point Standings:
Palou 430, Kirkwood 317, O’Ward 305, Dixon 282, Lundgaard 263, Rosenqvist 259, Herta 217, Armstrong 209, Power 202, Ferrucci 198, McLaughlin 197, Malukas 187, VeeKay 179, Rossi 176, Simpson 162, Rasmussen 155, Siegel 147, Daly 144, Newgarden 142, Ericsson 141, Rahal 139, Foster 118, Shwartzman 113, Robb 105, DeFrancesco 99, Ilott 95, Abel 64, TAkuma Sato 36, Helio Castroneves 20, Ed Carpenter 16, Jack Harvey 12, Ryan Hunter-Reay 10, Kyle Larson 6, Marco Andretti 5
Lucille Dust reporting