Scott Dixon scored his 54th IndyCar victory after being knocked into a spin on the opening lap following a Turn 7 pile-up. The six-time champion made a late stop under yellow and then made only two more scheduled stops, masterfully saving fuel and charging. After everyone else’s final stops, he held a 7s margin over polesitter Graham Rahal, and although the Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver closed the gap down to 0.5s, he couldn’t find a way around the No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. It marked the 19th consecutive year in which Dixon has scored at least one win, and it came in his 319th consecutive start.
CGR teammate Alex Palou finished only seventh but has extended his championship lead to 101 points, after Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden got caught up in the first lap fracas and finished 25th, two laps down.
The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Hondas on the front row started the race on the Firestone alternates as did Alexander Rossi of Arrow McLaren, but the McLaren team had split strategies, for alongside Rossi was teammate Pato O’Ward on the primaries, as were Devlin DeFrancesco and Romain Grosjean in fifth and sixth in Andretti Autosport Hondas.
Rahal made a strong start and Lundgaard did not, immediately challenged by O’Ward. But it was DeFrancesco who made the best start of all down the outside, hung with Rahal into Turn 1 and had the inside for Turn 2 and they took the lead.
Along the back straight, the midfield was four-wide, and under braking for Turn 7, a collision between Ganassi teammates Marcus Armstrong and Palou was exacerbated by the very fast-starting Dixon getting collected by Grosjean who had lost positions almost from the drop of the green. The six-time champion spun but got restarted and pitted under yellow, as did Grosjean. Armstrong spun around and while most avoided him, Newgarden, who had started 25th after losing six spots to an engine change, found the stricken No. 11 car right in his path and mounted his right-front and stuck there. By the time the AMR Safety Team had got him down on all four wheels, the two-time champion had lost a lap, and he then had to limp to the pits for a new nosecone.
The race restarted at the end of lap seven with DeFrancesco pursued by Rahal, O’Ward, Lundgaard, Rossi, and Felix Rosenqvist, up from ninth. Rossi outbraked Lundgaard for fourth into Turn 1 to move onto O’Ward’s tail, taking advantage of his red-sidewalled Firestones. Behind Rosenqvist (who was on primaries) was Scott McLaughlin, Kyle Kirkwood, Palou and Jack Harvey.
Next time by, Rahal passed DeFrancesco into Turn 1, and then Rossi – who had predictably passed O’Ward – demoted DeFrancesco. Just a little further back, Palou passed Kirkwood along the back straight to snatch eighth, while both O’Ward and Lundgaard got around DeFrancesco on lap 11. The following lap the young Canadian had also fallen victim to Rosenqvist and McLaughlin, but teammate Kirkwood had gone in the opposite direction, re-passing Palou after the Spaniard was knocked sideways as he failed to pass DeFrancesco. The runaway points leader retaliated next time by and then passed DeFrancesco successfully.
Lundgaard used his alternates to get past O’Ward and move into third, now 2.5s behind Rossi who was still within one second of Rahal.
Kirkwood pitted from eighth and Will Power pitted from 15th on lap 14, both collecting fresh alternates, and the following lap Rosenqvist did the same. O’Ward, coming from primaries, was more than happy to stop and get off his primaries and take on a set of new alternates.
McLaughlin, who had been promoted by O’Ward and Rosenqvist making their first stops, pitted from fourth on lap 20, while Rossi – who had been 1.2s behind Rahal – flicked into pitlane on lap 21 to pick up fresh primaries. That left Rahal and Lundgaard up in an RLL 1-2, just 3s apart, with Palou 3.6s back, pursued by Ericsson and Ed Carpenter Racing’s Ryan Hunter-Reay. They, Linus Lundqvist and Sting Ray Robb were now the only drivers to have not stopped.
RHR stopped on lap 23, and then leader Rahal got out of the danger zone by collecting new primaries, and Palou and Ericsson followed suit. Rahal just got out ahead of Rossi and, despite warm tires, the McLaren driver couldn’t get in position to challenge. In fact, the more likely change was for second, as Lundgaard set a strong in-lap and was well serviced by the No. 45 RLL crew on lap 26, so that he emerged right on Rossi’s tail. In fact, the Arrow McLaren driver on primaries was a sitting duck, and Lundgaard on fresh alternates dived up the inside of Rossi into Turn 1 next time by to claim second and started working on his 2.5s deficit to primary-tired Rahal.
Once those who had pitted under the very early yellow made their second stops – Grosjean (lap 29) and Dixon (lap 32) – the RLL battle was for the lead. Interestingly, despite a supposed tire advantage, Lundgaard was not gaining much on his teammate, and at this point they still remained 2s apart. On lap 33 of the scheduled 85, Rossi ran 4s behind Lundgaard, 1.3s ahead of O’Ward, with Palou a similar distance behind him. McLaughlin was sixth, 3s ahead of Rosenqvist, while Kirkwood, Ericsson and Power ran in convoy, completing the top 10.
That lasted only until the end of lap 36 when Power made his second stop and took on his third set of alternates. Nearer the front, O’Ward passed Rossi for third, while Lundgaard was now moving in on Rahal, the gap down to 1s by lap 38, and then O’Ward and Rossi pitted for a second time, both of them taking used alternates.
Palou and McLaughlin pitted on lap 42, and Palou emerged just behind Rossi, while Ericsson went three laps longer, his stop promoting O’Ward to fourth, between the out-of-sequence Dixon and Grosjean. At the front, Rahal had done fine job in traffic to get his advantage over Lundgaard out to 1.4s before finally pitting at the end of lap 48, just before he had to try and tackle Santino Ferrucci’s AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet. He emerged in third behind Dixon but more significantly, 5s clear of O’Ward.
Lap 51 saw Lundgaard pull in for a disastrous stop, the Toronto winner stationary for 11s due to a refueling difficulty. Not only did it mean the Dane didn’t have a hope of beating Rahal on the overcut, he also lost out to O’Ward.
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So with 30 laps to go, Dixon, who was hoping to make it to the checker on just one more stop – like those pursuing him – led by 6.6s over Rahal who had 5.4s on O’Ward, with Lundgaard 0.6s behind, chased by Rossi, Palou, McLaughlin, Power and Kirkwood. That being the case, Dixon was looking ominously strong. The lap one spin and early stop was now looking the perfect strategy, thanks to the six-time champ’s brilliant fuel-saving. With all those ahead needing to stop, and a pitstop taking around 37-38s, Dixon’s 31s deficit to Rahal looked just fine…
Sure enough. Rossi, McLaughlin and Power pitted at the end of lap 61, O’Ward and Lundgaard stopped on lap 62 – in fact, all of those ahead of Dixon pitted, and so he sat up front, 7s ahead of Rahal who had 4.3s on an O’Ward, Lundgaard, Rossi train. The latter was 5s clear of Palou, who had 4.5s over the McLaughlin vs. Power battle for seventh. Kirkwood and Rosenqvist were ninth and 10th. The latter was the only driver in the top 10 running on primaries and thus was vulnerable to VeeKay and Ericsson who passed him on lap 67. In fact, he had more issues, and suddenly he lost pace and limped to the pits. On lap 68, Power passed McLaughlin for seventh and pulled away, starting to chip away Palou’s advantage.
Up front, Rahal was charging hard, and closed the gap to Dixon down to 4s with 15 laps to go, while pulling his margin over to O’Ward to 5.7s. With 10 laps to go, Rahal’s deficit was down to 3s, and two laps later it was 2.5s, and next time by Dixon was struggling to lap Hunter-Reay with the No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan car only 1.9s in arrears. Rahal was then held up by the Carpenter car and the gap stalled at 1.6s. Once he was through, Rahal immediately closed in on the leading Ganassi car and at the end of lap 82 he was only 0.5s behind, as Dixon struggled to get around DeFrancesco. Fifteen seconds back, Power passed Palou for sixth.
Down the front straight, at the start of the penultimate lap, Rahal was barely 0.25s behind and Dixon was having to protect his line, but Rahal got wide in the Turn 12-14 sequence. He charged back after it but it wasn’t enough. Dixon was flawless.
O’Ward completed the podium, 8s from victory, but 1.2s clear of Lundgaard and Rossi. Power’s charge from 16th to sixth was overshadowed by Dixon’s spin and win, but was impressive nonetheless, while Palou’s seventh compared with Newgarden’s 25th, two laps down, means the Ganassi ace now holds a 101-point championship lead…but now over Dixon, who is four points ahead of the Penske ace.
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