Can Dixon/Power Keep Win Streaks Going?

Scott Dixon has the record of most consecutive seasons with at least one trip to victory lane at 18. He’s won every year since 2005.

Will Power is next best at 16 with a win every season since 2007. Through nine races run, they’re both winless. Over the next eight races, can both find victory lane?

Dixon has won a race in 20 of his 21 years in the sport. It took him until Race 10 to win in Toronto last year. That’s what’s up next on the schedule.

For Power, it took him 7 races to reach his lone win in 2022. His next win will be his 17th season with a win which would tie Helio Castroneves for third most ever trailing only Dixon’s 20 and AJ Foyt’s 18.

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Does Newgarden Come In Second For Championship…Again?

Josef Newgarden has had a bouncy type of season. Two wins including the Indy 500 as well as two finishes of 15th or worse have him in third in the standings. After three consecutive years of being P2 in points, can he one, get there again, and two, close enough to gain his first series championship since 2017 and become the first Indy 500 winner to also win the title in the same season since Dario Franchitti did so in 2010?

“It’s kind of out of our control,” Newgarden said after a runner-up finish in Road America.

He’s 116 points down. That’s because while he has two top two finishes in the last four races, Alex Palou has four including three wins.

“They’ve had a good run up to this point, right? They’ve not had a bad race,” Newgarden continued. “We had an engine pop on us in the very first round. Everybody has a different story. If you look at their story, they’ve not had one bad race yet. When you have eight races in a row without a bad one, this is what happens points-wise.

“What’s going to happen on the final nine, it’s impossible to say. There’s so much season still that he’s got a good cushion at this point, they’ve done a great job, but I don’t think that guarantees anything in INDYCAR.”

Palou agreed with the fact that there’s too many races left to feel secure.

“Yeah, I mean, I would understand racing for points on the last two races, but it’s too early,” he notes. “We did eight races. There’s still eight or nine left.

“Yeah, I mean, somebody else can do the same amount of points that we did, or even more, with the races that we have left.

“Yeah, we’re going to focus on scoring wins because that’s the way we can score more points. That’s the best way. Honestly, there’s some races coming up now that are still really good for us and we know we’re going to have a car and my confidence to fight for wins.

“I mean, everybody can win seven races in a row. It’s tough in INDYCAR, but we can do that. Somebody else could do that.

“We’re going to focus on each weekend. Each weekend is different. It’s like the work starts from zero. We’re taking that mentality this year. I think it’s working, it’s paying off.

“So yeah, I’m glad that we have those points in our camp, and we don’t have to catch other people, but I’m not relaxed by the points gap at all because it’s INDYCAR. If it was another series, yeah, maybe I would be a bit more relaxed. In INDYCAR you can’t.

“We’re going to keep pushing and trying for the wins, focus on the championship the last couple races.”

Newgarden’s goal was to have this thing wrapped up by time we even got to Laguna Seca in September.

“How are we going to build a bigger gap where that’s not even possible? I don’t even want to be messing with it at the end of the year,” said the two-time series champion at Media Day back in February. “In an ideal world, if we get to the end of a season where we don’t have to mess with the gap, if we can just get that out of the way, that would be ideal. That’s where my mindset is at, how do we get to that place where it’s not even on the table, it’s just done.

“I think I’m not arrogant enough to believe that that’s easy. It seems near impossible these days to do that. I think that’s valid. It’s very difficult to do that. I understand that. But I still want to find a way where we can get to a place where we don’t have to mess with it.”

When pressed about if he truly meant that, he doubled down on his remark.

“It’s not easy. It’s possible. I do not think that will be easy whatsoever, but we need to figure out how to do that,” he said.

If he’s going to make up 116 points on Alex Palou for the lead and six on Scott Dixon for second, then he has to start becoming far more consistent. That’s the whole reason as to why he lost out on the title the last two years in fact.

While he had the most wins during the course of the 17-race season, he struggled to put a complete season together. Newgarden had as many wins (5) as he had finishes of 13th or worse (5). That’s where this title was lost.

“You know, for sure we just needed to have a more consistent season,” Newgarden noted that day. “There’s no doubt. I think that the peak performance was there all year.

We just didn’t have the consistency. That ultimately is what put us in an unfavorable position when we came here.“If we can clean that up, I have no doubt we can challenge for the championship again next year.”

We’re at next year and so far, 2023 looks a lot like 2022.

In 2020, Scott Dixon won each of the first three races run and had a top two result in four of the first five overall. In fact, once Dixon won the Aug. 29 race at the World Wide Technology Raceway that year, it was his sixth top two in the opening eight races of the season. With a race on that same track a day later and six overall races left, he appeared to be untouchable.Newgarden, found himself over 117 points down, going into Race 2 of the St. Louis race weekend. He stormed all the way back and nearly won the title.How? How does one make up 117 points in six races?Speed and talent is how and it left Newgarden wondering if he had started better, what if?In a six race span to end that season, Newgarden had five top four finishes — four of those in the top two. Dixon, only had one podium and two top fives.We have 3 races on short ovals (Iowa doubleheader, Gateway). Newgarden has won 6 of the last 8 short ovals and both ovals in 2023. He’s a two-time Toronto winner. If he can find success on the three natural road courses left (Indianapolis, Portland, Laguna Seca) watch out.

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Does Ericsson Have To Drive More Aggressively?

Marcus Ericsson has been a model for consistency. In 72 career starts, the Swede has 44 top 10 finishes. However, what’s remarkable is, in the 56 starts with Chip Ganassi Racing, he’s had 41 top 10’s (73.2%) including 18 in his last 22 tries (81.8%).

In saying that, he still has no contract in hand for 2024 yet and if he’s going to win this year’s title despite a top 10 in 8 of 9 races run this year, he may have to alter his approach.

Top 10’s are no longer going to do the trick and I think we saw that on the opening lap in Mid-Ohio for which he overstepped the line and crashed.

Alex Palou has scored 24 top five finishes in the last 42 races. Among those 24 are 18 podium finishes.

There’s two street courses left and Palou has finished in the top five in the last two on the season including being sixth a year ago in Toronto as well. He was also third last August in Nashville too. We have three natural road courses up to where he won the last time out at three of them. In Indy, he just won by nearly 20 seconds in May and in Laguna Seca, he won by over 30 seconds last September. For Portland, he won in 2021.

If he’s going to be caught, it’s going to be by someone who gets hot themselves and wins in bunches.

For Ericsson, despite a top 10 in all but one race, it’s also the fact that he has one win and three podiums in that string too. 4 of the 9 races have seen him finish between 8th-10th.

Last year, only five of his 12 top 10’s were in the top five. A year prior, only three of the 12 top 10’s were in the top five.

That means he may have to drive more aggressively and by doing so, it could create mistakes. The thing is, if he doesn’t, then a title may be out of reach anyways. So how do you balance that?

It would be a massive slide if Ericsson goes from the top two in points entering Mid-Ohio to fifth on back in a contract year for which he’s trying to make himself a pay driver and not one to bring money.

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Can McLaren Catch Penske AND Ganassi?

Penske and Ganassi have combined to have won each of the last 10 series championships. As we sit at the midseason mark, I struggle to think anyone will top them again this year.

They have six of the top seven in points including 1-2-3-4-6-7.

They’ve also won 8 of the 9 races this year and 41 of the 56 (73.2%) of the races with the Aeroscreen. Furthermore, if you go back to the 2022 Indy 500, they’ve combined to have won 18 of the last 22 (81.8%) of the races.

Can anyone stop them moving forward?

McLaren hopes so. They have two drivers in the top eight in points and hopeful to be the first non “Big 3” team to win a title since 2003.

They’ve been better, but still not winning. Over the last 34 races, they have just two wins. That’s not going to get it done, especially in the fact that the “Big 2” have been dominant at the tracks coming up.

Next up is Toronto. Penske and Ganassi have won five straight there. Overall, they have combined to have won 7 of the last 8 street course races and 13 of the last 19 of them in general. Only Andretti Autosport (4 wins) and Arrow McLaren Racing (1 win) has won in this span.

Next up is the Iowa doubleheader. Penske has won 5 of the last 7.

The thing is, Penske has been the top dog on short ovals in general since 2018 with 9 wins in 13 tries. Josef Newgarden is tops among drivers with winning 7 of those 9 races for Penske himself.

On short ovals, this could be a Pato O’Ward vs. Josef Newgarden battle. The duo has combined to have won 7 of the last 8 oval races in general with Newgarden winning 6 of the last 8 by himself. He’s 2-for-2 this season. In fact,Newgarden and O’Ward have won five in-a-row dating back to Race 2 at World Wide Technology Raceway in 2020. They’ve also gone 1-2 in 5 of the last 12 oval races too.

That gets you to Nashville to where Ganassi is 2-for-2. Then it’s to the Indy road course for which Ganassi won with Palou this past May. Penske has won 3 of the 4 return trip weekend’s to the IMS road course.

After that it’s to Gateway. Remember that short oval stat?

The final two races are out west in Portland and Laguna Seca.

Ganassi won Portland in 2021, Penske won in 2022. Ganassi won Laguna Seca last year.

McLaren has to capitalize on the three combined Iowa and Gateway races while finding ways to win at the other tracks as well.

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Can Dixon Catch Palou?

 Scott Dixon did exactly what he had to do during Sunday’s Honda Indy 200. He gained five spots from his sixth-place starting spot to score a runner-up on an overcast day at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The only problem was, the driver he’s chasing for the championship, went from fourth to first.

Dixon finished 5.0242-seconds behind Alex Palou at the finish to give Chip Ganassi Racing their second 1-2 finish in the last six years on the rural Ohio road course. As a result though of Pato O’Ward only starting 25th and making it up to just 8th, Josef Newgarden finishing 12th and Marcus Ericsson’s opening lap crash and finishing last, Dixon went from fifth in points to second.

“Yeah, it was definitely a good day,” Dixon boasted.

The thing is, Dixon had a fuel probe issue on his opening stop or else he feels like he would have had a shot at earning his seventh career win on the 2.258-mile track.

See, he and Palou each started off on the Firestone primary tire strategy to where the four others around them began on the alternates. Pole sitter Colton Herta pit first on Lap 26. Second place starter Graham Rahal stopped next on Lap 27. Palou followed up next one lap later. Dixon though, stretched it two laps longer. It paid off massively.

The problem was, he, like Rahal, had that fuel issue which that slow stop forced him behind Herta instead of in front of him after the first pit sequence.

“A little bit frustrating here and there,” Dixon continued. “First up I think we had a little bit of an issue with the fuel probe, which I think in hindsight that would have cleared — we would have cleared Herta, which we would have had a race on I think with Alex.

“You’re definitely fighting over tenths of a second. Especially in the pit stop exchanges like we were. Like maybe we would have cleared the 26, and that would have been a much easier race for us and possibly a race with the 10.

“So it’s part of it, man. Some weekends you don’t get it, and some you do. I think our team is extremely good. Honestly I haven’t looked at it. Maybe I missed the mark by a foot and screwed the guy.

“We’ll look at it and see what happened there, but definitely the first stop was a bit slow.

“But, yeah, the pace of the PNC Bank No. 9 was really good. Fuel mileage was super easy, so Honda definitely stepped it up here this weekend. Great power, and obviously the fuel mileage was pretty good.

“So, yeah, it was kind of a race where I think had a couple of things changed maybe with the 45 at the start and then obviously with the 26 later on, you know, we could have maybe been in a race for the win.

“But huge credit to the 10 car and obviously Alex. He is on a hell of a run. He definitely has a pretty big championship lead at the moment, which is going to be definitely tough to overcome.”

Palou has won four of the last five races. Dixon says that what makes his teammate so tough is that they’re covering all bases.

“The qualifying is solid, the race pace is solid, strategy is solid. It’s just a really good all-around package right now,” he admitted.

“It’s never always one thing, but having quick paces is something that is huge obviously with how tight the competition is now, but even today we didn’t qualify on the front. We were fourth and sixth, but he was still able to overcome the three possibly quicker cars in qualifying.

“Some others may have had some problems on pit road or just whatever it was. He has done a hell of a job to cover all bases.”

Palou was the second driver since 2016 to win three consecutive races. The other?

Dixon in 2020. If Dixon wants to make up a gap of 110 points, he’s going to have to go on a run himself. Honestly, he can too.

After Mid-Ohio is Toronto. Dixon has won 4 times there too including just last year for which the Exhibition Place circuit is somewhere that he currently has a streak of three consecutive top two finishes at.

Then, it’s a doubleheader at the Iowa Speedway which is a place that he’s never won at (0-for-17), but he’s also had five straight top five finishes there too including a pair of runner-ups at that.

Nashville is up next and his two finishes there are second and first respectively. That gets you to the final month of the season with Indy road Course, Gateway, Portland and Laguna Seca left.

That’s why it all started right here at Mid-Ohio. While he’s been so dominant here, it’s also a place that had just 1 podium in his last 9 tries on this track. He also only had only 1 podium finish on the year too. Dixon had finished 7th, 6th and 4th respectively on natural road courses in 2023.

So, to come away runner-up, he’ll take it.