Will Dixon Ever Get No. 7?

Scott Dixon is showing no signs of slowing down. While he flashes glimpses of maybe this being it, Dixon quickly then shows why you can never question him. However, while he can’t win the championship on Sunday, will he ever any time after?

There’s no doubt that his career is winding down. I mean he’s been doing this for two decades now. His wins aren’t coming quite as often. But he still found himself in a position for his 7th straight finish in the top 4 of points and 17th time in the last 18 years. Do that long enough you’ll find titles. But can he keep doing that?

His first three titles came in five-year increments. 2003, 2008, 2013. Then, he exploded with championships won in 2015, 2018 and again in 2020. That’s three championships in a six year span including 2 of the last 6.

Dixon, has reached victory lane just five times in his last 55 starts.

What’s crazy is, from July 2019 through August 2020 (Gateway 1), Dixon had 11 podiums in a 15 race span. Among those 11 top three finishes were five wins and five runner-ups. Over the last 55 races, Dixon has had just 5 wins (Texas 1 in 2021, Toronto, Nashville 2022, Gallagher Grand Prix, Gateway 2023), two runner-ups (Nashville 2021, Mid-Ohio 2023) and only 15 podiums.

That’s why he’s in the position that he’s in today.

The thing is, despite being in this position, it’s not like his season has been all that “off.” Dixon still has 30 top five finishes and 48 top 10’s in that span. The only thing absent has been turning those top fives results into podiums.

But, the thing also is, if cautions and/or bad luck came differently too, Dixon may not be behind either. He may be the one in the drivers seat instead.

Still, time is against him though for that 8th. Just 10 times has someone won the title at 41 years of age or older. Three drivers were 42. One was 43 and four more were 44. No one was 45 while two drivers won at 46.

Among the drivers to be crowned a champion at 41 years old and up, only one came since 1990. With his stats declining this year and the trends not being on his side, this is a legitimate question.

---

Has The 10 Car Passed The 9 Car At Ganassi?

“As Chip calls it, you’re either a Sunday driver or your not. I think with Alex we have a Sunday driver,” Dario Franchitti said a few years ago of Palou.

Since Dario Franchitti retired at the end of the 2013 season, Ganassi struggled to find any balance to this team. Dixon had won three championships and 17 races in the seven year span between 2014 and 2020. He also scored 45 podiums in that time frame too.

By comparison, the No. 10 car had 115 starts between three drivers in that same span. They had two wins, 17 podiums, 30 top fives and 64 top 10’s. The points finishes?

7th, 8th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 6th and 11th respectively.

Dixon’s?

3rd, 1st, 6th, 3rd, 1st, 3rd and 1st respectively himself. He was no worse than sixth with the 10 car being 6th or worst in all seven years.

That’s a stark comparison from what it was when it was Dixon and Dan Wheldon as teammates between 2006 and 2008 and then Dixon and Dario Franchitti from 2009 through 2013.

The 10 car in that span had 19 wins, 52 podiums, 75 top fives and 97 top 10’s in 133 races. The points finishes were second, fourth, fourth, first, first, first, seventh and 10th respectively.

Since Palou has been in that 10 car, his ride has outperformed Dixon in fact. In 49 starts in this span, Palou has 9 wins and 23 podiums. Dixon has 5 wins and 14 podiums.

Palou’s average finish with Ganassi is 6.52.

Dixon’s average finish in this same span is 6.72.

“Unfortunately for one reason or another, we haven’t found that right combination for a few years,” Ganassi said of the 10 car in 2021. “You have to work just as hard. Sometimes you’re probably working harder than the guys on the 10 car and the 8 and the 48. They have to work harder sometimes than the champion.

“It’s as big as it gets. Just to see this young man come along, it’s been a few dry years in the 10 car. I go back to think of Dario and Dan Wheldon in the 10, all the successes they had.”

That’s why Ganassi valued Palou as much as he does and why he didn’t waver on wanting to keep him around. As a result, they’ll stay together for more years to come.

---

Should You Have To Win The Season Finale To Win The Championship?

This isn’t NASCAR. Every year since 2014, the NASCAR champion had to win the season finale to take home the crowd. Over the last 6 years in INDYCAR, the winner of the season finale wasn’t the season champion. However, with the margin between the ones going for this year’s title this year, does that change?

Simon Pagenaud was the last to do so in 2016. Scott Dixon did it one year prior in 2015. Every year since though there were 2 drivers celebrating after the season finale, the race winner and the champion.

Do you have to win Sunday’s race if you want to win the title? With the title wrapped up, does that dilute this weekend’s finale?

---

Can O’Ward Become Top Chevy Finisher?

Pato O’Ward desperately wants to win an NTT INDYCAR SERIES race this season. He leaves Portland riding a 22 race drought. However, it’s not like he hasn’t been close this season either. Last Sunday’s BITNILE.com Grand Prix of Portland was the young Mexican stars ninth top five finish of the season as he brought his No. 5 Dallara-Chevrolet home in fourth.

O’Ward started the race from sixth but elected to start on the primary tires. With most thinking this would be a primary dominated race, which is completely different than every other year here, they swung for the fence in thinking so.

That proved to be the right move.

That allowed him to cut into Josef Newgarden’s gap to P3 in points to now being nine points down. Unfortunately for O’Ward, Newgarden rebounded from starting 12th to finish one spot behind O’Ward in fifth.

O’Ward was also 4th at Portland last year and 4th, 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 3rd, 4th on natural road courses this season too. He had a top five finish in Monterey a year ago too.

Now, he’s only nine points back to being the best Chevrolet finisher in points which is a massive feat. He’s finished 4th, 3rd, 7th in points in his first three years and on the verge of a top 4 finish again.

He’s closing that gap to the big teams. The last 20 champions have hailed from the Penske, Ganassi or Andretti camps. Ganassi will make this 21 straight.

The last time a team other than the “Big 3” won a championship was Panther in 2002 with Sam Hornish Jr. 

His only issue is not having a win thus far with his crux this season has been being overly aggressive at times.

O’Ward had 3 runner-up finishes in the first 5 races of the season. He was 4th in 1 of the other 2 races. The one that he wasn’t was being overzealous in Long Beach.

The Indy 500 he was aggressive on the Lap 192 restart with Marcus Ericsson in Turn 3. He was first, slipped to third by time we got to Turn 1 and when trying to get back, he overstepped it. In Detroit, a bad pit stop while leading and pushing too hard to make up for it saw him catch the wall.

Take those three races out, his average finish on the season is 4.53.

He comes to the season finale with finishes of 3rd, 8th, 8th, 3rd, 10th, 8th, 3rd, 2nd, 4th in the last 9 races.

---

Is This A Successful Season For Penske Without A Championship?

Penske and Ganassi each have 3 drivers in the top 7 of points. They’ve won 13 of the 16 races and dominated the podiums too.

However, only 1 can have the championship, so for Penske who won’t win the title, does this season get classified as a success without the Astor Cup?

Penske won last year’s championship but didn’t win Indy. They won this year’s Indy 500 but all 3 drivers are too far back to win this year’s. Ganassi has flipped the script…literally.

Penske came into last season watching Ganassi win two straight titles and 3 of the last 4. They went 1-2-4 in the final standings.

Now, Ganassi has done what Penske did and about to score their 4th championship since 2018.

Why the swap?

“They have the best cars right now,” Will Power says “They do. They’re able to extract the most out of qualifying. Their cars look good off the tires, they’re very fast in the race, and their strategy’s good — they’re just simply the best team right now. They are.

“They’ve got good cars, good drivers. You think about Palou and Dixon and even Ericsson. Marcus Armstrong is a rookie, but also very quick. They’ve got a very tough group.”

Power says that it is has nothing to do with a Honda vs. Chevy thing here either. It’s just the fact that Ganassi is purely outperforming them across the board.

“No, I don’t think much to do with the engines. I think the engines are pretty equal,” Power said. “I think the Chevy has a bit more top end. Honda might have a bit more torque down low. But all in all over laps, it’s probably pretty similar.

“Ganassi definitely have good cars right now.”

The thing is, with a return to Indy glory for Penske, is that enough to overshadow not winning the title in the end? Is that a bad way to look at things? Does 1 race make or break a season?

For Penske, it does.

When they won the ‘500 in 2019, it was their 2nd straight. Penske got the keys to the place in 2020…literally. However, they struggled in 2020’s race, then again in 2021 and 2022.

They came into this year’s race having led 19 combined laps since 2020.

Penske qualified 13-22-25-28 in 2020, finished 5-11-14-22. They’d lead a grand total of 16 laps that day. A year later, they’d qualify 17-21-26-32 and finish 3-12-20-30 with just 3 laps led all day.

Outside of Indy, they were thriving. It was just here that they put so much time and effort into getting better. They finally did with Newgarden winning but left no stone unturned to get there.

“I think Indy, there’s a lot of recipes that can work here, and I think our approach of trying to get the details right has always been true at this team,” Newgarden said on the morning of Fast Friday. “I don’t think we’re going to change that.

“But sometimes there’s different elements that we may not look at the right way, and we go back and we look at them again and say, can we look at them differently.

“I think that has been a core thing for us, just trying to reassess every little detail in the way that we’re examining it, and hopefully we’ve got a better recipe this time around.

“I think our approach is similar to always; this race, this team knows how to win this race. They’ve won it the most of anybody. They’re very successful at doing it.

“I think the core principles need to stay the same as always, but we know we need to elevate our game with regards to speed and we’ve been chipping away at it. There’s been a tremendous amount of effort from everybody. There’s no shortage of effort.

“I thought we were on a much better path last year. I think unfortunately we didn’t get to show the full potential of the work that went into last year. I really think we should have had a couple more cars in the Fast 12.

“Generally, not just saying that for trying to paint the picture better, but we made a lot of progress last year, and I think this year is more of an evolution of what we did last year.

“We can go back and pick apart 2022 and we can make it look a lot better I think if things go differently, but we can’t. We landed where we did. Just to reiterate, I think we made a big step, and we’re just evolving within that step again this year. We obviously need a little bit more than where we were last season.”

Unfortunately, it cost them elsewhere allowing a Ganassi 1-2 in the championship. Which is why the question is relevant. Is it better to win 1 or the other?

1 race over 16 others?

Penske has 3-5-6 in points still but has the Indy 500 crown in their pocket too. Where did they miss it?

On ovals, they were bar none the best. They went 1-6-16 at Texas, 1-14-23 at Indy, 1-2-5 in both Iowa races and 5-9-25 at Iowa.

On street courses they went 7-13-17 in St. Pete, 6-9-10 in Long Beach, 2-7-10 at Detroit, 5-6-14 in Toronto and 2-4-10 at Nashville.

Natural road courses, this has been their area of weakness. While they went 1-3-15 in Barber, they since went 7-12-16 in Indy 1, 6-8-25 in Indy 2, 2-8-13 in Road America, 3-5-12 at Mid-Ohio and 5-9-25 in Portland.