SALINAS, Calif — On a picturesque afternoon in California the conditions looked far better than the actual race itself. 9 cautions for 35 laps and 17 penalties were dished out in the 95-lap race. But in it, for the 3rd time in the last 4 races though, Scott Dixon did Scott Dixon things and scored his 56th career NTT INDYCAR SERIES victory in Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey.

Dixon overcame a grid penalty for an engine problem suffered with mileage in the morning warmup, then an avoidable contact penalty from a first lap incident to come from behind to score his third win in the last four races of the season. He was winless in the first 13 races.

“Yeah, it was a wild day. I think as McLaughlin was commenting, I think he had a drive-through penalty as well. Race control was drive-through penalty, pretty happy today,” Dixon said.

“I think the morning kind of was tough, just to start off with a bit of a failure, then obviously getting a grip penalty wasn’t the way you wanted to start the day.

“I think we had done a good job in qualifying, which would have put us in a good spot to obviously fight for the lead on more of a straightforward race.

“As we had seen in the last kind of two or three days, even in the practice sessions, it’s been a lot of cars falling off track. I figured that the race was either going to go green to checkered or have a bunch of yellows. We had the yellows.”

Early on, Christian Lundgaard, the third-place starter, and Scott McLaughlin, the second-place starter, made contact in the opening corner of the 17th and final race of the season.

“At the start I locked the rears, but I was easily going to make the corner but McLaughlin sort of squeezed me on to the curb and as soon as I got on there, the front grip had a huge tank slapper and that ended up hitting his side,” Lundgaard said of his day. “I don’t know what happened after that. I had a straight puncture, suspension damage, and the whole side of the car was bruised.”

McLaughlin didn’t speak of the incident other than he hit almost everyting out there.

“Yeah, I think I hit everything but the pace car today. Certainly one of those crazy days, peak INDYCAR days,” McLaughlin quipped.

That crash ended Graham Rahal’s day. Juri Vips had damage. Josef Newgarden’s race winning chances were also dashed. Dixon while running away from the incident, got into Rinus VeeKay sparking that penalty.

Once we got back going, it didn’t take long for Alex Palou to get by Felix Rosenqvist for the top spot. Literally, one lap after the restart to go back green, Palou passed. Will Power followed.

 Luckily, a quick caution came out a lap later. On the restart, Rosenqvist got back into second and settled in.

He pit for the first time on Lap 27. That’s where his race was lost. Fellow countrymate Marcus Ericsson spun him in Turn 1 after and his race was over from there. He’d limp home 19th on a day of what might have been.

“What a ride,” Rosenqvist said. “It really was a roller coaster for my final drive with Arrow McLaren. We started on pole with a mega car and a strong first half of the race. Then Marcus came into me and our day was ended from there. The No. 6 crew fought hard to stay in the race, but it’s a shame considering the potential we had going for us. I have to thank the team and especially my crew for the speed we had all season long. To have two poles and two podiums in the wild season that we had, I’m really proud of us and I leave with my head held high. It’s been really special racing with Arrow McLaren, and now I’m excited for what’s to come in 2024.”

Luckily, Palou had just pit prior to that incident. Colton Herta and Power didn’t. They’d have to pit under caution handing the lead over to Palou. O’Ward was now in second.

On the ensuring restart, a crash occurred in the final corner. Power trying to make up too much ground sparked it. Also, up front, McLaughlin accidentally got into the back of Santino Ferrucci.

Both Power and McLaughlin were assessed an avoidable contact penalty a lap later and forced to restart at the back of the field. However, they also pit under that caution which set forth another penalty for pitting after a repositioning penalty. That was a drive-through penalty for which they did on Lap 43.

Now they were behind.

Dixon also went off strategy under that caution and pit too. This was the winning maneuver. We just didn’t know it then.

Palou would lead the field to green on the Lap 41 restart and away he’d go. By Lap 50, his lead was 4.2293-seconds. By Lap 56, it was 5.0959-seconds.

“Yeah, it was an interesting race,” said Palou. “Lots of action honestly. Started fifth. Knew that there was going to be some drama on the first couple of laps. I was lucky that I was out of the first lap incident in turn two.

“From there, honestly we just had a lot of pace. Was able to overtake Felix, just get a gap. The car was amazing. I thought our strategy was amazing, as well. It was also hard to judge the yellows. Like, we couldn’t really predict what was going to happen.”

Palou felt like if another caution never came out, he was likely settling in for another wide margin of victory. He won by 30-seconds last year and was heading that way again.

“It would have been pretty big just because I felt like one with my car,” he says. “It was just amazing. It felt like back to last year. We just had a ton of speed.

“But I knew it was not going to be an easy race. I knew there were going to be some yellows coming. I was just praying to be lucky again like we were on the first yellow, but we didn’t.”

O’Ward pit on Lap 58. Palou didn’t. David Malukas and Devlin DeFrancesco brought out the fifth caution. It ruined Palou’s chances.

“That yellow hurt us, I think it was third or fourth yellow. It hurt us a lot,” Palou said. “We had to drop back to like 15th. We were on a bad spot.”

O’Ward would inherit the lead when Palou pit under that caution. Just one problem. They put the primary tires on O’Ward’s car. He started on them and took them on his Lap 28 stop. He still had to use the Firestone alternates.

At that time though, they felt like everyone had to pit one more time anyways. But, with so much chaos after that included three more cautions, he could have made it to the end. However, he no matter what had to stop for the alternate tires.

With everyone now having one more stop left, the running order was O’Ward, Marcus Armstrong, Dixon, Herta, Helio Castroneves, Lundgaard, Alexander Rossi, McLaughlin, Romain Grosjean and Power in the top 10.

As O’Ward was setting up to lead the field back to green on Lap 62, more chaos behind in Turn 11 sparked another yellow.

On Lap 64, the pits were open and O’Ward didn’t want to come down yet. Armstrong, Dixon, Herta, McLaughlin, Power and Lundgaard did.

This could be their final stops. O’Ward and Rossi each had to still put on the reds and if the race could go green for a while, they were hopeful to build a big enough lead.

They never had the chance.

On the next restart? Another caution.

Rossi bailed.

Grosjean passed O’Ward on the ensuring restart but another caution fell a lap later for Herta and Castroneves.

Grosjean and O’Ward had to bail.

“Our race was looking so strong, and that was a very disappointing end to what could’ve been a great result,” O’Ward said. “We kept our nose clean, did a nice job on track, and the team nailed it on the pit stops. It’s frustrating having our day thrown away by other people’s mistakes.”

That left Dixon back in the lead. McLaughlin was now in second. Callum Ilott was up to third, Palou in fourth, Agustin Canapino in fifth, Lundgaard in sixth, Power in seventh, Rossi in eighth and Armstrong ninth.

They all could likely make it to the end.

Dixon led the field to the Lap 78 restart and never looked back.

“It was a tough race. But worked out for us,” Dixon said. “Strategy, we just tried to keep it simple, kind of working from the back end of the race. I was definitely shocked to see the 5 and the 28 pit when they did. I knew after that we had a really fast car, even with some of the damage we kind of had from the contact with the 21 on the start.

“All in all, great day. It’s nice to rebound like we did. Definitely some heated moments throughout the race. Pretty pissed off at times. It’s always nice to finish the year like that.”

McLaughlin despite two penalties and a first lap incident, finished second.

“I think you just never give up,” he said. “You just got to keep fighting and keep moving forward. I said to the guys after we got hit off the start, We’ll make something of it somehow. It was always going to be a bit weird with the fuel, who would two stop, who would three stop, blah, blah, blah.

“I knew we had a fast enough car, if I made some moves on restarts and whatnot, we’d be okay. Yeah, it was perfect.”

Palou was able to stretch his fuel to rebound to come home third.

“Yeah, never gave up,” Palou said. “We started saving fuel that we needed. Yeah, got into an accident when I was restarting in 15th. The car survived. We survived. Everything survived. I’m happy with the P3 honestly. I think it was the best we could have done today.

“I wanted to win, honestly, to celebrate more. Honestly, with the race we did, I feel like we won our race. Super happy. We got to do a lot of donuts for myself, for the team, and for the fans, which I was waiting for.

“Yeah, it’s okay. I mean, it’s INDYCAR. You know there’s stuff that you cannot control, like that yellow. Yeah, at least we got it back into podium position, which was the best we could.

“Yeah, could have been a lot better race, but a third was amazing.”

Power would rebound to finish fourth while Ilott rounded out the top five.

The top three drivers in points scored over the second half of the season finished 1-2-3. Dixon scored 352 points since Mid-Ohio. Palou was next best at 332 and McLaughlin third at 289.

Also, the top drivers on natural road courses ended up there too.

Dixon has finished 7th, 6th, 4th, 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 1st respectively on natural road courses in 2023 too. He’s finished 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 3rd, 3rd, 5th, 2nd, 1st, 17th, 4th, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 12th, 1st in the last 18 season finales.

For Palou in third, he has finished 5th, 1st, 1st, 1st, 7th, 1st, 3rd on natural road courses in 2023 and 2nd, 1st, 3rd in 3 tries here.

Penske and Ganassi won all 7 races on natural road courses this season and just went 1-2-3 here for a second straight year. However, entering the race, it was looking like they’d be threatened.

21 of the last 24 visits entering the race were won from a top 3 starter (15 from the pole, 4 from 2nd). 2 of the 3 on Sunday belonged to McLaren and RLL.

Even with chaos, the podium on Sunday went Ganassi-Penske-Ganassi. Even a Penske was in 4th too.

22 of the last 25 were won from a top 6 starter in general. However, 2 of the 3 not occurred in the last 2 years. Alex Palou won from 11th in 2022 and Dixon from 11th this year.

Fitting that the two drivers with nothing to lose in Sunday’s NTT INDYCAR SERIES season finale at Laguna Seca took 2 of the top 3 spots on the podium in the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey.

Scott Dixon led the final 20 laps en route to his 3rd win in the last 4 races. Alex Palou led a race-high 51 of 95 laps and finished third. Marcus Armstrong finished 8th to give Ganassi the Rookie of the Year too.

On a day that Palou was officially celebrating his 2nd championship in the last three years, his teammate was celebrating in victory lane.

“It means a lot,” said Dixon. “I think the year that everybody had, even with Marcus collecting on the first race of the year, to come out and win. I think we definitely hoped, having a 1-2-3 in the championship was going to be difficult with obviously a split, 11 car kind of driver roster. Marcus moving on to be honest, a hell of a teammate, a good friend, just wish that it stayed status quo. Obviously it didn’t.

“Yeah, it’s a good year. We’ve had years like this. It’s been a long time ago. I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a situation where you come into the last race and you can’t fight really much for anything in the championship. We were locked into second. Alex was locked obviously for the championship, which was quite bizarre.

“Everybody’s stress level was a lot lower. You could all just kind of fight for the win. I think that played out from a lot of people to watch. Everybody was just going for a win because everybody was trying a bit of everything throughout the day.

“Huge, huge year for the team. It’s great to see Armstrong doing well. You can see that he’s got great speed. The 11 car side are working really well. I felt bad because I popped up the inside of the 55, I was like, Man, I can see the green car going on the outside, it’s slippery out there. I’m not sure that’s a good spot to go. I think I drove over the curb. I think the 55 tried to turn. It’s hard to go three-wide through there. Ultimately he ended up in a bit of a crash there.

“Yeah, would have been great to see him on the podium, for sure.”

You can’t undersell that it has been a phenomenal year of success for Chip Ganassi Racing, as they have claimed a little over half the race wins (9) this season and have been on the podium in 15 of the 17 races (19 total podiums).  The team has boasted three-or-more drivers in the top-10 in every single race this season too.

While Dixon has won six championships in his career, he has also finished in second two previous times (2007, 2009). This was also the 17th time in the last 18 years that he came away with a top four points finish.

That’s remarkable.

What’s crazy is, if Palou hadn’t run away from the field for the championship, Dixon’s stats are actually championship worthy in and of themselves.

Dixon had a top 7 finish in all but 1 race this year. That was when he was punted by Pato O’Ward in Long Beach. He was sixth at the time.

Since May, Dixon has finished 6th, 6th, 4th, 4th, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 6th, 5th, 1st, 1st, 3rd, 1st. That’s an average finish of 3.76 in that 13-race stretch.

It’s just that Palou has been a little bit better.

Palou has finished 1st, 4th, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 8th, 3rd, 3rd, 7th, 7th, 1st, 3rd in the same 13 races for an average finish of 3.23. He’s not finished worse than 8th since Portland last year.

That’s why even without a title this year, you can’t ever write Dixon off.

For Lundgaard, he’d remarkably with all that damage finish sixth.

“Throughout the whole race it was just a lot of wheel banging and dumb driving from everybody,” he said. We stayed in the game. We were seventh with one lap to go and got Rossi to finish sixth and kept eighth place in the championship so I’m happy with that since it was the target going into the weekend.

“I had a broken mirror so I couldn’t see anything on my left side so for everybody that dived up the inside, I had no clue that they were there until they were there so I couldn’t do much to defend my position. The negative of the weekend was not getting anything out of the pace we had but I don’t really think I ever expected to finish where we did with that first lap, but I know there was hope. We ended up on the better side of the unluck at the end of the race.”

Lundgaard finished 8th in points on the heels of 9 top 10 finishes. He scored his first career pole in May’s GMR Grand Prix. He scored his first career win in July in Toronto, a track that he also won the pole at too.

He had the fifth most points scored on road courses (328) but only the 20th most points on ovals. You can see where improvement needs to be made.

On natural road courses like this one, he finished 6th, 4th, 7th, 4th, 4th, 11th, 6th respectively. On streets, he came home 9th, 14th, 16th, 1st, 9th. Ovals was 19th, 19th, 20th, 13th, 17th.

Rossi, despite an issue with his pit equipment still came away 7th.

“I think we learned a lot this year,” Rossi said. “There were a lot of very positive things to draw upon. It was just a year of a lot of weird things. Today’s race was a perfect example. We had to manually jack the car up for the last two pit stops. It’s the little things like that that we need to work on, but ultimately the team grew massively.

“On the No. 7 side, I feel like we improved tremendously throughout the year and have a lot of things to learn from when we see all these tracks again for the second time together next year. We’ll focus on the positives, try to improve on the negatives and go into the offseason.”

Armstrong came away eighth while O’Ward was ninth.