SALINAS, Calif — 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.”

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 first career win in 6 Laguna Seca starts.

“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.

“The restarts were very tough. Kind of between 10 and 11 the way they would check up was difficult to get your space right. There were a lot of crashes in the last corner unfortunately with some restarts. I remember even being three-wide with Pedersen and Armstrong. I think that’s when Armstrong spun as well when he was on the outside.

“It was a tough race. But worked out for us. 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.”

The only tracks he’s not won at now is St. Pete (0-for-19), Iowa (0-for-19), Barber (0-for-13) and Portland (0-for-6).

Dixon was 3rd in 2019 but 13th and 12th the last two years. Now he’s a winner.

Dixon has also 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.

Dixon came into this race with a strange scenario. Despite a third-place finish in last Sunday’s race in Portland, his teammate, Alex Palou, still clinched the title early.

On the flipside, Dixon couldn’t go backwards either. He’d finish P2 in the final standings no matter what happened on Sunday. He’s came into the final race of the 2023 slate with nothing to gain but nothing to lose either.

“It’s a bit of a strange one; can’t be first, can’t be third,” he said this week.

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.

He 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.

Still, time is against him though for that 8th title. 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 to ask if he’ll ever win another one?

However, I’ll never doubt his capabilities as Dixon is still on top of his game today.

Plus, when looking at seasons preceding championships, Dixon had 3 top 2 finishes in the final 4 races of 2007. He’d win the title in 2008.

In 2012, Dixon’s final four finishes were 1st, 14th, 4th, 3rd. He’d take home the championship in 2013.

In 2014, his final four finishes were 1st, 4th, 1st, 2nd. He’d win the title in 2015.

In 2019, he’d close out the season with 5 podiums in the final 7 races. He’d win the title in 2020.

His last 3 finishes on the season?

1st, 1st, 3rd, 1st.