Leader Dixon should expect fight for IndyCar crown
Same story, different year.
That’s the short version of what Simon Pagenaud said while standing in pit lane after a fourthplace finish at Road America, where the reigning Verizon IndyCar Series champion playfully bemoaned the fact that the rest of the series always seems to be chasing one guy: Scott Dixon.
“Every year we talk about (him),” Pagenaud said with a smile. “Scott Dixon is the biggest threat. No matter what car, what team you put him in, he’s always going to be in the running for a championship.”
After picking up his first win of the season at Road America, Dixon will take a 34-point lead over Pagenaud into this weekend’s race at Iowa Speedway, a 37-point lead over Pagenaud’s Team Penske teammate Helio Castroneves and more than a 50-point lead over the rest of the field.
Pagenaud, though, doesn’t think Dixon will run away with his fifth title, one that would have him standing alone in second place all time behind legendary A.J. Foyt (seven). Pagenaud expects he and his Penske teammates will make up ground this weekend and keep pace for the rest of the season.
“I’m excited about Iowa,” said Pagenaud, who sat on the pole for the race last season. “It’s one of my favorite short ovals. … And it’s a track where we should have a little advantage with our Chevy package.”
Ex-IndyCar driver and NBC Sports Network analyst Townsend Bell told The Indianapolis
Star that the championship will come down to Dixon and Penske’s party of four. Though Andretti Autosport’s Takuma Sato sits fourth, just 56 points back of Dixon, Bell said anyone else entering the mix would be a surprise.
“We know that the Penske guys will be strong everywhere we go now,” said Bell, who will be in the broadcast booth at Iowa. “They’ve clearly figured out something in the setup.”
Because of Penske’s superiority on setup, Bell declined to call the title Dixon’s to lose. But he sees Dixon as the smart bet. Known as a slow starter — by his lofty standards — Dixon is hitting his tradi- tional hot streak. Since 2013, 10 of his 12 wins have come in the second half of the schedule. And of the six tracks after Iowa, Dixon has won at five of them — with the renewed race at Gateway Motorsports Park the only exception.
“(Dixon) always figures out how to win,” Bell said. “He just simply gets the job done, year in, year out. He’s the best all-around driver in the series.”
Bell thinks Josef Newgarden might have the best shot to prevent Dixon from making history. The Penske newcomer is fifth in points and trails Dixon by 61.
“I’m not at all surprised Josef has adapted so quickly to racing with Penske,” Bell said of the defending Iowa race winner. “It took Pagenaud the bulk of his first season to really jell and find the chemistry. For Newgarden, it took him maybe one race.”
Bell doesn’t see Pagenaud or Indianapolis Grand Prix and Texas winner Will Power — sixth in the championship and 63 points back — falling out of contention, but he isn’t sure about Castroneves, who has been consistent — he has finished in the top 10 in all but one race — but can’t win.
“His ability to dig deep and deliver at his age, and as long as he’s been doing it, is super impressive,” Bell said of the 42-year-old whose winless streak is at 53 races. “But I think over the course of a race, over the course of a season, he doesn’t appear to have the same ability to close out races like Dixon or Power or Pagenaud or Newgarden.”