Dixon forced to settle for second
Scott Dixon was left chasing Australian rival Will Power in the IndyCar Grand Prix, ultimately having to settle for runner-up in Indiana yesterday.
The Australian completed a dominant first weekend in Indianapolis by easily pulling away from Dixon by 5.2830 seconds for his first victory of the season and Team Penske’s third in a row.
For Dixon, it was his 35th time finishing as a runner-up, which is No 4 on IndyCar’s all-time list, and it came on a day Dixon broke a tie with Jimmy Vasser for the secondmost consecutive starts in series history. Dixon has started 212 straight races.
‘‘We got the most out of the car,’’ Dixon said. ‘‘I think Honda was just too much as far as the red tires and the last five laps, we just couldn’t run down Will.’’
Until this weekend, nothing had come easily for Power this season. A mechanical problem took him out of the season opener at St. Petersburg. He seemed destined to win at Alabama until a flat tire forced him to pit and dropped him to 14th.
The following week, at Phoenix, Power also was in contention for the lead until a caution flag came out while he was already on pit lane. He wound up second, more than nine seconds behind teammate Simon Pagenaud.
In Indy, Power was on a mission to change his misfortunes - and he did.
Power picked up his 30th career win in his 175th career start and moved past team-mate Helio Castroneves and former Penske driver Rick Mears into No 11 on the all-time victory list.
And this time, nothing got between Power and victory lane, not even a caution period
‘‘I was just very conscious of the gap Dixon was closing and I kept thinking ‘He’s going to burn his tires off’ and then he kept closing,’' Power said. ‘‘Then, boom, suddenly they went and I knew we were good.’'
Power’s team-mates same problem.
Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves led the other 24 laps but faded following his final pit stop and finished fifth.
Pagenaud, the defending series champopm, started seventh and wound up fourth.
Josef Newgarden spent most of the day in the top five until being assessed drive-through penalties for pit-speed violations on back-toback laps. He finished 11th. had the