Scott Dixon's 'nothing-to-lose' strategy almost won at Road America. Why it almost worked, but didn't

Indianapolis Star

6 days ago

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — For more than two decades, Scott Dixon's IndyCar rivals have become all too used to the No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing crew spearheaded by strategist and team managing director Mike Hull turning a qualifying gaffe, an early race miscue or an otherwise innocuous start to a race into a masterful victory.
Sunday afternoon at Road America was a rarity for the six-time series champion duo: a roll of the dice that delivered snake eyes. And with that, for the second consecutive start, a late-race lead turned into an otherwise forgettable top-10 finish for Dixon, who just nine races into his 2025 campaign sits tied for fourth in the championship with six top 10s but faces a 155-point gap to his CGR teammate Alex Palou, who picked up his eye-popping sixth win of the year at Road America.
'We've got nothing to lose. We were going for some race wins. You're pretty much out of the championship, so yeah, nothing to lose, man,' Dixon said on pit lane of the No. 9 Honda team's off-kilter pit strategy that ultimately set the course for their day, needing a late-race caution that never came.
'Once I saw the (fuel) light come on for my second-to-last pit stop (which he took on Lap 38), I knew we were gonna be a couple (laps) short, which was going to make it easy for the guys who pitted just a couple laps later,' Dixon continued. 'It's just been one of those years, man. Anything we do is just kinda crappy. We'll keep at it. Keep knocking on the door. The car's got good speed.'
Dixon started Sunday's race 25th after losing his two fastest laps in Round 1 Saturday for a qualifying interference penalty, just the 14th time he's qualified outside the top 20 in his IndyCar career. The painful penalty pushed the team to opt to pit early after a Lap 1 caution that came for David Malukas' spin into the gravel in Turn 3. In theory, the stop didn't lose the No. 9 crew much, if any, track position while giving them a couple laps more fuel than the rest of the field that stayed out — crucial at a track that measures more than 4 miles in length.
An especially elbows-out start to the race led to two more cautions inside the first 10 laps, leading the bulk of the field to make their first stop on Lap 11, handing Dixon his first stint of race-leading laps at the time of the ensuing return to green flag action. He managed to stretch his second stint to 19 laps, albeit six laps of caution helping to pad his stats, but his second stop came on Lap 21.
Painfully for the No. 9 crew, the race's fourth caution came out just one lap later, sparking those like Palou to dip in for their second stop on Lap 23 under yellow and at that point only needing one more stop to be able to make it to the checkered flag. Had Conor Daly's caution came a lap earlier and still forced those on a more traditional, conservative strategy to make their next stop at that point, allowing Dixon to pit with Palou and sync up their game plans, the entire race's eventual flow might've been thrown on its head, and the No. 9 team's race might've ended up differently.
Instead, with just one other caution falling the rest of the race on Lap 30, the field of contenders were forced to make their final stops all under green at whatever points their tanks were approaching empty. For those like Palou, Santino Ferrucci (third place) and Kyffin Simpson (sixth) who took their second stop on Lap 23, they dove int for the final time on Lap 39 or 40. Those like Felix Rosenqvist (second), Kyle Kirkwood (fourth) or Marcus Armstrong (fifth) had no issue making it to the end without fuel concerns. They opted to stay out during the caution for Daly to preserve track position, and who then pitted under green on Lap 27 or 28 but were then able to bunch back up with Josef Newgarden's Lap 30 caution.
Dixon's path proved to be the odd one out. Ultimately, he led a race-high 27 laps, including Laps 45 to 52 of the 55-lap race, but it became clear during that closing stretch to the 44-year-year-old that he'd need one final yellow to save him from a fourth and final stop for a splash-and-go.
'You're throwing pretty wild strategies out there, just to try and make something happen. It looked like actually the conservative one that the others took was the right one to take. We needed to bank on at least another (caution) lap or two,' Dixon said. 'The unfortunate part was the car was super fast, but all day even with our speed today, we were having to save fuel every lap, which was kinda frustrating.
'I think we should've been top 3.'
Dixon, the legendary fuel-saver of his generation of IndyCar drivers, lamented the hybrid's impact on what he might've otherwise been able to do on a day like today just a year ago.
'The fuel mileage is way worse with the hybrid, which makes no sense to me,' he said, making light of the fact that the weight impact of IndyCar's hybrid unit burns more fuel than cars did without it, the exact opposite impact the technology is meant to have in road cars. 'But it's the same for everybody. Everybody's gotta carry this lump of weight around.
'But yeah, you would've made it without the hybrid.'