St Petersburg: The race for Newgarden, sixth title for Dixon
In the last race of the Indycar championship season, the two major players of the season shared the laurels: Josef Newgarden won the race ahead of O'Ward and Scott Dixon, who clinched his 6th championship title.
He could have settled for ninth place, but he finished with flair on the podium! Scott Dixon further cements his place in the history of his category by becoming the IndyCar champion for the sixth time.
An animated race, great performance by the French
The race, as usual, was quite eventful. Starting from pole position, Will Power experienced downshifting issues and was forced to retire halfway through the race with a slight brush against the wall.
Alexander Rossi then took the lead. Well positioned to seize victory, the American made a mistake on his own, hitting the wall after a spin. The same happened to James Hinchcliffe, second on the restart behind Colton Herta, taking Jack Harvey with him.
Just like in Portugal in F1, a few drops of rain caused chaos, and Herta, who was leading, was overtaken by Alex Palou. In getting in each other’s way, both men lost their leading positions one after the other to Newgarden, who started 8th and took over the lead, which he retained until the checkered flag.
To note an rather unusual incident in motorsport: a fuel shortage of the safety car, forcing Newgarden to manage the field alone during the last restart.
Patricio O’Ward and Dixon accompany Newgarden on the podium. For his return home, Sébastien Bourdais finishes just off the podium in 4th place, just ahead of Ryan Hunter Reay.
Simon Pagenaud is 6th and finishes on a high note in a 2020 season filled with ups and downs. The winner of the 2020 Indianapolis 500 miles, Takuma Sato, finishes 10th.
Dixon is to Indycar what Hamilton is to F1.
The New Zealander wants to thank his team for the work accomplished and also congratulate his opponents of the season.
« It’s never just thanks to one thing or one person », he declared. « For me, it’s a team effort. We made big changes during the off-season. A big bravo to Josef [editor’s note: Newgarden] and Team Penske. They had a flawless end of the season and they took a lot of points, it was incredible to face them. We know it will be the same next year. »
With his sixth title in the bag, Dixon can now dream even higher and aim for the only man still ahead of him, Foyt with his 7 titles. But the task does not promise to be easy, and he remains humble in the face of the situation.
« Six is good, seven is better, » he confides. « That will be the objective. But it will be tough. As we see with the competition, a small error in qualifying complicated the weekend, we couldn’t put everything together. Congratulations again to the team, who got us out of this hole, we were consistent, and we had a good race. »
Dixon may be inspired by what is happening on the Old Continent, where his counterpart Lewis Hamilton is breaking Michael Schumacher’s records one by one.
If the two are not comparable, one thing is certain: both continue to write the history of their discipline!
