After Lap 1 crash, Scott Dixon spins and wins on IMS road course

INDIANAPOLIS – In the most Scott Dixon-esque way possible, the best IndyCar driver of a generation willed his way to the front late in Saturday’s 85-lap Gallagher Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, taking control of the race from polesitter Graham Rahal with the use of his masterful fuel saving that for two decades has set Dixon apart from the rest of the field.

Almost out of nowhere, Dixon cycled to the front of the race nearly 7 seconds ahead at the conclusion of the leaders’ final stops on the heels of an early pitstop under yellow and the ability to run efficient middle stints of 27 laps apiece.

By the checkered flag, Dixon had held onto a half-second gap over Rahal, giving the Chip Ganassi Racing driver his first win of the 2023 season to extend his all-time IndyCar marks of 19 consecutive seasons with a victory and 21 campaigns with one overall.

"Over time, I think these wins (later in my career) feel better. Maybe in the early part of your career, you don't really care too much about wins," Dixon said post-race after logging his 54th-career win, good enough for 2nd all-time, only trailing AJ Foyt's 67. "(Early-on), you just think another one will just come along."

Here’s how he did it.

Dixon gets his IMS spin-and-win moment

Saturday’s start was chaotic at both ends, with second-year Andretti Autosport driver Devlin DeFrancesco, who Friday made his first Fast Six of his young IndyCar career, snatched the lead out of Rahal’s hands by the exit of Turn 1 by going around the outside of the No. 15 Honda in the opening moments of Lap 1.

Back in the middle of the pack at the end of the back-straight, Alex Palou – who late this week made Arrow McLaren aware of his intentions not to race for the IndyCar team in 2024 after allegedly signing a contract with the team – appeared to tap the back of Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Marcus Armstrong, sending the rookie into a spin.

Palou narrowly managed to navigate clear of Armstrong, but several cars behind weren’t so lucky. Romain Grosjean checked up but nudged the back of Dixon, sending the 43-year-old into a spin into the grass – but importantly clear of the rest of the carnage. Grosjean then skidded into the sidepod of Armstrong, with Josef Newgarden, who qualified 19^th and then lost six more spots Saturday’s grid for an unapproved engine change, with nowhere to go but over the top of the No. 11 Honda’s front wing.

"I felt like I had a fantastic start. I think I picked up five or six spots, and then I got to Turn 7, and there was a bit of a back-up, and I got turned around," said Dixon, lamenting his only real frustration that stemmed from his Lap 1 incident. "But you know you're never really out of it, right? I knew we weren't out of it. I think you automatically just fall back on, 'How are we going to win this race from where we are now.'"

In a move that made the difference in Saturday’s race, Dixon managed to get back moving before the field, now running under caution, came back around. After running through a long list of four-letter words, Dixon told reporters post-race Saturday that he soon realized there hadn't really been any harm at all. If there was a benefit of qualifying a lowly 16th Friday after getting bumped from Round 1, it was that Dixon only put a couple laps on one set of Firestone's red alternate tires -- meaning he could have two brand-new sets, along with that gently-used one, for the race.

IMS's road course is notorious for low degradation, even with the softer compound tires, meaning their added speed benefit sticks around longer. This weekend in particular, Firestone brought an even sturdier compound to use as its alternate, meaning most cars would likely try (if they had the tires available) to run three sets on reds and satisfy IndyCar's tire rules with the use of one black set.

And Dixon's No. 9 crew, led by strategist and team executive Mike Hull, had planned pre-race -- well before the driver's Lap 1 spin -- to pit within the first 5-10 laps, get off the black tires they started with and get into a fuel save mode for a longer second and third stint than those roughly splitting the race in quarters. So pitting on Lap 5 during a seven-lap caution period meant Dixon both wouldn't lose nearly as much time in the pits as a green flag stop and had slightly less fuel saving to do than had the race stayed green the whole way through.

"I asked (our team), 'Why aren't we going green (sooner)? This doesn't make any sense'," lamented Rahal post-race, elaborating he felt the seven-lap caution was one, if not two, laps too long. Dixon, for what it was worth, agreed. "And I knew when (Dixon) pitted, I was like, 'Son of a..'

"You give the guy an inch, he's going to get a mile. He's the best at saving fuel, going fast, doing all the things he does."

Rahal cruises in middle stints while Dixon looms

DeFrancesco led the field back to green at the start of Lap 8, with Rahal quickly snatching back the lead, with last year’s Gallagher Grand Prix winner Alexander Rossi trailing Rahal in 2^nd-place for much of the next stint of the race.

After the leaders pitted, Rahal’s teammate Christian Lundgaard popped around Rossi to take over, what at the time, seemed like effectively 2^nd-place in the race. But well up ahead, Dixon’s lead on the race began to loom as one of the few off-strategy drivers still hanging on around the front.

Dixon made his second stop of the race from the lead on Lap 32, disappearing back into the mid-pack while Rahal continued to lead his RLL teammate by 1.5 seconds nearing the race’s halfway point. Just past that halfway point, Lundgaard became the final lead-group driver to pit on Lap 51, but the No. 45 Honda struggled getting the fuel probe in the car and lost more than 4 seconds to Rahal, effectively taking him out of contention.

It was at that point in the race's third stint, Dixon said post-race, he began to realize this gamble with two much longer middle stints might just pay off. While having to stretch a set of used alternate tires 27 laps while Rahal nursed pairs of used black sets in his second and third stints, Dixon began to notice he wasn't seeing much of any falloff. Whatever lead or gap he had to Rahal as the pair cycled in and out of the pits was staying roughly the same, all while the race's eventual runner-up was able to push far harder both on his tires and his engine.

Part of that, Rahal explained post-race, was due to a failure in one his sets of red tires he used in qualifying that suffered blistering after its couple laps of use -- meaning it was available for Sunday's race as a used set as would've been typically expected. Like 3rd-place finisher Pato O'Ward, who also advanced to Friday's Fast Six, Rahal would've planned to run one set each of new black and red tires, along with his two sets of used reds from qualifying. Instead, he had just one of those left for Saturday, needing to instead strap on a pair of used black tires mid-race. That tire disparity, Rahal said, certainly played some part in a race that came down to less than half-a-second by the checkered flag.

"Chasing down the best-ever to do this, it's not an easy thing," Rahal said. "We got to that last stint, and I knew we were going to have to make a lot of time."

A thrilling fight to the end

From the lead with a 6-second lead on Rahal, Dixon pitted for the final time on Lap 60, and Rahal followed two laps later, holding a 6.9-second gap on Dixon, who needed to nurse his fuel mileage to get the rest of the way home in his series-record 319^th consecutive start. With 15 laps to go, the No. 9 Honda held a 4-second advantage on Rahal, but the hard-charging RLL car nearly slashed that in half with 8 laps to go (2.4 seconds back).

By that point, both leaders were having to deal with lapped (or nearly-lapped) traffic. Fellow veteran Ryan Hunter-Reay didn’t make it easy on both cars, helping Dixon hold onto a similar lead for a couple more laps,

"Ryan is a very close friend, so I'm not going to say too much, but I didn't think it needed to be a lap-and-a-half or two laps for him to let me by," Rahal said post-race. "When you're a second back of a car, it becomes a struggle. It's just not easy, and the lapped cars, they know that. They could make the job, particularly in the closing stages like that, slightly easier.

"But (Dixon) had the same. I don't think it affected my ability to go challenge Scott, but that's just the way it goes sometimes."

With 5 laps to go, Rahal had closed within 1.25 seconds of the leader. He got perhaps his best chance heading into Turn 1 with 3 laps left, as Rahal cut within a half-second, but with both drivers able to bang their overtake buttons, he could get no closer.

“I thought all day we, frankly, dominated,” Rahal said post-race. “But we have nothing to be ashamed of. I mean, I’m not bummed, but I’m bummed. It’s just one of those things where, even when you do everything right, Lady Luck just wasn’t on our side."

Said Dixon of the down-to-the-wire finish: "We made a show of it. (Rahal) was coming fast, man, and it would've been interesting. I think once he got to us, it was going to be very tough to pass, though. The No. 9 car would've been very wide.

"But this feels good, feels damn good to get this win. I feel sorry for Graham, but yeah, this is cool."

With win, Dixon takes 2nd in points

Somewhat under the radar for the first time this weekend, Palou cruised his way to a 7^th-place finish, marking his 15^th consecutive finish inside the top-8, dating back to his win in the 2022 season-finale. With Newgarden finishing two laps down in 25^th, Palou added 17 more points to his championship lead, with Dixon assuming 2^nd-place, 101 points back. Newgarden, who like Palou has won four times this season, now trails by 105 points with three races left in the title run.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar: Scott Dixon edges Graham Rahal, spins and wins at IMS road course