It was an eventful return to the famed road course at Watkins Glen for the IndyCar series this past weekend. There was a dominating victory by a four-time champion, plenty of action — and finger-pointing — on the track and Simon Pagenaud is even closer to capturing his first series title.
Ganassi driver Scott Dixon has had great success at the Glen for a reason: he and his team are very good at what they do. They demonstrated their talents again this weekend and picked up their fourth victory at the Upstate New York track.
Unloading with a very fast car, Dixon was near the top of the time sheets all weekend. And when it was necessary to stretch the final load of fuel to make the race distance, there is no one better than Dixon. He is a race engineer’s dream because he can go fast and save fuel.
Dixon’s victory is the 40th of his career and moves him into fourth on the all-time list. The only drivers with more wins in IndyCar history are Michael Andretti (42), Mario Andretti (52) and A.J. Foyt (67). How high can he climb? Passing Mario for second overall before his IndyCar career is over is not out of the question. He is indeed one of the best to ever race in the series.
There were a number of incidents on track that resulted in crashes and days ruined. Graham Rahal and Will Power both had hard hits and in both cases Charlie Kimball was the other driver involved. Both Rahal and Power were critical of how Kimball raced them on the track. Stewards reviewed the incidents and no penalties were assessed, and I think it was the right call.
Kimball was racing hard for position and he is in no way obligated to give way to others. He’s not racing for a championship the way Power is, but he’s just as entitled to part of the track. When you race at high speeds things happen quickly and sometimes bad things happen. Most of the time no one driver is more to blame than the other, and that was the case with Kimball and both Rahal and Power
For Power the crash all but ends his hopes of overtaking Simon Pagenaud and claiming his second series title. He is now 43 points behind Pagenaud heading into the final race in two weeks. Though the series finale awards double points and Power is still mathematically alive, that’s a huge deficit to overcome.
Power also suffered concussion-like symptoms after his crash on Sunday and has not yet been cleared to drive in the finale. If he is diagnosed with a concussion he must follow the IndyCar concussion protocol before returning to the track.
The IndyCar return to Watkins Glen was also a frustrating one for Canadian James Hinchcliffe, who was penalized for blocking during qualifying. Hinchcliffe was upset at the call but charged from his 13th starting spot to running second in the late stages. However, a communication failure caused him to run out of fuel late in the race and dropped him to 18th at the finish.
