Ganassi driver Scott Dixon scored his second victory of the IndyCar season this past weekend at Texas Speedway. Known for his second-half charges up the championship standings, Dixon has now closed the gap in overall points and is poised for another run at the title.
Dixon and his teammate, Tony Kanaan, completed a one-two sweep for Ganassi cars by making the right strategy choice. The high-speed, one-and-a-half mile oval presented teams with the option of trimming out the car for speed or adding more aerodynamic down force to help with handling.
Dixon and Kanaan chose the latter, or rather Dixon’s engineer Chris Simmons did. When hearing about the choice, Dixon tried to talk Simmons out of it but in the end was happy he didn’t get his own way. Dixon led 97 of the 248 laps and moved to within eight points of second place, and is only 43 behind overall leader Juan Pablo Montoya.
Adding to the good news for Dixon is that he’s a former winner in Toronto, which is next on the schedule. Dixon swept both ends of the double-header weekend two years ago on the way to his most recent title.
Chevy continues dominance
Continuing the season trend, Chevrolet teams dominated in speed again in Texas and now Honda teams are rightfully speaking up about the obvious performance disadvantage they’ve been forced to deal with all season. Both Honda and Chevrolet have spent millions on the new aero kits that debuted this year and Honda is tired of getting thumped.
IndyCar races were ultra competitive for three seasons since the introduction of the DW12 chassis that both engine manufacturers used. With unique aerodynamic body kits brought on line by the parties this year, it’s slanted the results in favour of Chevy teams, which is not good for the bigger picture. If you’re IndyCar, you don’t want the series to be too one-sided, with one manufacturer dominating the other. While it is nice to have each of the manufacturer partners easily distinguished with distinctive body panels, it’s more important to have exciting and competitive racing between all competitors.
Honda teams have claimed two wins this season, however both have been the result of rainy weather and fuel mileage strategy coming into play. Chevrolet has dominated qualifying results and fast race lap success en route to seven victories. Unless performance equity between the two can be restored, this will be a problem for the series going forward.
Hinchcliffe makes video appearance
A nice surprise in Texas was the appearance of injured driver James Hinchcliffe in a video message to thank supporters for all their well wishes as he recovers from his crash at Indianapolis. In typical Hinch fashion, the Oakville, ON native then donned a cowboy hat and gave the command for drivers to start engines.
While Hinchcliffe continues his recovery, the substitute driver lineup continues to shuffle. Ryan Briscoe was back in the No. 5 machine for the Texas event and came home eighth. Briscoe has other obligations this weekend and Conor Daly, who led for 12 laps and finished sixth in the second Detroit race, will be at the wheel for the race in Toronto this weekend. No substitute decision has been made beyond next weekends race.