Scott Dixon endured an arduous day at the first round of the IndyCar season as he missed out on victory at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
The New Zealander was battling at the sharp end of the field throughout the 100-lap race but lost track position at the final pit stop.
His Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Alex Palou performed a decisive undercut to snatch the lead in the closing stages.
Dixon didn’t have a working radio throughout much of the race after it failed just 10 laps into the event. This made carrying out the strategy much more difficult as the six-time IndyCar champion relied on the No. 9 car’s fuel light on the dashboard to know when to make a pit stop.
He overtook Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden on the last lap to take second place at the first round of the season after a difficult day in St. Petersburg. The two-time defending Indy 500 champion had nailed him with a brilliant pass into turn 1 at the start of the last stint.
Scott Dixon’s radio was a ‘nightmare’ in St. Petersburg
Dixon’s lack of communication with the pit wall during the race created extra complications, as he lost the lead in the final stint.
Palou moved ahead of the Kiwi at the final pit stop and controlled the rest of the race despite being held up when coming up to lap Sting Ray Robb.
Once Palou cleared the Juncos Hollinger Racing driver, the three-time champion built his advantage again to take his first win at St. Petersburg.
In the post-race press conference, Dixon explained that the faulty radio made it tricky to follow his fuel mileage throughout the race, which is essential as refuelling is required. His Spanish teammate had pitted a lap before him. With Dixon stuck behind backmarker traffic, the inevitable happened.
“No radio for the entire race. It was kind of tough just to see what we were doing, kind of mileage-wise. I knew it was going to be a lot tighter, obviously; once the first caution happened, it was going to be a strict kind of two-stopper.
“Kind of worked on the warm-up laps and kind of for the first 10 and that was about it, but ultimately cost us the race, I think, with not coming in when I should have, I think, with about maybe the same lap as Alex. We caught that traffic with about five or six cars and lost about two or three seconds on that in lap, so that was a bit of a nightmare.”
Traffic hindered Scott Dixon’s strategy ahead of the final pit stop
Dixon made his final pit stop a lap later than Palou, which allowed the reigning champion to build tyre temperature and pressure on the 1.8 mile circuit ahead of his teammate. The gap was just half a second before the Spaniard boxed.
6-time champion Dixon was rapid on the day but getting stuck behind Rossi for P2 initially. He lost a lot of time.
It is very difficult to overtake in St. Petersburg as the street circuit is very narrow, particularly in the middle sector of the lap, which is mainly single-file.
Dixon was held up by traffic on his in-lap, which cost him a couple ofbattle for the race win. He was losing seconds in his for a maiden victory at the circuit in Florida.
IndyCars are very susceptible to dirty air, which would have hurt Dixon as he was held up by a group of cars before his final pit stop.
He explained the traffic opened the door for Palou’s undercut strategy to work perfectly: “I caught about five or six cars on my in lap. I think I lost about two or three seconds just on my in lap. They did the right thing; they could see the traffic coming.
“I had no communication, so didn’t know. I’m sure they were trying to call me in, but as soon as you catch them, the undercut is going to be pretty strong, especially if you pop out into clear track.”
