The two key areas where Dixon needs to re-assert his authority

It’s probably fair to say that Scott Dixon is just a little bit good when it comes to tackling the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

Throughout his wildly successful IndyCar career, the New Zealander has won at the undulating Lexington circuit a record six times, most recently in 2019 when he fended off then-Chip Ganassi Racing team-mate Felix Rosenqvist by a car-length to secure victory. This added an extra notch to his quintet of victories scored between 2007 and 2014 and, although it’s not been quite as plain sailing in recent years, it’s still a circuit inextricably linked to Dixon's swaggering performances of past rounds.

Outside of the context of his previous successes, Dixon's fourth-place finish last time out would be a solid result – but instead, the six-time champion was left to rue a “very frustrating" encounter where he felt he couldn’t push the car to its full potential.

Thus, he finished behind two of his Ganassi stablemates; Marcus Ericsson led the team’s 2-3-4 finish after scything away at the lead of eventual winner Josef Newgarden in the final 15 laps, while Alex Palou leapfrogged Dixon in the final round of stops to extend his points lead at the top of the standings.

By his own lofty standards, Dixon’s drive was somewhat ragged in the early stages, and could have offered long-time adversary Will Power a smidgen more space at Turn 5 – where the two touched and forced Power into a smoky spin below the crest of the hill. With Power unsighted, Ed Jones was a mere lamb to the slaughter as he was sucked into the smokescreen, leaving the haze with terminal damage to his Dale Coyne Racing-run machine. But that’s the nature of a racing incident, where contact is simply sometimes not avoidable. Quick, somebody tell the F1 stewards...

With IndyCar now embarking on a summer break ahead of its inaugural Music City Grand Prix - a new street course in Nashville, Tennessee - Dixon finds himself 56 points adrift of Palou in the drivers’ standings. It’s hardly an insurmountable deficit, especially when it comes to the entropic nature of America’s premier single-seater competition, but with just six races left on the schedule the odds are certainly in Palou’s favour.

Race winner Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Pato O’Ward sits between the Ganassi pair in second, and has been every bit as impressive as Palou this year – but the Spanish driver’s consistent podium appearances have afforded him a 39-point advantage over the Arrow McLaren SP driver. In other words, two relative youngsters are leading the way in IndyCar this year – but one can never discount the experience of a wily old fox, especially when said venerable vulpine has fronted championship-winning campaigns six times.

Equally, it’s true that Dixon has not faced such competition from within the Ganassi ranks since he was matched up against former sparring partner Dario Franchitti. When the Scotsman left the Andretti set-up to join Chip’s team in 2009 (via a forgettable 2008 season in NASCAR), he bagged three IndyCar titles on the trot. His presence spurred Dixon on to find more within himself, arguably catapulting the 2008 champion onto an enviable run of four titles in the ensuing seven years.

After Franchitti's sickening accident at Houston in 2013 forced him to call it a day, the likes of Ryan Briscoe, Tony Kanaan and Ed Jones rarely offered Dixon the same degree of competition. Rosenqvist had the potential to give Dixon a run for his money, as he displayed at that Mid-Ohio race and on sporadic other occasions, but the 2020 Road America winner never found the right degree of consistency.

Then, Palou replaced the Arrow McLaren SP-bound Swede for 2021, after impressing in the Team Goh-affiliated Dale Coyne car – and made the best immediate impression one could hope for after winning at the Barber season opener.

Dixon's IndyCar tenure has been too stellar for the undignified slide down the field that has claimed the careers of lesser drivers. He might have surpassed his 30s, but still has all the attributes necessary to remind Ganassi that he is the team’s beating heart and its sharpest nail

It’s been easy to forget that Palou is only in his second (or, in American English, his sophomore) campaign in IndyCar, such has been his level of performance. Across his junior career, Palou suffered with a lack of consistency, but that can partly be attributed to the underfunded teams he raced with – as he had little money to fund his way through the expensive Eurocentric junior series ladder to F1.

A protege of the late Adrian Campos, Palou was hugely impressive when he landed in the GP3 Series in 2015 – showing rapid pace to drag his Campos Racing-run car into starting berths in the upper echelons of the grid. In his first three feature races, he started in the top four every time – the problem was, he couldn’t quite grasp the difficult clutch system that the third-tier category persisted with. Stalls and slow starts relegated him to midpack scrambles for inconsequential results, yielding few opportunities to star.

He eventually bagged a win in the final sprint race of the season at Yas Marina, but concrete results proved incredibly tough to come by. A similarly tough 2016 with GP3’s new car left him floundering in the midfield – and preceded a few nomadic years where he left for Japan, dovetailing a Japanese F3 season with time in the dying World Series Formula V8 3.5 category and an impressive pair of outings in F2 with Campos as part of a revolving door of drivers.

Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

Photo by: Joe Skibinski

Spells in the “proper” European F3 championship and Super Formula preceded his time to IndyCar, where he emerged as a significantly unknown talent. After learning the ropes at Coyne, perhaps the Ganassi move came as a shock to onlookers – with a solitary podium on his third start at Road America his only taste of champagne in the US, as he was beaten to rookie of the year honours by Rinus VeeKay. Now, the potential that remained veiled for many years in the junior categories has been finally unmasked.

That’s the thing about IndyCar – it gives drivers an opportunity to shine at a top level without the need for them to burst through the door bearing armfuls of cash. On the F1 ladder, the drivers with less cash can rarely afford a seat with a frontline Formula 2 or Formula 3 team, and thus are relegated to midfield skirmishes with minimal chances to move forward.

The problem then snowballs; F1 junior teams will be less inclined to look at those drivers, backing becomes even harder to find, and convincing a team like Haas or Williams to take you on becomes increasingly impossible. Who knows how many potential champions have slipped through the cracks, having fallen into that trap?

Palou managed to escape the draw of the F1 magnetar and, after repositioning himself, is showing what he can do at a team that expects to win. Perhaps his form has blindsided the likes of Dixon, a driver himself who has sprung so many surprises that we’ve now come to expect them - fuel-mileage masterclasses included. His ability to turn a strategy around with the deftness of his throttle-foot has become a much-feted part of his game. But he’s not really had the chance to play with that this season – his biggest problem has been Palou’s right foot perfectly conducting the Honda twin-turbo engine in the back.

With that foot, Palou will want to stamp his authority on the Ganassi team and mark himself as the focal point for the team’s future. Dixon, now 40, will not want to be cast into obsolescence; his IndyCar tenure, after all, has been too stellar for the undignified slide down the field that has claimed the careers of lesser drivers. He might have surpassed his 30s, but still has all the attributes necessary to remind Ganassi that he is the team’s beating heart and its sharpest nail.

There is hope in statistics: one weird quirk of Dixon’s career is that all of his six Mid-Ohio victories have come in seasons in which he has not won the title. He had two cracks at the circuit last year in the hastily cobbled-together calendar as IndyCar sought to stage as many races as it could within the global health crisis, and finished 10th in both. Not winning on ‘his’ circuit did little to divert him away from a sixth title.

Thus, last weekend’s result cannot weigh on Dixon’s mind too much - rather, the preparation for the final six races will occupy his cranial capacity in his pursuit of a seventh title, although he admits that he “needs some work” to get there. Nashville will be a completely new prospect for everyone, but the second Indianapolis Road Course visit and final oval round at Gateway are both circuits where Dixon can hit the ground running.

Scott Dixon leads Alex Palou at Texas

Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images

On the flipside, he’s not been particularly stunning at Portland, and has never finished higher than fifth at the Oregon venue across his Indy Lights, CART and IndyCar career. But the year finishes with Laguna Seca and Long Beach – circuits Dixon also has vast experience of and, crucially, circuits that Palou will have to learn.

The bank of his experience at his disposal will be crucial in Dixon’s hopes of remaining Ganassi’s top dog. But he’s not going to have it all his own way – Palou recognises that the key to IndyCar is consistency in a series that can often prove capricious.

“We're going to win this championship just by being here every weekend and getting some more wins,” Palou said following his Mid-Ohio third place. “We always look at the championship; it's good to have three cars now in the top five in the championship. That shows how strong we are as a team, how the team is working together.

As long as the potential opportunity for shadowboxing does not deprive his team of a drivers’ title, Chip Ganassi will heartily indulge in watching his two chargers fight it out over the coveted IndyCar crown

"But [there’s] still a long way to go. I would stop the count now, but I don't think they allow me to do that! We'll try to win some more races and be at the podium. It's good to be in the championship lead so you don't have to think what to do to get there - because we're already there. It's just about being stronger and performing every weekend.”

Palou is making all the right noises – and wants to continue to watch his season snowball into more points, podiums and victories. And as much as O’Ward will challenge him all the way, the two are in different teams and will not have inside information on each other's strategies, fuel loads and data. Dixon, however, does - and as long as the potential opportunity for shadowboxing does not deprive his team of a drivers’ title, Chip Ganassi will heartily indulge in watching his two chargers fight it out over the coveted IndyCar crown.

One IndyCar mantra trotted out over the past few years has been "five or six drivers battle for the title, and in the end Dixon wins." Palou's goal is to put that cliche out to pasture - Dixon, meanwhile, will hope to carry on its message.

Scott Dixon celebrates in victory lane after victory at Texas, 2021

Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images