IndyCar: Title showdown in the windy city

At one stage it looked like Scott Dixon would wrap up the first unified IRL IndyCar Series title with a few rounds to spare. He had finally notched up his first Indianapolis 500 victory, and seemed to be winning as he pleased in the middle of the season - extending his championship lead to 78 points with three rounds to go.

But thanks to the tenacity of Penske's Helio Castroneves, and a few uncharacteristic strategic slips from Dixon's Ganassi team, that gap has shrunk to 30 points going into this weekend's finale at Chicagoland Speedway.

Had Castroneves not been controversially ordered to hand over the lead in Detroit as a punishment for blocking Justin Wilson, he would be just 20 points adrift of Dixon - an achievable target in a series where winning and leading the most laps gives you 13 more points than your runner-up. Castroneves' job now looks a lot tougher, but the title showdown is still very much on.

The contenders

28-year-old Kiwi Dixon and 33-year-old Brazilian Castroneves are both series veterans who had successful Champ Car careers before joining the exodus to the IRL in the early part of the decade.

Scott Dixon leads Helio Castroneves in Edmonton © LAT

Both established their reputations as rising stars for underdog teams before being offered big breaks with Ganassi (Dixon) and Penske (Castroneves). They achieved major early successes - two Indianapolis 500 wins for Castroneves in 2001/2 and a 2003 IndyCar title for Dixon - but despite being front-runners and race winners ever since, neither has taken a title in recent years.

Their similar career trajectories and comparable talent aside, Dixon and Castroneves couldn't be more different. America took the gregarious Castroneves to its heart after he won the Dancing with the Stars television show last year, as he wowed with both his personality and his rhythm.

Dixon is a far quieter character - indeed some US columnists earlier this season complained that his dominance was harming the unified series because IndyCar needed a more flamboyant champion if it was to catch the fans' imagination.

That was unfair on Dixon, who is not short of wit or passion, but expresses himself more subtly. He doesn't match Castroneves' famous fence-climbing celebrations when he wins, but that doesn't make him boring.

The maths

With a 30-point lead, Dixon only has to finish eighth at Chicagoland to win the title, even if Castroneves takes the victory and the bonus for leading most laps. Given that Dixon has finished higher than eighth in 13 out of 16 races this year, he shouldn't have too much to worry about, but that doesn't mean he's planning a cautious weekend.

"I think we've got to just keep doing what we've been doing all season, and that's trying to go out and win races," he said. "I want to try to qualify on pole, and I want to try to win the race.

"We want to do it in style. If we're able to go for a record seven victories in a single season, that's definitely what we're going to try to do. It won't be anything conservative from us."

How they got here

Although Dixon won the Homestead season opener, his subsequent suspension failure at St Petersburg meant it was the consistent Castroneves who emerged as the early series leader. Strategic quirks then kept Dixon out of Victory Lane until his commanding Indy 500 win, which really opened the floodgates.

For the next two months, it seemed that Fate was firmly on Dixon's side. He took the lead in Texas one lap before a crash brought out a race-ending yellow. He was off the pace in Iowa but was handed pole thanks to rain and hung on for fourth in the race. Most remarkably, in Nashville he missed a call to pit and ended up in an accidental race lead just as a downpour brought out the red flags. At both Edmonton and Kentucky, he snatched victory from under Castroneves' nose - jumping the hitherto dominant Penske driver in the final stops in Canada and then passing Castroneves when his low-on-fuel car faltered on the final lap two weeks later.

Helio Castroneves celebrates his win in Sonoma © LAT

The only blip in Dixon's march to the title came when he embarrassingly crashed while warming his tyres under yellow at Watkins Glen - but even this proved to be a lucky day as it coincided with a nightmare weekend of technical problems for Castroneves.

Through this period, Castroneves was always fast, but never a winner - taking six podiums in eight races from June through August. Finally at Sears Point, despite racing his spare car after his race machine was destroyed in a transporter fire, Castroneves got his breakthrough victory, dominating from pole. That vaulted him right back into contention, as Dixon's fuel strategy that day left him bogged down in traffic and only 12th at the end. It was a very similar story in Detroit a week later, although this time Dixon at least salvaged fifth after pitting out of sequence.

That left Dixon frustrated, but not nearly as frustrated as Castroneves was after being ordered to relinquish the lead to Wilson. He didn't completely deny that he had been blocking - his complaint was that past precedent was that drivers would receive a warning rather than an immediate penalty.

"You got a warning: if you do it again, now you're penalised," said Castroneves. "But it was all of a sudden. So it's not something that we see many, many times. It was just an unusual call. And I really don't know why they did that."

Although Dixon later refrained from commenting on the penalty, in his initial post-race interviews he was more forthcoming. "It was pretty obvious," he said. "He was blocking pretty bad, I don't know what they're moaning about."

The result was two dissatisfied title contenders, both determined to make up for their annoyance by taking the title this weekend.

"I can't let this bother me for the next race," said Castroneves. "We'll turn the page and work as hard as we can. Because the good news, we're still battling for the championship. We know what we need to do. We know we're going after a good team. But I trust my guys, I trust my team, and I know we can do it."

"Having a 30-point lead, Helio has to win the race, get most laps led, we have to finish eighth or worse for him to win it. It's a lot for him to do," said Dixon. "But I think we can quite easily see that situation has happened this season already when he did it at Sonoma. It's going to be hard for us to make sure we keep going on it."

They've been here before

2003 title contenders Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, Sam Hornish, and Gil de Ferran © LAT

Both drivers are well-versed in final round title shoot-outs. Dixon emerged on top of 2003's astonishing five-way showdown to claim the first IndyCar title since the influx of Champ Car squads, but Toyota's subsequent decline meant it would be 2006 before he fought for the title again, and on that occasion he was the unsuccessful outsider coming into the finale.

Last year was much more galling. Dixon had hunted down long-time series leader Dario Franchitti and looked set to snatch the championship at the eleventh hour, only to run out of fuel on the final corner of the final lap and see Franchitti sweep past to take the race win and title.

This is Castroneves' fourth final round decider after 2002, 2003 and 2006 - but each time he has fallen short at the last race. It still seems remarkable that in nearly 11 seasons of Champ Car and IndyCar, nine of them with Penske, Castroneves has never won a title despite taking 19 race wins and 35 poles (better overall open-wheel statistics than any recent champion).

So what's going to happen?

Realistically, this should be Dixon's year. He's been the season's dominant driver overall, and the way races fell into his lap in early summer suggested he was destined to win this title.

Ganassi have been the team to beat on the 1.5-mile ovals this year, and indeed Dixon himself has led half of all the laps completed on such tracks this year. He won on the comparable ovals at Homestead, Texas and Kentucky, and had the speed to do likewise at Motegi and Kansas if strategies had worked out differently.

Penske and Castroneves haven't been much slower but, on 2008 speedway form, Dixon is clear favourite. The one thing Dixon has to avoid is another strategic miscue like the one that cost him the 2007 title and spoilt his last two races. It's going to be a tense guessing game at pitstop time.

Helio Castroneves and Scott Dixon side by side in Texas © LAT

There's no need for Dixon to do anything radical - if he shadows Castroneves' strategy and finishes close to the Brazilian, he'll be champion. Conversely, Castroneves needs to do something totally different to Dixon because he needs at least seven cars between them.

But it's going to be harder to achieve that gap on an oval. If Dixon's strategy does go awry again, it will be so much easier for him to overtake his way back into contention that it was in the sinuous confines of Sears Point and Detroit. Plus there will probably be fewer cars fighting at the front.

On the street courses the recent Champ Car converts are a major factor, but they're not up to race-winning speed on the big ovals yet. The solo Panther and Rahal Letterman entries might spring a surprise, but otherwise this race will be another Penske versus Ganassi versus Andretti Green affair, and that means fewer drivers capable of getting between Castroneves and Dixon.

So barring an upset, Dixon should be celebrating a second title on Sunday. However, only a month ago few thought it would come down to the last round. Momentum is now on Castroneves' side, and Dixon hasn't got the championship in his pocket yet.