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An unusual thing in Scott Dixon’s recent history happened last year: he was beaten by a team-mate. Subsequently his season has been treated as somewhat of a disaster as he had to settle for fourth place in the 2021 IndyCar standings.
But how wrong that assessment is.
Dixon’s average finishing position was a mere 0.13 worse than his title winning Ganassi team-mate Alex Palou, and third best of the title contenders despite finishing fourth in the standings. If that’s a disastrous year, give me one of those.
It was the awful Indianapolis 500 – at which he qualified on pole – that cost Dixon dearest as it provides double points. Palou’s second-place was a huge bonus as Dixon finished 17th after running out of fuel early on under a caution. Fellow title contender Pato O’Ward’s strong run benefitted his overall campaign, too.
“The main goal is to always try and keep the championship at home,” said Dixon, praising team-mate Palou’s achievement.
“Some races and some seasons you never get on that roll or you never get that caution that favours a situation or you’re constantly just on the back foot trying to get on top of it. It was just one of those years.
“It wasn’t the first and it definitely won’t be the last in the same way the championship fight kind of worked its way out, as well.”
It’s true, it wasn’t necessarily the championship-calibre season we’ve come to expect, but it wasn’t that far away either.
The fact is Dixon can’t win the title every year, and being beaten properly by a team-mate for the first time since Dario Franchitti in 2011 might just have lit a fire under this driver capable of perpetual rebounds from adversity.
“You learn from those experiences,” he says, “and I think what also recharges you a lot, too, is maybe seeing some of the deficits or areas that you’re strong in and trying to counter what you need to pull out of it.
“But again, having the team that we did last year, if we had a poor performance, someone on the team is actually out front fighting for the win and being able to pull that off, as well.
“I think as a team morale situation, it was huge. There was a lot of happy faces and smiling faces, which is important.
“But for our side, we definitely had some work to do, and some of it was out of our control, but the things that were in our control we’ll definitely work on and try and re-centre and make sure that we get on top of those situations.”
Those things that Dixon mentions have been led by working on the preparation of tyres, where last year in certain low-grip scenarios he struggled more than his team-mates. He’s even taken the very admirable step of introducing a driver coach – as well chatting things through with the team’s driver advisor Franchitti.
“I think the team does a very good job of analysis,” said Dixon, when asked what his yearly area of off-season focus was this time.
“For me, we kind of knew even before the season was over there was one specific tyre and kind of track that was tougher for me. In low-grip situations it was very easy to saturate the front tyre and then kind of dial the car out of the window.
“Luckily enough, two of the team-mates were probably a little more adjusted to that, and maybe just from [their experience in] junior categories, it applied a little bit better.
“Having good team-mates to be able to see how it’s done I think is definitely a good step in the right direction, but trying to apply that is something difficult, too.
“When you have a natural style or something that has got you through a lot of different situations, having to adjust it is not always easy, but that’s definitely been the focus in the off-season, whether it’s talking with Dario – I spent a lot of time talking with him in the off-season – or to the engineering group.
“Even did a bit of driver coaching and things like that as well, and style.
“There’s always something that you can pick at.
“The tyre changes again this year for those specific circuits, and then some of those circuits, if you look at Road America and Laguna Seca will be different kinds of circuits after this season, as well, with being repaved, so they’ll go back to a pretty high-grip situation.
“It’s nice, and that’s what keeps you so engaged is that it’s constantly changing. That’s the fun part about this sport is always trying to adapt.”
With a year of Palou in the team, and with Marcus Ericsson performing better than ever, Dixon has all the support around him he needs.
Where, in the past, his lack of championship-calibre team-mates over the last decade may have slowed his adaptation down, he has a year of data from a title winner and another driver that was victorious in more races than him last season.
The recipe is there for Dixon to bounce back, which he has repeatedly when he’s been met by new challengers or challenges throughout his career.
This is why he is a six-time champion. He was much closer to the front than some people gave him credit for last year, and for that reason along with his quest to improve and the bounce-back ability, you shouldn’t rule him out of title contention in 2022.
And if you want some sort of stat to back this up, Dixon won the 2018 title, finished fourth in 2019, won again in 2020 and finished fourth in 2021. So the law of averages says…
