Dixon gets first IndyCar win of 2023 from 15th on grid

In his record-breaking 319th consecutive start, Scott Dixon made sure he made it 19-straight seasons with an IndyCar victory by winning despite being involved in a crash on the first lap of the Indianapolis road course race in which he’d qualified 15th.

Devlin DeFrancesco delivered a spectacular start as he went around the outside of everyone at Turn 1 from fifth on the grid to the lead, which gave him only his second lap led in IndyCar. He had a previous best finish of 12th and had entered the race 22nd in the championship.

Indy always chooses its winners. Who will @IMS pick today?

The Gallagher Grand Prix is GREEN!

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— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) August 12, 2023

His likely excitement was almost immediately halted by a caution as Chip Ganassi Racing team-mates Alex Palou and Marcus Armstrong collided at Turn 7, giving another of their team-mates Dixon, Romain Grosjean and Josef Newgarden nowhere to go.

Yellow flag comes out after this 4-car incident.

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— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) August 12, 2023

Dixon and Grosjean got going but Newgarden went a lap down in a nightmare for his championship bid as Dixon has overtaken him for second with today’s result.

Newgarden finished two laps down in 25th with no caution to help him regain ground. Palou’s championship lead is now 101 over Dixon with three races to go and only 162 points maximum on offer, meaning he has a good chance to wrap it up next time out at Gateway in a fortnight.

After the early caution DeFrancesco sank like a rock on the harder tyre, as polesitter Graham Rahal retook the lead and looked strong, especially as he has done in the past at this track on the hard tyre, while others struggled.

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver – trying to end a six-year gap without a win after ending the same run without a pole – held off Alexander Rossi in the first round of stops and a really long second stint on the hard tyre worked fantastically.

The risk of doing that in the past has been that if a caution comes out you have to stop and your rivals who have pitted can stay out and take track position.

But in the last two seasons, race control has been leaving the pits open to let people pit before calling the caution, alleviating the risk of staying out unless there’s a really serious incident.

Christian Lundgaard undercut team-mate Rahal by two laps on the penultimate stop but then had to do his penultimate stint on the hards which Rahal had already done. But it didn’t matter as the team struggled to get fuel in Lundgaard’s car and he lost second to Pato O’Ward anyway.

With a seven-second lead, Rahal’s attention turned to Dixon who went really long in each stint after his lap five pitstop. He then pitted on lap 60 of 85 from the lead for soft tyres and did not need to stop again, while everybody else did. It may have taken many by surprise, but it made him a win contender.

He emerged in 13th, 31 seconds off the lead with 28 needed for a pitstop, but Rahal stayed out until lap 63 and three laps of clean air were all Dixon needed to take a seven-second lead of his own once Rahal came in.

With only three lap fresher tyres, Rahal then systematically destroyed Dixon’s lead lapping as much as a second a lap quicker. He was within a second and a half with six laps to go and 0.5 seconds behind with three laps to go, but despite all his efforts the wily Dixon held him off.

It’s Dixon’s first win of the season, his 54th ever and his 200th top five in IndyCar.

Other drivers were on the same strategy but couldn’t save the fuel required or make the tyres last, such is his proficiency in both areas. It’s his first win since last August’s Nashville round.

Rahal was the fastest car on the day and reckoned he’d “dominated”, but praised Dixon’s “ridiculous” career achievements.

O’Ward should be happy with the podium – his sixth of the season for Arrow McLaren – having been behind both the cars who finished behind him at various points of the race.

Lundgaard looked to have something for Rahal before his fuelling issue so fourth will feel like short change despite the crucial points it provides

Rossi struggled on the hard tyre, but after a tough run of results, a top five is welcome.

Will Power had a drive-through early on but recovered to somehow finish ahead of Palou after passing him late on.

Palou took sixth on a day where he was lucky to continue after the first lap crash and an optimistic move in which he slammed into DeFrancesco at Turn 12 early on.

Given the potential distractions of the news that he isn’t set to join McLaren anymore and McLaren criticising Palou and Ganassi criticising McLaren, the last part of which emerged not long before the race, it was a good recovery.

Power’s eighth-placed Penske team-mate Scott McLaughlin ran in the top 10 all day and it’s a surprise he was jumped by Power, something which will certainly be analysed after the race.

Nashville winner Kyle Kirkwood and Rinus VeeKay rounded out the top 10. Kirkwood tried undercuts earlier on looking for a caution but it didn’t pay off.

Linus Lundqvist righted the wrong of his late crash from a top 15 finish on his debut in Nashville last week by bringing his car home in 12th for Meyer Shank, having qualified 11th and 12th in the two starts for a team that has struggled to be in the top 12 on road courses this season.

He’s racing his way into contention for a full-time seat.

Grosjean was set to finish 14th for Andretti before dropping back to 18th in an unseen incident off-track on the last lap.

He was close to Dixon and on the same strategy as him until the second pitstop when a slow left-rear tyre change ruined his day. He could have been on the podium or in the top five without that error.

After his early heroics, DeFrancesco finished 19th.

Race Results