Following a pair of top-fives in the last two events for the Verizon IndyCar Series, Scott Dixon entered today’s event in Belle Isle, Detroit with success on the mind. Unfortunately, contact with his teammate Charlie Kimball would end his race before the end.
Will Power would get sideways off of the corner, resulting in Charlie Kimball ducking out of line to avoid contact and possibly make a pass. Seeing that the pass wasn’t possible, Kimball tried to duck back in line, but would bodyslam Dixon, sending him into the grass and wall followed by the tire barrier.
“Someone made a lunge at Charlie’s (Kimball) car, Charlie tried to cross over and then I guess he just didn’t see me and we got into the wall,” Dixon said post-race.
Kimball apologized post-race, saying that he felt badly and didn’t know that Dixon was out there at the time when he made the move.
“If I would’ve known it was him there would have been a completely different outcome than what happened,” Kimball added. “I understand the importance of the one-team mentality here at Chip Ganassi Racing Teams and I hate that the race ended that way for Scott (Dixon) because of me. It was a rough weekend for the whole team and I think we’re all ready to move on to Texas and have drastically different results there.”
Prior to the contact, Dixon had been found himself just oustide the top-five despite the different strategies that were going on as a result of the wet conditions.
“There were a ton of different strategies and the race seemed to change every lap there after halfway. We just kept trying to make something happen in the Target car,” he commented.
The result is Dixon sitting third in points, now 63 points behind Juan Pablo Montoya following eight races thus far this season.
Despite what happened, though, the New Zealand native remains confidence, knowing that he had a good car for the event.
“We had a top-three car,” he commented. “It was just a crazy race out there today for sure.”
