When it came to IndyCar Media Day earlier this month, the question that Scott Dixon got asked was a simple – could he win his fourth IndyCar title this season? His answer was simple – “Beat everybody else.”
Last year, Dixon had a great season as he had four wins and six podium finishes on the way to winning the championship. To date in his career spanning 11 years, Dixon has 32 wins and 74 podiums to go with the three championships.
“I love my job. I love racing. I think that’s what matters to me. If you can build on those, that’s fantastic,” Dixon said of his career statistics to date. “I’m not a huge sort of stats guy. I think it’s something you can reflect on when you do leave the sport.
“It’s important to me. It’s important to win. It’s important to win championships and Indy 500s, fly the flag obviously for the team. But it’s not something that I wake up thinking about.”
Dixon didn’t start off the season strong last year, only scoring one podium in the first 10 races. However, when it came to the second half of the season, that’s when business picked up.
“I think the comeback for us as a team was huge,” he commented. “The three in a row with Pocono and Toronto was the start of the swing. The strength that the team had throughout the remainder of the season, with the exception of some of the big ovals where we didn’t have the speed. All the road and street courses, we were qualifying in the top three or four every race. For me, I think that was one of the biggest achievements was to keep strong.”
Dixon will be looking for the same success and is returning with the same group of people on his team in hopes to do that.
“Personally and for the team, the thing on the 9 car side we need to do a little bit better is start the season off a little bit stronger. Looking for strong results straightaway in St. Pete,” Dixon commented. “Long Beach has been definitely not a great track for results for us in recent history.
“I think if we can start strong and carry the momentum through from last year, that will be goal number one.”
However, beyond Dixon’s team, a lot of things are new at Chip Ganassi Racing this year with Kanaan in the No. 10 car and Ryan Briscoe in the No. 8. CGR also made the change from Honda to Chevrolet, too. Dixon said that he had a comfortable relationship with Dario Franchitti, who previously drove the No. 10 Target car, as they both approached the weekend the same way. As far as moving forward in working with Kanaan, Dixon isn’t too sure how the communication will be due to not working together a lot, yet.
“Obviously he’s a big personality. Fun to have him at the team. Just to see how we work on car setups is yet to be determined,” Dixon commented. “But he’s been quick at the first few tests. It’s nice to have a different driver to look at different areas where he may be quick and areas that the team and myself and the other drivers can definitely work on.”
Dixon feels that Kanaan will be strong this year based on the career numbers; Kanaan won a championship in 2004 and has won 15 races, including last year’s Indianapolis 500.
“He may be stronger in other areas and maybe a little weaker in others,” Dixon commented in comparing Kanaan to Franchitti. “I think with the team combination, drivers and engineering, we can try to bring that back together and make it a strong 1-2 punch.”
There is a constant for Dixon heading into the season as Charlie Kimball will once again be with the team.
“He’s done a great job in the last year. Even the tests we’ve had in the pre-season so far, he’s definitely upping his game,” Dixon commented. “When he first started, some people might have written him off. But he’s a smart guy. If he can’t do it, he’ll look and try to achieve it. For him to get a win at a tough road course like Mid-Ohio was huge for him and the team. He’s getting stronger and stronger each year.”
Despite the changes, Ganassi has opted to not test as much as other teams in order to save the dates for later in the year.
“It’s easy to get down the road in conditions that can be 40 degrees cooler than when you actually race,” he explained. “We’ve just canceled the Barber test we had set for the 4th of March. We want to make sure we keep developing in the areas we need to from the off-season, then work on the car for setups during the hotter months.”
Dixon will kick off his championship campaign next month at St. Petersburg, which is a track that he hasn’t had much success at, only scoring three podium finishes in nine starts. Dixon says the key to doing better this year will be qualifying better.
“The last couple years we’ve struggled out of pre-season development, kind of gone down the long road,” Dixon added. “Last year was a big showing of that, obviously. I think we qualified 20th or something. To come back with a fifth place was definitely a big race for us.
But I think qualifying, I think it goes back to the pre-season testing. We have to be careful of what roads we go down and what works at a Sebring when it’s 40 degrees cooler to what it is when you actually get to the first race.
For me it’s preparing a little bit better, maybe not veering off as much as we did last year, try to have a clean race. In the early years we definitely had a few podiums. We’ve had speed there in the past and I’ve made my own mistakes, even leading the race.”
As the defending champion, Dixon has the option to run the No. 1 for the upcoming season, however says that he will probably stick to his normal No. 9.
“I think for us it’s more the icon of the No. 9 and being a Target car, much similar to how the people recognize the cars in NASCAR. That’s becoming more apparent in IndyCar, as well,” he commented. “The 9 has been good. It’s a team number. If they picked the 1, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”
