Scott Dixon picked up his first IZOD IndyCar Series win of the season, while his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, Dario Franchitti, widened his points lead with a second-place finish in Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Dixon, the pole sitter, passed Franchitti for the lead just after a restart with 24 laps remaining. He easily beat Franchitti at the finish by 7.7 seconds for his third win at this 2.258-mile, 13-turn road course. His first two victories here came in 2007 and ‘09.
Franchitti’s second-place finish allowed him to take a 62-point lead over Will Power, who finished 14th. Power had to make his final pit stop during the second and final caution, which cost him an opportunity to win. MiamiHerald.com
“I prefer every year,” he laughed in the spectator-packed Victory Circle, “we’ll work on that from now on.”
“It was definitely nice for a change have a smooth weekend,” said Dixon, who also has two runner-up finishes on road/street courses this season. “I think throughout even practice and qualifying and things like that, the car was pretty close. We only had to make minor changes.
“I’m just excited for the team. Dario has obviously been doing a hell of a job this year, four wins and leading by too many points. So, for us to have a nice, smooth weekend with the pole and obviously going on to win the race was good for the 9 car side. Hopefully, we can carry on a bit of a trend and try to get back into the points chase, even though it’s a long ways away.” IndyCar.com
Franchitti was pleased that Dixon raced him clean, especially after he and championship protagonist Power made contact at the same spot on the opening lap.
“I got the jump on that restart, but he got in the draft, and before we were even in the braking zone he was alongside me,” Franchitti reported. “I couldn’t defend because of the rules. I can’t complain about Helio [Castroneves] blocking at Milwaukee and then go and do it myself.
“He did a great job, and after that, he just took off and I concentrated on making my tires last and defending second place from Ryan [Hunter-Reay, the third-place finisher]. I’m pretty happy. A 1-2 by the team today was a great job and it was the best I could hope for as fast as Scott was today.”
Although Franchitti said that Power nearly spun him out twice on the opening lap, he didn’t harbor any resentment—or express much joy at widening his championship lead.
“Will was unlucky,” Franchitti said. “I think on the first lap he made a mistake, obviously, when he drove into me, but I don’t think he did anything wrong. It was bad luck.
“But as I said to somebody else, I’ve done a lot of these races, and I’ve probably still lost more races from bad luck than I’ve won from good luck. These things have a habit of balancing out over the years. So I’ll take the good luck as long as it keeps coming.”
Ryan Hunter-Reay, who was placed on probation by INDYCAR earlier in the week and ran the race without access to his in-car water bottle, took third.
Takuma Sato earned a career-best fourth-place finish, while his KV Racing-Lotus teammate Tony Kanaan took fifth to solidify his fourth place in the IndyCar Series standings. ESPN
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Interview With Honda Indy 200 IndyCar Race Winner - Scott Dixon
IZOD IndyCar Series: Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio - Race Results
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