Scott Dixon, Target Chip Ganassi Racing
The cast: Race engineer – Eric Bretzman. Race strategist – Mike Hull. Chief mechanic – Blair Julian, a fellow Kiwi.
Twitter: @scottdixon9, @CGRTeams
The car: No. 9 Honda, Target the primary sponsor
The driver: Scott Dixon turned 34 on July 22. … Born in Australia, he is a New Zealand citizen. … Lives in Indianapolis with his wife, Emma, and daughters. … He is the longest tenured driver for Chip Ganassi Racing Teams (2002 CART season).
Season finish: Placed third in Verizon IndyCar Series standings. He won the championship in 2013, 2008 and 2003, and has been in the top four of the standings the past nine seasons. … Dixon extended his streak of seasons with a victory to 10 and has at least one earned pole in eight consecutive seasons.
The gist: Dixon’s two victories this season vaulted him past Al Unser Jr. and into a tie with Bobby Unser for fifth on the all-time list with 35 wins. Dixon’s first victory came at Nazareth on May 6, 2001 (the fourth race of the season). He started 23rd. Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Al Unser is next on the list with 39 career wins. … In the season finale at Auto Club Speedway, he moved past Al Unser for fifth on the all-time second-place finishes list with 32. He’s also in the top 10 in career top-five finishes. … Dixon has made 175 consecutive starts and can tie Al Unser Jr. for third in 2015.
Season stats: Dixon closed with two victories and five other top-five finishes in the final eight races of the 18-race season. He moved from ninth in the standings to third in that stretch. … He started the season by qualifying for the Firestone Fast Six in three of the first four races and split with two top-five finishes and two outside the top 10. A late-race pit stop after leading 22 laps at Long Beach squelched a potential victory in the second race of the season (finished 12th). … Contact in the Indianapolis 500 relegated the 2008 race winner to 29th place. … Victory at Mid-Ohio – his fourth in the past six years – came from the 22nd starting position. … He topped the field with 11 top-five finishes. … Led eight races for total of 97 laps to surpass 4,300 in his Indy car career. … Was running at the finish in 16 races.
Year over year: 2013 best qualifying of first at Toronto 2 (9.6 average) and best finish of first at Pocono, Toronto 1, Toronto 2 – in succession – and Houston 1 (8.2 average). 2014 best qualifying of first at Iowa (8.9 average) and best finish of first at Mid-Ohio and Sonoma (8.3 average).
Video: Scott Dixon reviews his season
He said it: “It was definitely a tough start to the season, which is frustrating. For me, personally, it was one of our worst seasons but we wound up in the top three of the championship only five points out of second. The cool thing about IndyCar in general is you have to be good at so many disciplines, and the depth of the field right now is so strong in all of them. If you miss by a little bit you miss by a lot. You have to bring your 'A' game, but that's what it's all about."
The chart (below): Looking at how Dixon finished relative to his qualifying position:
Click to download the hi-res infographic
