Dixon claims IndyCar’s return race with Texas domination

The one-day show began at Noon local time with a two-hour practice session. The first official session saw a series of incidents. The first involving rookie Rinus VeeKay in turn 4, who had just set a 206mph lap around the 1.5-mile circuit in Fort Worth. VeeKay lost it, clipping the apron with his Ed Carpenter Racing (ECR) Chevrolet. The next crash saw his boss losing it down the front straightway. Minimal damage was sustained to the bossan’s Dallara.

 

As soon as the safety crew cleaned up the scene from Carpenter’s incident, a train of cars left the pit lane. Ryan Hunter-Reay caught the wall exiting the second turn during the high-draft session around the track. His DHL Andretti Honda bounced off the wall several times before coming to a rest on the apron of turn 3.

 

The lone practice ended with Scott Dixon on top of the leaderboard, setting a lap averaging 215.995mph around Texas Motor Speedway. His lap was an entire mile and a half quicker than second-place Colton Herta.

 

The tight one-day show at Texas forced the ECR and DHL Andretti teams to repair their cars in just a two-hour window before qualifications took place at 4pm local time.

 

During the qualifying session, Takuma Sato suffered a crash entering turn 1. His Rahal Letterman Lanigan (RLL) No. 30 lost grip heading to the wide first corner. Sato walked out of the RLL Honda under his own power, despite his Dallara chassis being crashed.

 

Josef Newgarden sat on the pole, averaging 215.74mph around the Texas Motor Speedway. Scott Dixon qualified in second, saying on NBCSN that he felt he like he could push the car more.

 

Dixon quickly became the most dominant car once the 300-miler got underway just past 8pm EST on NBC. He would go on to lead 157 of 200 laps Saturday night, securing his fourth win from Texas and 47th overall in Indy cars.

 

Dixon held off his sophomore teammate late in the race, Felix Rosenqvist, when Rosenqvist lost control of his No. 10 NTT Data Honda, spinning into the outside wall in turn 2.

 

The race ended just before 10pm EST with Scott Dixon in victory lane with a handful of lapped cars between him and Simon Pagenaud on the final restart with three laps remaining.

 

The race ended under yellow when Charlie Kimball wrecked off the second turn on the final lap. Dixon was able to cruise to the flag.

 

Team Penske drivers Simon Pagenaud and Josef Newgarden stood on the podium positions when the checkered and yellow flew on lap 200.

 

American drivers. Zach Beach, Ed Carpenter, Conor Daly, Colton Herta, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Oliver Askew and the Brazilian Tony Kanaan rounded out the top ten.

 

Japanese driver for RLL, Takuma Sato, was unable to start the race after his qualifying crash. The Panasonic team wasn’t quick enough to repair the car and get through the inspection line before the green flag flew.

 

A pair of Andretti Honda’s, Alexander Rossi and Hunter-Reay, were penalized to the rear of the grid and forced to drive through pit lane after an issue with their Honda starters. Graham Rahal, who also used a Honda engine, missed the start because of an ECU issue.

 

Rookies of Rinus VeeKay and Alex Palou crashed out in their IndyCar debuts after just 36 laps. VeeKay caught the wall in turn two, went spinning and clipped the Palou machine.