Scott Dixon has a memorable Gallagher Grand Prix

The NTT IndyCar Series visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course for the final time of the 2023 season on Saturday afternoon in the Gallagher Grand Prix.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver Graham Rahal started the race on the pole with his teammate Christian Lundgaard starting second to make up the front row. Before the race, Josef Newgarden, who qualified 19^th, was issued a six-position grid penalty for an unapproved engine change and he now started 25^th. Newgarden never had a chance to compete in this race.

On the first lap, Devlin DeFrancesco, who started fifth, raced his way up to first passing Graham Rahal at Turn 2. Rahal let off the gas to let him by or else there could have been an accident. Speaking of accidents, the first and only caution happened on the first lap.

Alex Palou turned Marcus Armstrong around at Turn 7 which led to chaos in the back. Josef Newgarden had nowhere to go and went up on Armstrong’s car, Romain Grosjean hit Scott Dixon from behind causing him to spin, and Colton Herta cut a right rear tire trying to avoid the crash. Once the track crews got Newgarden’s car off Armstrong’s car, he had no front wing and went to pit road for repairs. The race resumed on the seventh lap.

Two laps into the restart, Graham Rahal passed DeFrancesco for the lead. DeFrancesco quickly fell down the field to 12^th place by lap 14. Not long after losing the lead, DeFrancesco made his first pit stop on lap 17, and Rahal pitted on lap 24.

When Rahal left pit road, he was in fourth place ahead of Alexander Rossi and quickly regained the lead on lap 32 after Scott Dixon relinquished the lead back to Rahal. Rahal led until lap 48 when he made his second scheduled pit stop. Christian Lundgaard led four laps and Scott Dixon led seven laps.

The turning point of the race came on Dixon’s final pit stop. He was running in fourth place when he made his final pit stop on lap 59. Rahal was still leading the race before making his final pit stop on lap 63. Dixon beat Rahal as he was exiting pit road and the margin was five seconds with 21 laps to go.

Rahal, having newer and cold tires started to cut that lead. Both drivers were dealing with lapped traffic. Dixon fought Ryan Hunter-Reay to put him a lap down and Rahal was not far behind. Once Rahal caught Hunter-Reay, he had a hard time passing him allowing Dixon to increase his lead. Once Rahal got by Hunter-Reay, and a couple of other lapped cars, he used up his tires trying to catch Dixon.

Upfront, Dixon went on to win his first race of the season by .4779 seconds over Rahal for his 54^th career win. He has won in every IndyCar season since 2005. In addition, this was Dixon’s 319^th consecutive start in IndyCar and is now 13 wins away from tying A.J. Foyt’s record for the most wins in IndyCar history.

In addition to the win, Dixon is now sitting in second place in the championship standings 101 points behind Alex Palou with three races remaining in the 2023 season.

“It was crazy. Huge credit to the team,” said Dixon. “I had a fantastic start and I think I got up to like 8^th or 9^th and then got t-boned at Turn 7. Huge credit to the team. It’s been a trying year for us where things could’ve rolled our way and they haven’t. They never give up.”

“The only problem there toward the end I think on my out laps I pushed it too hard to kind of create that gap on Graham and unfortunately burned the tires up a little bit,” said Dixon on the closing laps.

 “It was a little sketchy at the end, but we tried to put on a show for everyone.”  “I was on overtake on the second-to-last lap; he was, too, and I just wasn’t gaining ground. I was holding dead even with him for some reason,” said Graham Rahal. “I don’t know why. I just couldn’t make a lunge at him. I thought that was going to be a really good run at it, a really good shot. We have nothing to be ashamed of. We’re going against the best, the best of all time, by far. Nineteen straight seasons with a win? It’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely insane.”

“Finishing the race was important,” said Alex Palou, who finished in seventh place. “We had a really good first couple of stints, started on used reds and saved some sticker reds and never made them work. We couldn’t really go fast. A shame we couldn’t go better. But a good result for the team and for us in the championship.”

The NTT IndyCar Series World Wide Technology Raceway for the final oval race of the season on Sunday, August 27^th, at 3 pm on NBC. Subscribe to Fubo to watch all of the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series season. Purchase tickets for all IndyCar races today on StubHub and Viagogo.

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