An interview with: SCOTT DIXON

Scott Dixon

THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with today's Verizon IndyCar Series media availability. We're joined by Scott Dixon.

Scott, tell us about being back here at Sonoma, your goals heading into the weekend.

SCOTT DIXON: This might be the first year I don't finish the race (laughter).

Yeah, it's a fun place. It's a place we obviously test a lot, too. I think we come twice a year, sort of normally February, March, then just recently as well. It's a tricky track, very low grip, especially in the low-speed corners like 11 and seven.

The track has changed a little bit over the years, but generally the racing has always been fantastic here.

Last year was a great year for us. We locked out the front row with Dario on the pole and we were second, leading the race. Obviously had that pit stop issue we had last year.

This weekend seems to be going well. The car was pretty fast in practice one. I didn't do a very good job of getting a lap together, so hopefully that bodes well for this afternoon.

But I think the biggest difference this year is it being a two-day event. It's all very compressed.

THE MODERATOR: Sixth in points. That is the cutoff for championship contention. Mathematically eligible for the championship. As we come to the last couple of races, how would you review the season?

SCOTT DIXON: I think as far as equipment, we've had the same equipment as the teams that are winning. From memory, I've only had two years that have been worse than this year, that was '04, '05. We knew we had a deficiency with the engine manufacturer.

Personally I think it's one of the worst years we've ever had, which has been very frustrating for a team like us. Four competitive cars, to have only one race win so far this year has been not so great.

I think we come up a little short. T.K. was doing a fantastic job in Pocono. I think we were looking good for a 1-2 finish at Iowa, as well. That didn't come around.

It's been a tough year. To think we're only 38 points out of third place. I think just about every year since 2006 we've gone into the last race with a fighting chance of winning the championship, so this year, unless something comes out and wipes out the 12 car, it's going to be pretty tough.

We'll try to do our best, try to end on a positive note, carry momentum into 2015.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Scott.

Q. Being in a situation where you said it's one of the worst years, how do you keep you and your team motivated?

SCOTT DIXON: I think just the general fact of hating to lose. We've been losing. That's definitely kept my motivation pretty high.

It's just been one of those strange years where it can go your way, it just hasn't. Whether it's been a situation in a race with strategy. Mid-Ohio was a nice highlight for us, definitely a nice turnaround in the way we had some luck that pushed us into the situation to try to go for a race win.

Whether it's been in a practice session and we've tried one thing, it's been the wrong way. Instead of getting one or two positive changes for a session, you just get into a roll of bad ones.

I think we started the season a little light in development. We had a lot of other projects as a team going on with the switch in engine manufacturer. The switch with Chevy was actually very smooth. They've been great to work with.

Internally in the building, we switched the sports car team from BMW to Ford, which was a big deal, I think. Especially with running Daytona and Sebring at the start of the year, took a lot of effort to get that achieved, which takes away a little bit from the IndyCar program.

Hopefully next year I think it's going to be interesting with body kits and things going on. I definitely see the team as very motivated. It's a team that everybody on it, nobody likes losing. We need to turn that around.

Q. How unusual is it for you to make this trip out here and really not be thinking what you got to do to be in the championship?

SCOTT DIXON: No, it's kind of nice in some ways because there's not a whole amount of pressure on you. Last year was a totally different situation where we were fighting back. Even since 2006, I think we've been in that situation at this race, to be fighting for the championship.

It's a little odd. But I think we just set our sights a little different. Right now it's third place in the championship, it's definitely within our grasps, with 150 plus more points left on the table, we're only 38 out.

I don't know. It's a different situation. I think the most important thing for us is to end on a positive note.

Q. You won Mid-Ohio again, but this time you started from last. It seems like this track is difficult to pass on, as is Mid-Ohio. Seems like strategy there helped vault you to the front based on when you pitted. Do you think you could repeat that again here?

SCOTT DIXON: I don't want to start last, so I don't want to repeat that (laughter).

But, yeah, I definitely have to thank Hunter-Reay for spinning out when he did. It opened that window. I think at that point we were on our third strategy shift to try and catch something. Could have come a little earlier just to help save fuel.

In those situations, it's good to vault yourself there, but you still have to be able to maintain the pace and get the fuel mileage, which can be very difficult. Was awfully close for us, as well.

So, yes, it's definitely possible here. I think we've seen it in the past at Sonoma, you can have a total shift in strategy. This late in the year, you get so many competitors towards the back, they've got nothing to lose. As soon as the pit window opens, you're going to have each car pitting lap after lap after lap until somebody tries to catch it.

With the style of this track, some of the areas that can be compromised with having a full-course yellow, you definitely have a great chance of that occurring.

Q. The compressed season, racing back-to-back, how do you feel that affected your season?

SCOTT DIXON: It's been probably more difficult I think on the mechanics. Any time we had a week off we were testing two or three times during that week. None of us have really stopped I think from the first test at Indianapolis, then we went into the road course at Indy, then running at Indy, then into Detroit, so on.

It's been a tough season for travel and having quite a few test days compared to normal in-season, it made that even more difficult, trying to get teams around, testing at different tracks.

So I think some of those testing rules will change next year.

The compressed schedule, it's not my job to do that. Whether that helps us in ratings and for the fans and things like that, that's up to the series. But I'd like to race from February through to October or November. But that's just me.

Q. The times you were involved in points races with teammates like Dario, how difficult is that? What is the situation that Will and Helio are going through right now? You want to win the championship if you're one of those guys, yet you also have to be a good teammate. How difficult is that?

SCOTT DIXON: Well, with those two, they definitely don't like each other. No, I'm joking (laughter).

It will be interesting. Those guys have been unfortunate to be runner-up many times. If they lock it out, have a good result this weekend, it's really only going to be those two fighting it out. It's probably a good situation for those two to be fighting it out with themselves, obviously for the team as well.

Yeah, it's tough. You have the same equipment as your teammate. Your teammate can see exactly what you're up to. Strategy-wise, they're going to have a good handle on what you're doing in the race. Especially with us. I'm sure it's the same for Penske. During the race, you have live telemetry of the other cars that you're racing against on your team. You know exactly what they're up to, which makes it tough.

Yeah, I think we'll see sort of a definitive way it's going to turn this weekend.

Q. Did you ever have any slight resentment towards your teammate because you want to win the championship?

SCOTT DIXON: There's nothing better than in a team competition to raise your game. There's no doubt it sucks if you come up short. I've been in that situation a couple times with Dario, and it sucks. We're great friends, have always been, but it's that competitive side to you that you want to win and do well. For the team, you can't have a better situation than fighting 1-2 in the championship.

Q. Being that we're almost at the end of the season, it seems to me that there were just a lot of incidents going up the hill into turn seven. Do you think drivers get more desperate? Didn't seem to matter where they were, front of the grid or the back, but once there were a yellow, there were multiple yellows. Talk about that and also how demanding this is physically.

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, with turn seven, it's just the nature of the corner. It's pretty much you're trying to pull a U-turn in front of a bunch of people if you're at the front of it. It's very easy to miss your braking. If you tap someone, it's such a low-grip corner. Two years ago I was spun by Helio there running second or third. Having been in that situation, you're kind of helpless.

But it's racing.

I'm not sure whether this time of year where people, if they're way out of the championship, they can make late, crazy moves to try to get a victory. I'm sure that plays into it a little bit. It would be different if it was the first or second race of the year.

Yeah, I think then on to the physical side of it, the track over the years, it seems like it's lost a fair bit of grip. It's still very physical. It's very technical with the blind corners, elevation. Actually in the race it gets fairly difficult, but not like it used to be. I think that's maybe determined, too, by the car a little bit, how the steering has changed throughout the years.

Q. If I recall last year's race had a lot of guys confronting other guys. Even Roger and Marco Andretti got into it a little bit. What is it about the end of this race that makes the tempers flare?

SCOTT DIXON: This year it will be single-file restarts. It will eliminate some of that. With Marco, that was nobody's fault. Just three people trying to go through a corner, so it was close.

Competition is high. At that point Helio was fighting for a championship, too. You're going to see people way out of the championship mixing it up with people that are in the fight of it. It's a tough line to be on either side to see how you race and compete against your competitors.

But, yeah, I think this track, you've got two very inviting corners with seven and 11, very big braking zones. You can try to throw a Hail Mary. Sometimes it works. You got a bit of a 50/50 chance, so might as well try it.

Q. It seems like if you look at the top three contenders for the championship this season, it will be possibly a first-time series champion that hasn't won a series championship before. As the reigning champion, talk about that achievement.

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, I think at this point it's a two-horse race between the Penske guys. Pagenaud is quite a ways back. Fontana, you're not sure with strategies and things like that. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

All three are great competitors. Will has been runner-up I don't know how many times, three times in the last four or five years. Then Helio, I think all my three championships he might have been second. I know he's been second many times before that, too.

It's going to be interesting to see how it does play out. For them it's going to be a massive relief because they're people that have come close many times and never been able to achieve it.

I think it's big for the series. I don't know. It's just a great feeling. Indy is a great feeling. Winning a championship, especially in this series, you got to be good at so many different disciplines to try and pull it off with the competition we have out there, and a car that you can't really modify that much from team to team like in the old days. If you had a good team, they were going to be superior to the back teams. Not like that anymore.

I can tell you they'll be extremely happy.

Q. You probably talked about this before, but your team really has struggled this year, unlike past seasons, yet it's the same car. Sounds like there hasn't been that much of a struggle to change engines. What would you say this season has really been about, why your team has struggled so much?

SCOTT DIXON: It's never one thing. It's always a multiple of many things. I think we had pretty big fundamental changes this year obviously with drivers and then engine manufacturer. The engine manufacturer switch was very seamless. They've been fantastic to work with. But it's still a different dynamic. The engine drives totally different to the Honda. I think we were maybe a little stuck in our ways in compromising the car for how the engine drives. I think we've been able to find more of a middle ground recently, which has definitely helped.

I think it goes back to we just didn't start the season strong enough. It's been playing a bit of catch-up. I think our off-season development was maybe not as strong as maybe some seasons in the past.

A lot of different changes internally with every debrief session, one truck with four drivers, as opposed to just me and Dario, then the other two together, then you'd meet at the end of the day. There's been a lot of little changes. I don't think there's been one thing significant to derail anything. It's just been lots of changes.

One of those things, too. Personally I feel like could have gone one way, didn't go the right way. Just one of those years. T.K., a huge change with him trying to come into the team, figure out what he likes. Dario and I had a set pattern. It's just not like that right now. We're getting closer to it. I think that will be big for next year.

Just is what it is. Keep digging.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Scott.

SCOTT DIXON: Thank you.