IndyCar Contenders frustrated at Detroit

Neither Scott Dixon nor Helio Castroneves left Detroit happy. The two championship contenders both felt they could have fared better in the Detroit Indy Grand Prix presented by Firestone at The Raceway at Belle Isle Park on Aug. 31.  

Dixon, who maintains a 30-point lead in the championship, led the first 18 laps from the pole but shuffled back to 18th after his first pit stop. He never got higher than fifth after that.  

“The car was clearly quicker than anybody's," said Dixon, who a has record-tying six victories this season. “We were saving a ton of fuel up front and sort of having a merry old day, and that changed pretty quickly. We left with a half tank after that caution. I think I was probably the only person or maybe a couple of others. It's just a hard situation when you're in that point when nobody else pits and you have a lot of slower guys that pitted early on and have a lot of fuel and you have to try to pass them. That was pretty much the race. Then from that point on, we were just trying to pull up there."  

Castroneves led a race-high 53 laps but was forced to give away the top position on Lap 73 when race officials penalized him for blocking eventual race winner Justin Wilson.  

“Since I've been here since 2002, I always did that, and you got a warning," Castroneves said. “If you do it again, now you're penalized. But it was all of a sudden. Now I've got to give the position to (Justin Wilson). I'm like, “Wait a minute." You could see the next lap I was already three cars away from him. So it's not something that we see many, many times. It was just an unusual call. And I really don't know why they did that. I'm very surprised."  

The two will have to forget about Detroit and focus on preparing for the 1.5-mile oval at Chicagoland Speedway, where the final race in the 2008 championship will take place Sept. 7.  

“I can't let this bother me for the next race, because we have to race next weekend," Castroneves said. “So what are we going to do? Definitely tomorrow we'll turn the page and work as hard as we can. Because the good news, we're still battling for the championship. We're going to have a lot of work again. We know what we need to do. We know we're going after a good team. But I trust my guys, I trust my team, and I know we can do it."  

One of them will leave Chicagoland Speedway very happy.