Without radio, Scott Dixon finishes second again in St. Pete

And five! For the fifth time in twenty years, Scott Dixon ranks second in the round ofIndyCar contested in the streets of St. Petersburg. This time, however, it was the New Zealander who seemed set for victory. Leader before the last round of pit stops, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver had almost won the race against his teammate Álex Palou. However, it was the two-time defending champion who raised his arms in Victory Lane on Sunday, thanks to a better strategy. He stopped one lap before Dixon, hampered by traffic on his return lap. A difference sufficient to seal the fate of the event.

Where one might have thought it was a strategic error on the part of the #9 team, the truth rather indicates a technical problem, which lasted the entire event. Dixon did not have radio communication with the pitlane. It was therefore impossible to have a clear reading of the race, and this is what made the difference in the last relay between the two Chip Ganassi Racing drivers.

“I didn’t have a radio the whole race. It was a bit difficult to see what we were doing, fuel-saving wise. I knew once the first caution came, we were going to have to do two stops. The radio worked for the warm-up laps and the first ten laps or so of the race, and that was about it. It cost us the race I think, because I should have pitted on the same lap as Alex. Traffic took us two or three seconds off the back lap, it was a bit of a nightmare. The car was good. I think the pit stops were really good. I think overall we had good pace. I think any time we had clean air we could really pull away, but we spent most of the race in dirty air.”

A race “on the gauge”

The old hand, who is starting his 25th season in IndyCar, had to rely on his fuel gauge during the event. Drivers have a diode that tells them when they are running low on fuel. A bit like us on the road to vacation, in short!

“We have a fuel light, so we know when the car is going to fail. I didn’t know if they could hear me in the pits, so I told them I was just going to drive until the light came on and see what happened. In the end, I think for me it was just one lap too many. Maybe I should have refueled when I saw the No. 10 come in.”

IndyCar confirmed that Dixon's radio did work at several points during the race, which explains why the No. 9 Dallara-Honda was not called back to the pits. The championship rules state that cars must run with a working radio. That's why Robert Shwartzman lost a lot of time in testing as his Prema team struggled with radio issues in its first race at the top of the car U.S..

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