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After a 77-point swing in his favour over the course of four races, Josef Newgarden says he still needs to have “perfect days” to have any chance of beating Scott Dixon to the IndyCar Championship.
Chip Ganassi Racing’s Dixon won the first three races of the season and has not been headed in the points standings all year.
However, Newgarden has won two of the last four races – including the first of the double-header at Indianapolis on Friday – to lower the gap to 40 points with two races remaining in his quest for a third title in four seasons with Team Penske.
In the process, he took his first win in IndyCar at Indianapolis and became the first Penske driver to win at the venue since his team owner Roger Penske bought the series at the start of the year.
“You try to maximise every day,” said Newgarden following the race.
“Without a doubt, if you look at it, we still have to have perfect days for the next two races. We have to.
“We can’t afford to have a bad day tomorrow. We can’t afford to have a bad day in St. Pete.
“I don’t think we’re going for mediocrity. We never do.
“It’s not like that’s going to be a different approach. We’re always going to maximize our performance. The only difference is that we don’t have any room to be mediocre.
“On days where you have a fourth or fifth place car, you still work your butt off to finish with what the car and the team is capable of.
“The only difference is we have to make sure we’re a winning car every day. We can’t afford to not be a winning car.
“It’s still not in our control. I win both races, maximise points, Scott can still win [the championship] finishing second both days.
“It’s not even close to within our control at the moment. We’ve gotten a bunch closer today. I think the game is still the same at the moment.”
Dixon is fighting for his sixth IndyCar championship which would take him to within one of the record holder, AJ Foyt.
He was in the qualifying group that didn’t get a run on soft tyres due to a red flag and started 12th, but criticised his pace specifically on the softer Firestone tyre as part of his struggle to a ninth-place finish.
Dixon won on this track earlier this season by nearly 20 seconds, but with a much cooler track later in the year, things weren’t likely to remain the same and it showed.
Earlier in the race, his team-mate Felix Rosenqvist had given him a position, but still managed to work past Dixon to fight for a podium place in the final stint.
Dixon didn’t have the same performance and made an uncharacteristic error going off-track while running seventh to lose another two spots in the closing stages.
“I’m not really sure what happened,” said Dixon.
“We just really struggled on the primary tires with the PNC Bank car today. We had a really bad start where (Graham) Rahal just moved us out of the way.
“Once that got us out of line, we just started to fall back, and that really hurt. The other stint on blacks just really hurt us again for some reason. We must have lost 15-20 seconds.
“But that’s the way it goes some days, I guess. It was just really weird, and we need to get it figured out fast before Race 2 here tomorrow.”
SCOTT DIXON SPINS!
The @IndyCar championship leader gets into the dirt and loses control. Coverage continues from @Mid_Ohio on @nbc.
Stream: https://t.co/THKlb49aWT pic.twitter.com/H0pPcZ96gq
— IndyCar on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) September 13, 2020
As well as his Indianapolis error, Dixon also spun alone while running five positions ahead of Newgarden at Mid-Ohio (above).
The gap is down to 40 with two races to go, which still means Newgarden must outscore Dixon by a net 21 points over the next two races. A tie would come down to race wins, of which Dixon has four and Newgarden three.
How the massive 77-point swing happened
Gateway race two
Newgarden 1st (51 points)
Dixon fifth (30 points)
Points gap 96
In a race that was incredibly difficult to pass on track, drivers attempted all sorts of pit strategy to gain position. Newgarden and Patricio O’Ward made their last stop together but owing to a longer middle stint, Newgarden was able to take less fuel and beat O’Ward in a scramble out of the pits.
Dixon tried an undercut on his last stop to jump in to contention, but ultimately lost time stuck behind Zach Veach who was two laps down and “screwed” his race in what was an uncharacteristic post-race abrasive assessment from Dixon.
Mid Ohio race one
Newgarden 2nd (40 points)
Dixon 10th (20 points)
Points gap 76
Will Power dominated the race from pole, while Newgarden had to weather the threat of an alternate strategy from Alexander Rossi. However, Newgarden made the correct call and cruised to second as overtaking behind was tough.
Dixon qualified in 17th for the race – where he could have sealed the title had things gone his way – but used strategy to move up through the field. Conor Daly’s late ailment allowed him to move up and take 10th.
Mid Ohio race two
Newgarden 8th (24 points)
Dixon 10th (20 points)
Points gap 72
Dixon had qualified much better than the day before in third and had been running fifth. He looked set to extend his lead in the championship but in a bizarre unforced error, he lost the rear at the exit of Turn 1 and spun. He drove brilliantly to climb back into the top 10 over the remainder of the race.
Newgarden struggled for pace in race two and would have lost points ground without Dixon’s spin, and took eighth.
Indianapolis Harvest Grand Prix race one
Newgarden 1st (54 points)
Dixon 9th (22 points)
Points gap 40
Points remaining 108
Newgarden pulled off what only two other drivers have been able to do this season with a maximum race score of 54 points for most laps led (two points), pole (in his group) and victory.
Dixon was part of the qualifying group that didn’t get a run on softer tyres so his start was 12th, and he and his team struggled to match its pace from earlier in the year. A rare off-track error fighting for seventh cost him another four points which may prove crucial.
