Scott Dixon may go on to pass Mario Andretti for second in all-time wins and cruise to his sixth IndyCar championship in two months’ time, and last Sunday’s bitter loss in the Indianapolis 500 may still stick with him.
But what the yellow-flag Indy 500 finish lacked in excitement, Dixon and Takuma Sato, last Sunday’s two most pivotal players, repaid IndyCar fans in Saturday’s down-to-the-wire finish in Race 1 of this weekend’s doubleheader at Gateway.
Dixon won this round — by 0.141 seconds — reaching 50 wins in his 20-year IndyCar career. But with how the two veterans have battled in back-to-back races, it’s hard to imagine the final six races of the 2020 season lacking for on-track excitement.
“I didn’t enjoy last week. That situation definitely called for a (red flag), and there’s no way (Sato) was going to make it on fuel. That’s kinda a tough one to swallow,” Dixon said. “But Sato, they did a great job, just maximized what they could. And today, they were super-fast.
“Still, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I’d get 50 IndyCar wins. That’s nothing I ever thought was possible.”
Similar to last week, the race’s winner was wholly content taking a backseat and playing the fuel mileage and pitstop game for ¾ of the race, as Arrow McLaren SP’s Patricio O’Ward led 94 consecutive laps in the middle after the field shuffled through the first cycle of pitstops. O’Ward’s team chose to pit early in the window on Lap 61 after starting second and trailing pole-sitter Will Power for more than the first quarter of the race. O'Ward, in his first full-time IndyCar season, took the lead on Lap 69 and held on through a mid-race caution for weather and into the final pitstop.
But after edging Dixon out of the pits by mere inches on Lap 116, Dixon jumped O'Ward with a lightning-fast stop on Lap 162. With 25 laps to go, Dixon thought he was all-but home free, but Sato wouldn’t make it easy — pushing to try and become the first Indy 500 winner since Juan Pablo Montoya in 2000 to win the following race.
“We were just kinda cruising a bit there, till I saw (Sato) coming, and I had to get going,” Dixon said. "... Sato is definitely one of the best competitors when you get into situations like that, where you need to take chances."
With his methodical, tactical sixth win of his IndyCar career last Sunday, Sato did his best to shed his “Wild Thing” nickname, but his pass into second over O'Ward may have just won it back — for all the right reasons. On fresh tires just three laps into his final stint, the Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver came up on O’Ward just past the start-finish line and rode the draft around the outside and nearly pinched the young driver into a spin. But O’Ward, known to be unafraid to speak his mind, called the move clean, in some ways still wowed at the veteran pass post-race.
“Honestly, I thought we touched. I didn’t think he was going to throw it outside, but he did,” O’Ward said. “But I don’t think there was anything wrong with that. It’s just racing.”
Sato added: “I think it’s just the name of the game: racing. There’s nothing risky about it at all. (Dixon) had run away, and I had to make the most of it while I was on fresh tires. (Pato) came to hug me after and said he really enjoyed the race.
“If I give him too much room, I put myself in the gray and never come back. I know it was tight, but that’s a podium fight. It’s racing, shall we say, and I certainly enjoyed it, and I hope the fans enjoyed it.”
Still, with 20 laps to go, Sato faced a near-insurmountable deficit of two seconds on a track that had been relatively tough to pass on for equal cars all afternoon. But then it was 1.5 seconds with 15 to go and just a half-second with 10 left. The Japanese racing star got it down within 0.3 seconds multiple times in the closing laps, but like Dixon six days ago, couldn’t quite find the pace or the proper line to make the knockout-punch.
“I tried everything, and the different lines — shallow or high-entry, and I just couldn’t find a way to overtake him,” Sato said. “But what an amazing two weeks. I’m very proud of the No. 30 team.
“There’s no hiding it; I’m full of energy and hunger to win more than ever, just over and over. Scott, he’s the guy to beat today, and in general. He’s an extremely competitive guy, and his team is always challenging for the big moments, and that just gives me so much energy.”
Now, with back-to-back podium finishes for the first time in more than a year and the third time in his career, Sato sits primed for his best-ever series points finish in fourth. Had he not crashed out of the season-opener in qualifying, it’s easy to imagine a title race between IndyCar’s top drivers of the moment.
For now, between tight finishes and major milestones, the tandem are perfectly fine trying to one-up each other with six races still to go.
Email IndyStar motor sports reporter Nathan Brown at nlbrown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @By_NathanBrown.
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August 30, 2020 at 08:35AM
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Insider: Scott Dixon, Takuma Sato produce thrilling second act in tight Gateway finish - IndyStar
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