Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, the driver of the No.9 PNC BANK Honda, says it was frustrating Indianapolis 500 for him on Sunday. Starting the race from sixth place, a bad set of tires saw the Iceman fall down the order however, he was able to recover from this and came home in sixth place.
“It was kind of a frustrating day. We had that first set of tires that just went out of balance so badly. The car got massively loose, and we adjusted for that, but it also made the car a bit weird with a clutch alarm that we had to figure out. We worked on the balance to regroup after that, but it was just a very tough day.”
For Dixon’s teammate and 2022 Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson it was a frustrating day as the red flags in the closing stages of the race were detrimental to his progress and he was far from happy with INDYCAR SERIES officials after the race resumed following the last red flag with a one-lap shootout between him and Josef Newgarden who went on to win the race.
“First, congrats to Josef on the win. I’m very happy with our performance. I think we had an awesome race. We had a great car, great strategy, great pit stops and restarts. I had a lot of fun out there. I think it was a tough way to end the race; I don’t really agree with how we did that. I don’t think it was a fair way to end the race, but I am proud of our effort.”
Alex Palou in the No.10 American Legion Honda had a great fight back after a collision on pit-road with Rinus VeeKay looked to end the pole-sitters challenge, however, he fought back to a well-deserved fourth place finish and speaking following the action the series points leader said:
“It was a tough day. There’s nothing that we could have done differently there on pit lane. We had a really fast car, as you saw, and from that point we just switched our minds. Starting from 30th again and we had to start the race from scratch. We tried to make the most of it, but was lacking a bit with the restarts there that could have allowed me to push forward. But, we went from 30th to fourth and still could have done a bit more. This is a tough place. We’ll keep knocking on that door.”
In what was potentially his last race for Chip Ganassi Racing, Takuma Sato came home in seventh place and speaking following the race he commented saying:
“It was a tough race. We had to fight back in the middle stages there where we couldn’t get up into the front group. Marcus did a fantastic job for the last part of the race. It was really, really close and we were all pulling for him. For us, we fought hard and I’m really proud of the entire No. 11 team. Thank you very much for all your support.”