Rare strategy misfire leaves Dixon fuming
Monday, 10 April 2017
By Robin Miller / Image by LAT
It was a perfect start and a perfect pace but, as it turned out, not the perfect strategy.
So instead of winning Sunday's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, Scott Dixon settled for a fourth place that left the four-time series champion fuming.
Starting second, Dixon smoked pole-sitter Helio Castroneves as the field accelerated down Shoreline Drive, sailed into the first turn with a nice lead and then did what he does best – run fast enough to stay in front while saving fuel.
The strategy was obvious: make the 85-lap race on two pit stops, which is exactly what winner James Hinchcliffe did.
But when Marco Andretti slowed with no power on the back straightaway, Dixon got called into the pits on lap 15 – which committed him to three stops.
"I have no idea why we did that," he said while sitting on the pit wall and trying to cool off, literally and figuratively. "Two-stopping was always the plan, not sure what changed there. We gave the race away at that point."
Mike Hull, the team leader and Dixon's strategist, admitted it was a reaction to what cost his driver a victory in Toronto last year and St. Pete last month, when he stayed out and the track went full-course yellow.
"We thought Marco would be full course," Hull explained. "Scott was at the pit entrance and based on how we were stung at Toronto and St Pete, chose to come in. Looking back it was the wrong decision."
Even though it put him on a different strategy, Dixon still looked like he might be able to pull it off.
He was simply going to have to run as fast as possible to try and build up enough of a cushion to negate making one fewer stop. So Ryan Hunter-Reay led laps 16-28 before stopping the first time and Dixon led laps 30-42 before his second stop. But, balked by traffic, the 2008 Indy 500 winner could never build enough of an advantage while pacing laps 58-62 and rejoined the race in fourth following his final pit stop on lap 63.
"The car was super-fast and we'd trimmed the car to stay up front, so it got tricky later in the race when we were in traffic," said Dixon. "It's hard to swallow, that one. We were leading, pulling away, saving fuel ... it was going to be an easy two-stop strategy for us, and we ended up fourth."