Dixon's team took advantage of a window to pit and make it on one final stop banking on a fortunate series of events. It worked out, and other teams were caught out, some may have been faster than Dixon today, but Dixon turned this race into his favor, and that was the theme of his three victories in the final four races.
The #9 Ganassi team found its way out of a corner, whether it be on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, Gateway or Laguna Seca. Dixon won all three of these races from outside the top ten on the grid. He has won eight times when starting outside the top ten over his 23-season career. No other driver has won more than four times when starting outside the top ten. Again, brilliant.
At 43 years old, the milestones are still within reach, four victories away from 60, 11 victories behind A.J. Foyt. The all-time mark is still a massive task, but considering he went from leading only 13 laps in the first ten races this season with no victories to winning three of the final four, 11 more victories for share, 12 more victories for the outright record remains possible.
2. The opening lap incident was the wet blanket nobody wanted to start this dead rubber race. Multiple moving parts to that one.
Christian Lundgaard knocked Scott McLaughlin off the road when Lundgaard dove to the inside. Marcus Armstrong was caught in a RLLR sandwich, spinning Graham Rahal into Jüri Vips, who shot across the track and knocked Josef Newgarden off the road. After the exit of turn two, Colton Herta and Scott Dixon touched, which sent Dixon into Rinus VeeKay, spinning the Dutchman, and somewhere in the middle of all that, Kyle Kirkwood suffered damage as well.
Lundgaard and Dixon each received penalties. Lundgaard was understood. Dixon's penalty seemed like too much because Herta was in there as well. Dixon did step out, but he doesn't hit VeeKay without the contact from Herta. It wasn't Herta's fault either. That was more like Armstrong's contact, which received no penalty, than Lundgaard's.
3. Despite the opening lap mess and being in the dirt, Scott McLaughlin bounced back to finish second. That is also forgetting that McLaughlin made contact with Santino Ferrucci and had another avoidable contact penalty. This was a remarkable season for McLaughlin. Outside of Barber Motorsports Park, he didn't have that many attention-grabbing races compared to last year, but he was solid and didn't make any mistakes.
4. And now our champion, third in the race, Álex Palou caps the season with a podium. Five victories, ten podium finishes, 13 top five finishes and his worst finish was eighth! It is one of the best seasons we have seen in IndyCar history, definitely in 21st century.
After all the contractual turmoil, some of which is just getting started, Palou looks to be set for a long future in IndyCar. In four seasons, he has two championships. He has won nine races. Palou is Ganassi's future, ready to take the torch from Scott Dixon though he already has one hand on it. This partnership is destined for many more great things to come.
5. No victory in 2023 for Will Power. It was a strange season for Power. He never looked like a world beater. His qualifying pace was off, but this wasn't the strongest season from Team Penske either. He was basically seventh in the championship for the entire season. He just won the championship. Power gets one just ok season, but this certainly did not go as anyone expected.
Power gets fourth today, but he did run into a few people. He wasn't the only one with a slew of contact.
6. In this wild race, Callum Ilott pulled out his second top five finish of the season. Coincidentally, in what will probably go down as the second messiest race of this season, the season opener at St. Petersburg, Ilott was also fifth. Ilott survived some close calls today. This likely wasn't the sophomore season he wanted. Juncos Hollinger Racing didn't show any of those flashes of speed it had in 2022. The race finishes were not better, but the cars were finishing regularly ahead of the likes of Meyer Shank Racing, Dale Coyne Racing and A.J. Foyt Racing. However, the group has a long way to go.
7. Christian Lundgaard overcame his early penalty to finish sixth. For all the issues Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing had, Lundgaard spent most of the season in the top ten of the championship and he won a race. I was hopeful RLLR would take a step forward this season. It is difficult to argue it made much ground, but it didn't lose any when you look at Lundgaard's result and even consider the speed Graham Rahal showed at times.
8. Alexander Rossi ended up as the top Arrow McLaren finisher in seventh with Patricio O'Ward in ninth and Felix Rosenqvist was effectively taken out after contact with Marcus Ericsson. Despite O'Ward's championship finish and the pace of the team, this was a bad season. McLaren didn't win a race.
The team came in saying it would make IndyCar's "Big Three" a "Big Four." Newsflash, there is a "Big Two" in IndyCar. You have to win a race, and with a lineup of O'Ward-Rosenqvist-Rossi, zero victories is unacceptable.
Today was a tough loss because O'Ward was in position to be the leader and caught a caution at the right time, but the team didn't use its new alternate set of tires until the final stint, which forced an extra pit stop instead of possibly staying out and stretching the fuel to the end. Even with that strategy, O'Ward may not have won, but he likely would have finished better than ninth.
9. Rookie of the Year was hardly in doubt for Marcus Armstrong, but today really tested his nerves. First, Agustín Canapino caught multiple breaks with cautions and was running well into the top five. Then it looked like the cautions would cycle into Armstrong's favor until Armstrong was spun from contact with Marcus Ericsson.
However, Canapino had damage of his own and it allowed Armstrong to get ahead and take top rookie honors with eighth.
Both drivers had impressive seasons. For Armstrong, he looks ready to be an IndyCar winner. For Canapino, the fact he was second of the rookies despite next to no open-wheel experience while competing against two winners in Indy Lights says a lot about Canapino and something about the Road to Indy system. We can touch upon that another time.
10. It was a trying spell at Ed Carpenter Racing for Ryan Hunter-Reay. Hunter-Reay at least gets to end his season with a top ten result. It sounds definite Hunter-Reay will not be back in the #20 Chevrolet next year. It isn't clear what to expect for Hunter-Reay's future. He likely will be of interest come May for Indianapolis, but this feels like the final chance at a full-time ride. At least it ends on a good note.
11. Notice one team that hasn't been mentioned yet? Andretti Autosport! Its best finisher was Romain Grosjean in 11th, who committed to going off strategy and this was the best he could get. But it was a terrible day for this team. Colton Herta was taken out from a promising position after Hélio Castroneves lost the car. Kyle Kirkwood was damaged at the start and Devlin DeFrancesco had the gearbox let him down.
This team has a lot of work to do because it isn't a "Big Three" anymore. Andretti Autosport at least won two races this season, but it is far from the top.
12. After taking shots at him for most of the season, the one race where Sting Ray Robb didn't run into anybody is the race where everyone else ran into everyone but Sting Ray Robb. Avoiding contact, pure survival really, earned Robb 12th, his best finish of the season. Kudos to him.
13. Due to timing, we are going to do some quick hits and a second impressions later.
Hélio Castroneves had a memorable final start as a regular for all the bad reasons. I am worried about Meyer Shank Racing because Tom Blomqvist has looked ok, but this is a massive leap into IndyCar and the team has plenty of issues on its own that a driver who has been out of single-seater racing for a period will not necessarily help solve.
Marcus Ericsson had a memorable final start as a Chip Ganassi Racing driver for all the bad reasons.
A.J. Foyt Racing had a brief glimpse at a great day, and then Santino Ferrucci was caught out with a caution and then Ferrucci made contact with Palou. And Benjamin Pedersen, on one of his cleaner days, still made unnecessary contact with Castroneves.
Tough break for David Malukas being spun off. It was the way of his season.
14. Josef Newgarden is probably happy the season is over. The last two seasons have seen Newgarden be top of the class but then get stuck in these slumps. It got a little worse this year. Granted, this result wasn't on Newgarden. He was at the wrong place at the start and was hit, but there were one too many races this season where the #2 Penske team was just average. Even with four race victories, that is not enough to win championships.
15. While Christian Lundgaard was a bright spot, RLLR's season could be captured in the dark spot that was Jüri Vips and Graham Rahal colliding at the start. Neither driver was at fault, but it was a crushing way for Rahal's season to end.
16. This is the end for now. There is plenty to talk about as we are getting pieces of the 2024 schedule. There are still rides that need to be filled. New drivers will join the series. The season is over but there is plenty to be excited about. More reviews will be coming shortly. We will go over some predictions tomorrow.
