Scott Dixon clinched his fortieth career Verizon IndyCar Series victory with a dominant performance at the Watkins Glen International on Sunday, and the New Zealander admitted it was just one of those weekend’s that he doesn’t want to forget in a hurry.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver was the man to beat all weekend, topping all three practice sessions and taking pole position during Saturday’s qualifying session, before setting the pace during Sunday’s warm-up and leading 50 of the 60 laps of the race.
“These are the weekends you definitely don’t forget,” said Dixon. “Just in the shear fact that we had such a smooth one, which made it hard also going into the race.
“We’d been fast in practice, fast in qualifying, and then obviously got the pole. You just think of the problems and maybe the strategy not going your way or having a mechanical that takes you out of it. All of it is what the team does.”
Despite being untouchable during the race and making his final tank worth of fuel comfortably last until the chequered flag whilst running faster lap times than most of his rivals, Dixon gave huge compliments to his team for giving him the car to dominate with.
“Huge credit to everybody at Team Target and the whole of the Ganassi organization,” said Dixon.
“From the people back the workshop to the guys that are here on the weekend to make this opportunity possible. The car was just fantastic and the track I love.”
Dixon admits to loving racing around the Watkins Glen track, with four victories now in seven attempts, and was delighted that the circuit will remain on the IndyCar calendar after coming onto the calendar this year at the last moment following the cancellation of the Boston street race.
“I love coming to upstate New York,” said Dixon. “This track is one of the old school great American tracks that we are lucky enough to come back here and race. A huge thanks to the Verizon IndyCar Series and everyone at The Glen for working this out in a very short timeframe and the fans responded.
“It was great to see so many people here with not even having this on the schedule really earlier. I just love being back here and I think we should have a double points race here and probably race two or three times more (a year) at The Glen.”
