Scheduled Tribes. Petersburg, Fla.- Scott Dixon carried out the entire Indycar season-opening race without radio communication, probably the cost of his first career victory over the downtown streets of St. Petersburg.
The six-time Indycar champion finished second for the winner Alex Palu for Chip Ganassi racing on Sunday. The owner of the team Ganasi said that if the radio did not have a malfunction, “he would have won – it was simple.”
Instead, the Dixon Street Course had a runner-up in St. Pete for the fifth time in 21. They have eight career podiums, but have never reached the top position.
“I am very angry. We had a good race and we did not complete it, so it doesn’t look good, it’s definitely,” The New Josender said.
Dixon said this is the first time in his career when he raced a whole race without radio communication and he already lost spotted contacts with the crew of number 9 around the 10th lap. He based on his fuel gauge, but based on not having radio “eventually spent us in the race.”
Dixon said, “With no (pits), I think, perhaps about a lap similar to Alex. We caught that traffic with about five or six cars and lost about two or three seconds in that lap, so it was a bad dream,” Dixon said. “You have a fuel light, so you know when the car is going out. I didn’t know if they can hear me, so I was just telling them, ‘I’m just going to run in the light and seeing what happens.”
“Finally I think for me, it was just a lap too long. I should be seen when I saw (Palu) coming.”
Ganasi said that the team can listen to Dixon by stopping -“Sometimes you got it, never did you,” he said -but Dixon could not hear him. Due to lack of communication, Dixon pitted a very late lap for fuel, and it won it.
“If everything was 100%, he would win – it was simple. He would win the race. The race was over,” Gansi said. “It was a stop to go, and we later put a lap in a lap, as much as we wanted him. It was a race. It was the difference between that and Palu.”
But it was still a tremendous opener for Ganasi, who is celebrating his 35th season as the owner of a team this year. He said that CGR has not been strong in St. Pete of Late, so 1-2 finish was promised for this year.
Palu has won three of the last four Indycar Championships, including two directly. He now takes a 10 -point lead over Dixon in the next program.
“In fact it is great for us in St. Peat for us – not one of our favorite tracks. We have been challenged here previous years,” Gansi said. “We are definitely favorite until next week or till the next race. I think our cars are better than a year ago, at least here in St. Peat. If you saw how we ran here, like I said, like I said, the number of years, the number, it was not very good. It was fine, but we were clearly defeated by some other teams, and it was not good. So it was not the case.”
Marcus Ericsson was the last driver to win Ganasi in St. Peat in 2023. Prior to that victory, it was Dario Franchise in 2011.
