Scott Dixon dominates first half of Texas doubleheader, closes in on Foyt, Andretti

FORT WORTH — After passing Alex Palou for the lead on Lap 3, nobody could overcome Scott Dixon as he won Saturday’s Genesys 300 at Texas Motor Speedway, the third race of the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series season.

Dixon led 206 of the 212 laps at the 1.44-mile oval in a record-breaking drive. By winning, Dixon has now won a race in 19 different seasons, breaking A.J. Foyt’s record of winning in 18 different seasons.

The 2008 Indianapolis 500 winner now has 51 wins, just one win behind Mario Andretti on the all-time win list and 16 behind Foyt.

“I love this place,” Dixon said after climbing from his car. “We’ve got the fire back here (in victory lane), it was a bit of a crazy night for us, definitely very tense there at the end and it was kind of cool to be racing a countryman for those last few laps.”

Second was rookie Scott McLaughlin in his first oval race. McLaughlin came to the U.S. after racing many years on road courses and street circuits in the Supercars Championship in Australia and New Zealand. Texas was a completely different beast for the driver of the No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet.

“Yeah, (it was) a lot more mentally tiring than physically, obviously,” McLaughlin said. “The road course, you've got to really wheel it. With no power steering, stuff like that, it hurts at the end of a race. St. Petersburg was probably one of the hardest, physical races I've done for a very long time.

“But the oval is completely different. I don't feel sore, I don't feel anything. I have heaps of padding and stuff like that. The mental game, figuring it all out, reading the track, what it does, it's interesting and very draining mentally.” 

Behind McLaughlin was Pato O’Ward. O’Ward gambled on strategy in the middle portion of the race and gained many positions on new tires. Dixon’s teammate, Alex Palou, was fourth and Graham Rahal fifth. Palou was the race’s only other leader, leading six laps.

Last week’s winner Colton Herta was running fifth late but retired from the race on Lap 190 after his brakes failed. Herta finished 22nd out of 24 cars.

Palou started on pole position due to being on top of the entrant points standings after IndyCar cancelled qualifying. Track activity was compressed after morning rain forced practice to be delayed two hours until 1:30 p.m. local time.

The first yellow flag came out on Lap 56 when Josef Newgarden had light contact with Sebastien Bourdais in Turn 2, sending the Frenchman into the outside wall after he was running in fifth place. For the contact, Newgarden was assessed a penalty of starting from the end of the field on the next restart.

As tires began to fall off during the next green flag run, O’Ward’s strategist Taylor Kiel decided to gamble on pitting early from 13th place on Lap 110, putting fresher tires on sooner than the other competitors to gain track position. By turning in much faster laps on newer tires, O’Ward went from 13th to fifth by the time that cycle of pit stops was over.

“It was really, really difficult to pass,” O’Ward said. “Like Scott (McLaughlin) said, my guys made a really good strategy call and we made up a lot of track position midway through the race before the last stint. They were great in the pits, especially in the last pit stop that we could get that last position to get to the podium.

“From there, we kind of nursed it home. We were having some brake temp issues at the end so I didn't really want to make anything too risky to throw it away. I'm happy.”

The next yellow flag came out on Lap 160. While running in second place, Felix Rosenqvist put James Hinchcliffe a lap down while chasing Dixon for the lead. Hinchcliffe’s car suffered some understeer going through Turns 1 and 2 following Rosenqvist. Hinchcliffe’s car slid onto the stained outside groove of the track and with the reduced grip, the No. 29 Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport Honda spun and hit the outside wall.

Hinchcliffe spun on one of the major variables in the race. Texas Motor Speedway’s higher grooves were stained from a traction compound that was laid down for the NASCAR race last October so the higher groove could provide more grip for the stock cars. Despite the track’s efforts, the outside groove had much less grip than the bottom lane due to the track’s higher temperature, making the higher grooves into a no-mans land for the Indy cars.

“That second lane’s just undriveable,” Hinchcliffe said. “It’s really unfortunate. I feel gutted for the Genesys guys, it’s the Genesys 300 and we’re out of the race.”

With the entire field pitting under caution, McLaughlin jumped from third to second and O’Ward went from fifth to third. After the race restarted on Lap 174, the top four remained in those places despite the leaders approaching traffic as the race wound down. 

Dixon’s win moves the six-time IndyCar champion into the points lead with 118 points over Palou in second place with 100 points and 2014 series champion Will Power in third place at 81 points.

The second race of the Texas doubleheader is the XPEL 375 on Sunday May 2nd. The 248-lap race will start at 5 p.m.