Chip Ganassi’s Scott Dixon held off a chasing Takuma Sato to claim his 50th career win in the NTT IndyCar Series in the first of two races of the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 double-header.
Dixon came under pressure from Sato in the final 20 laps as the Indianapolis 500 winner chased down the race win after going off strategy, but was unable to beat Dixon for the second week in succession.
The Kiwi is now the 11th winner out of 11 IndyCar events at Worldwide Technology Raceway at Gateway and now has a championship lead of over 100 points with his fourth win of the 2020 campaign.
With Dixon now on 50 career wins, he is just two behind Mario Andretti and 17 behind A.J Foyt on the all-time record list.
The race was prematurely forced into a caution before it had even begun after a massive crash involving six cars brought proceedings to a pause. After the field had closed up for the start, Arrow McLaren SP’s Oliver Askew had slammed into the back of Penske’s Simon Pagenaud which then forced the Frenchman into the rear Alexander Rossi.
Marco Andretti and Ed Carpenter were then dragged into the incident whilst trying to avoid it all before Zach Veach had nowhere else to go and piled in. After taking several laps to clear the cars and debris from the main straightaway, the race eventually got underway on Lap 14.
After starting second on the grid, O’Ward had initially jumped Team Penske’s Will Power to take the lead of the race at the first turn of stops with Dixon trailing him for the majority of the race.
Despite what looked to be a clean final stop, it was not good enough to prevent the Ganassi outfit completing Dixon’s stop at a record pace, forcing the Mexican to relinquish the lead of the race.
O’Ward picked up the final spot on the podium for the second time in 2020 despite nearly clashing with the recovering Sato in the latter stages of the race.
Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta equalled his best result of the 2020 season in fourth after a recent run of difficult races.
Marcus Ericsson would cross the line in fifth despite shadowing team-mate Dixon for the majority of the 200 laps, the Swede would get dragged into battle with others trying to undercut him in the pit stops.
Ed Carpenter’s Rinus VeeKay finished in sixth after the Dutch driver went aggressive on strategy to put himself into play after starting 14th on the grid, but was his progress was hampered due to the caution period for the rain in the area.
After very little running in practice, Ryan Hunter-Reay claimed a solid top 10 finish in seventh place ahead of the Ganassi car of Felix Rosenqvist in eighth.
In what could be his final IndyCar weekend, Tony Kanaan put on a stunning display of driving to come to 21st on the grid to finish in ninth. His race was almost over before it began after avoiding the pile-up on the initial start.
Like Kanaan, Conor Daly also made up places from a lowly grid slot to claim the final top 10 spot for Carlin Racing.
British driver Jack Harvey had to settle for 11th place having run as high as fourth on his first race appearance at Gateway, the caution for the rain spoilt his progress.
The second race of the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 is scheduled for Sunday at 15:00 local time.
| Position | Driver | Gap |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scott Dixon | 01:44:30.7944 |
| 2 | Takuma Sato | 0.1404 |
| 3 | Pato O’Ward | 7.0052 |
| 4 | Colton Herta | 7.7019 |
| 5 | Marcus Ericsson | 8.3504 |
| 6 | Rinus VeeKay | 12.4145 |
| 7 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 13.0556 |
| 8 | Felix Rosenqvist | 13.8107 |
| 9 | Tony Kanaan | 15.0319 |
| 10 | Conor Daly | 15.6721 |
| 11 | Jack Harvey | 16.2600 |
| 12 | Josef Newgarden | 16.8155 |
| 13 | Charlie Kimball | 21.4079 |
| 14 | Oliver Askew | 24.0143 |
| 15 | Alex Palou | 24.6954 |
| 16 | Santino Ferrucci | 27.0938 |
| 17 | Will Power | 2 Laps |
| 18 | Graham Rahal | 76 Laps |
| 19 | Simon Pagenaud | 133 Laps |
| 20 | Ed Carpenter | 197 Laps |
| 21 | Zach Veach | 198 Laps |
| 22 | Alexander Rossi | 200 Laps |
| 23 | Marco Andretti | 200 Laps |
Oh Askew went a skew. Sounds right somehow….