SONOMA, California – Standing in his pit stall at Sonoma Raceway, Verizon IndyCar Series points leader Scott Dixon opined on one of his few potential vulnerabilities entering the season finale on Sunday.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver brandishes a 29-point lead going into the INDYCAR Grand Prix of Sonoma, but second-place Alexander Rossi has three times the teammates. And that has mattered before in championships settled at Sonoma.
One of Rossi’s Andretti Autosport partners is Ryan Hunter-Reay, a former series champion, who won the pole position in Verizon P1 Award qualifying on Saturday. Rookie Zach Veach has flourished in the final stretch of the season and Marco Andretti is a valuable contributor to the trove of information the team amasses and shares.
All four Andretti cars qualified in the top 10, with Hunter-Reay nudging out Dixon for the pole and Rossi qualifying sixth in the No. 27 NAPA AUTO PARTS Honda.
Dixon benefitted from the expertise and motivation of veteran teammates in three of his four season championships, but this year is paired at Ganassi with second-year Ed Jones, who concedes to a disappointing campaign. While Dixon starts on the outside of Row 1 in the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, Jones will have to fight his way from Row 7 in the No. 10 NTT DATA Honda to assist.
Dixon isn’t suggesting an Andretti Autosport flying wedge to open the door for Rossi is afoot. That would be difficult to execute, he said, but it’s a variable over which he has no control.
“I think you could talk about orchestrating something with the amount of cars they have … so it’s an interesting situation,” said Dixon, who would assure a fifth championship by finishing second in the 85-lap race, no matter how anyone else fares.
“But we can’t do anything about it, right? We’ve just got to out there. If we focus on trying to win the race, then it takes care of everything, and thinking about those situations wouldn’t help us.”
Standing next to his transporter a few minutes later, a massive burger and copious portions of potatoes and fruited plated in his hands, Veach acknowledged exactly what his team wants to orchestrate on Sunday.
“We want to finish as many Andretti Autosport cars ahead of (Dixon) as we possibly can,” the 23-year-old Ohioan said.
Making Rossi a first-time champion would be a byproduct of the weekly endeavor of making all four Andretti cars capable of winning the race.
“It’s the same as every other weekend. It’s the same as we did at Pocono. It’s just trying to put the best car together for the team,” Veach said.
Rossi said information sharing at Andretti is “more than an open book” and credited Marco Andretti and Hunter-Reay with his development since debuting with the team in 2016.
“I think that all three of my teammates have been really quick the second half of the year. I want them to be as fast as absolutely possible to take points away (from Dixon),” Rossi said. “And yeah, obviously, once you get into a race situation, if there’s five laps left and you have teammates around, I don’t know how that will play into things.”
Veach’s No. 26 Group 1001 Honda produced the Eureka breakthrough from a test that helped Rossi win at Pocono last month, team owner Michael Andretti said. Marco Andretti son did the same at Portland, where Hunter-Ray was runner-up two weeks ago.
“That’s the nice thing with having four cars is everyone is learning something from someone, whether it be driving, braking 15 feet later here or there or a new front spring that’s different from the teammates,” Veach said. “It’s just about learning every single run.”
Teammates were integral in Dixon’s most recent championship in 2015 – positively for him and negatively for Team Penske’s Juan Pablo Montoya, who had led after all 15 rounds of the season prior to the Sonoma Raceway finale.
Montoya spent much of the race rallying to finish sixth after a brush with teammate Will Power. Dixon won the race and, with teammates Charlie Kimball and Tony Kanaan finishing third and fourth, respectively, was able to provide just the right amount of distance over Montoya.
Dixon had entered the race third in the standings and 47 points out, but his teammates consumed places Montoya desperately needed in the double-points event, helping forge a season-ending tie in points. Dixon claimed the championship with one more race win (three) than his Penske foe.
“You can paint the perfect (situation) like we had in ‘15 where it obviously did help,” Dixon said. “Ed’s going to do a good job here. I think he had some misfortunes throughout (the season) and especially at the last one (crashing out on the first lap at Portland). But everybody wants to finish on a high note.”
Jones (pictured above talking with Dixon) said “there’s not a huge amount, honestly” that he can do to aid Dixon once the race begins.
“If I’m between (Dixon and Rossi), you obviously want to stay ahead," Jones added. "There’s so many situations, you can’t plan anything out.”
Andretti Autosport isn’t, Veach insisted.
“That’s one thing I’ve loved about Andretti is we race fair and the only way we’re helping our teammates is how we can make our cars and how we can drive the cars better themselves,” Veach said. “And once it’s race time, it’s just try not to take out your teammate and every man for himself.”
The INDYCAR Grand Prix of Sonoma airs live at 6:30 p.m. ET Sunday on NBCSN and the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network.