By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer
After 10 races, there are now three different winners in the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season.
Scott Dixon brought home his 59th career IndyCar win, inching closer to A.J. Foyt’s record of 67 wins. Sunday’s victory at Mid-Ohio extends Dixon’s record streak of 21 consecutive seasons with a win.
“Kudos for us and the team, everybody on the No. 9, everybody at HRC to get the mileage we had today,” Dixon said after the win. “Tough day. It was nice to have that flip on Alex after what happened in St. Pete this year. Yeah, good finish, but I can’t thank the team enough. Mike [Hull] and everybody on the crew, the pit stops were fantastic and ultimately the strategy worked out well.
Dixon was able to win after Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, Alex Palou, made a rare mistake in Turn 9 with six laps to go. Palou got loose and went wide entering the corner, losing the three-second lead built up to Dixon, who only led 11 laps on the day.
Despite the mistake, Palou dominated the day, leading 75 laps out of a possible 90. Palou leaves Mid-Ohio with a 113 point gap to Kyle Kirkwood in second.
“Big mistake, man. Big mistake,” Palou told the media after the race. “Nothing in particular happened, just lost it a little bit. Then kind of got into the marbles and went out. Lost everything there. It was a big, big mistake by my part. The car was on fire today. The team gave me, as well, the strategy, the pit stops we needed to win the race. But yeah, man, it’s not over until it’s over, until you see the checkered flag. I was just trying to push. I was trying to open the gap a little bit more with Scott. I felt confident with the car. Yeah, just lost it.”
Dixon, known for his ability to save fuel, made a two-stop strategy work, compared to Palou’s three-stop. The No.9 crew executed strong pit stops to keep up with Palou, who was seemingly untouchable before the mistake in Turn 9. A caution on Lap 1 involving Josef Newgarden and Graham Rahal made the strategy game easy for the teams to decide on a three or two-stop strategy. After the caution, Dixon knew what the right plan was.
“As soon as I saw the caution at the start, which we had been talking about, I was like, ‘Man, the two-stop is on.’ We worked pretty hard this morning in the warmup on fuel mileage and making sure we got the car balance kind of where we needed it,” Dixon said. “First stint was pretty easy. Second stint we actually got into a bit of trouble on the soft tires with the left front. I don’t know if it was that tire, but 10 laps in I could see it starting to come apart, and I knew that we were kind of locked in on the two-stopper so that was going to be pretty difficult, so we pushed and kind of used the average on the black tires and used them a little bit more once we got to the final stop.”
“I think the guys today were a little disappointed because they had two really good stops, but I think they got beat for the average that they worked for because some people did a three-stop strategy, so they short-filled,” Mike Hull, the managing director at CGR said. “But they work really hard. They’re dedicated to the team. They’re dedicated to Scott, certainly.”
It was a banner weekend for the CGR team with Dixon and Palou in first and second, respectively and a strong showing from sophomore driver Kyffin Simpson. Simpson started the day in third and would keep the No.8 Journie Rewards Honda in the top five for most of the afternoon. On Lap 61, Simpson would come in for his second pit-stop of the day, but would stall the car as the driver from the Cayman Islands was set for a podium and ended the day in 10th
“Kind of threw away the race. Threw a podium away,” Simpson said after the race. “The team did a great job. Maybe we had one little mistake in making changes to the car, but realistically great job by everyone. All the glory to God this weekend. It was a tough one.”
Dixon and Palou were the class of the field all afternoon but would be challenged by Christian Lundgaard, who ended the day in third, his fourth podium on the season.
“I think the day was pretty good,” Lundgaard said. “Alex seemed to have a little bit more pace than we did. This morning I woke up kind of thinking it was going to be a two-stop race. I think obviously Dixon kind of proved that. This morning, I think we showed that we were able to get the number that we needed with the pace, but again, you need the rest of the race to fall your way for that to work out, and we were unsure what Alex was going to do, and we decided to kind of follow him, and I think if we would have stayed with our gut, we could have potentially come away with a better result, but at the end of the day, we’re on the podium.
I nearly went off the same lap, same corner as he did. I don’t know what I was looking at, trying to see the 10 car. But yeah, still on the podium, so that’s good.”
Colton Herta would have a strong day in the No.26 Gainbridge Honda for Andretti Global, coming home in fourth.
Pato O’Ward made up nine spots, coming from 14th to fifth after the checkered flag waved.
SEE: Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Race Results
Another bright spot in the top 10 was Rinus Veekay. Veeky took the No.18 AskROI Honda for Dale Coyne Racing from the 26th starting position to ninth. Veekay now has five top 10’s on the season, massively out-performing the DCR equipment.
“I didn’t pass much,” Veekay said after the race. “Passed a lot of guys in the pit sequences and used the fact that it’s hard to pass to my advantage. Some guys were on reds at the end, so I could really focus on the fuel numbers. I think we played it really well and we were focused on track position.”
Along with the heat, some drivers were not able to pass, even with a tire advantage. Up and down the field, it was impossible to pass. Simpson was almost through the last stint of the race and Nolan Siegel, who had the tire advantage, was not able to get by.
“It was impossible,” Simpson said regarding the inability to pass. “Even Nolan at the end, who was out on a completely fresh set of red tires, couldn’t even get by me and I had been out there for ¾ of a stint. It’s just difficult to make something happen here.”
Felix Rosenqvist had the opposite reaction to Simpson, due to being on a different program and like Veekay, made most of his passes through pit cycles. Rosenqvist was the second fastest driver on the two-stop strategy, with Dixon being the lead driver.
“It was difficult to pass,” Rosenqvist said after a sixth place finish. “I managed to get by some guys, but I was on a different program though. We had track position naturally from the two-stoppers, so we didn’t have to pass that much. We got a couple of cars on cold tires and then you had to settle into the train. Some guys behind me couldn’t pass me even if they were full bore. It’s tricky around here and track position was the key to it.”
After a physical race on Sunday, the series heads to Iowa for a double-header on the short oval, where another physical test awaits, as well as the uncertainty of how the track will race. IndyCar hosted a test at the track last week and drivers had mixed reactions:
“The challenge is being able to hold on for a stint,” Will Power said on Friday. “They’ve just added so much downforce. It’s so stuck that it’s actually painful. I did half stint, and I’m like, ‘Man, I didn’t know if I could actually continue.’ Like I think there’s going to be people like stopping just because it’s so painful. It’s too much, too much grip.”
“It’s going to be extremely physical. Maybe that changes in the race,” Herta said on Friday. “Maybe people save fuel a little bit more. The race pace will slow down from what we’re doing at the test, but how much — because we have to do it twice. It’s going to be a rough one.”