STREET. Petersburg, Fla.-Scott Dixon directed the entire Indycar season opening career without radio communication in an error that probably cost him his first victory in the race in the streets of the center of San Petersburg.
The six-time Indycar champion ended the winner Alex Palou in a 1-2 end for the chip races eager on Sunday. The owner of the desire team said that if the radio had not worked badly, “it would have won, it was simple.”
Instead, Dixon was the runner -up in St. Pete for the fifth time in 21 openings in the street. He has eight career podiums, but has never reached first place.
“I am quite angry. We had a good career and we didn't do it, so it doesn't feel good, that's safe,” he enraged in the Neozylaland.
Dixon said it is the first time in his career that directed a complete race without radio communications and that he lost the contact already irregular with team number 9 around the tenth round forever. He faced according to his fuel meter but not having the radio “finally cost us the race.”
“No [pitting] When I should have done it, I think, with approximately the same lap as 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 nightmare, “said Dixon.” You have a fuel light to know when the car is going to get out. I didn't know if they could listen to me, so I only said: “I'm going to run to light and see what happens.”
“Ultimately, I think it was just a return too long. I should have chopped perhaps when I saw [Palou] entering. “
Gesting said that the team could listen intermittently to Dixon: “Sometimes you have it, sometimes you didn't,” said, but Dixon could not listen to them. The lack of communication caused Dixon to face a return too late for fuel, and cost him the victory.
“If everything were 100%, I would have won, it was simple. I would have won the race. The race was over,” he said. “It was a stop, and we faced a return later than we wanted. That was the race. That was the difference between him and Palou.”
But it was still a tremendous opener for desire, who celebrates his 35th season as a team owner this year. He pointed out that CGR has not been strong in St. Pete lately, so the end 1-2 was promising for this year.
Palou has won three of the last four Indycar championships, including two consecutive ones. Now take a 10 -point advantage over Dixon in the next event.
“Actually good here for us in St. Pete, it is not one of our favorite clues. We have been challenged here the last number of years,” he said. “Certainly, we are the favorites of the season until next week or until the next race. I think our cars are better than a year ago, at least here in St. Pete. If you saw how we ran here the last one, as I said, the number of years, it was not great. It was fine, we hung, but we were clearly being defeated by some of the other teams, and that was not the case this weekend, so it was fine.”
Marcus Ericsson was the last pilot to win for desire in St. Pete in 2023. Before that victory, it was Dario Franchitti in 2011.
