Returning to the Motor City of Detroit, Scott Dixon hints at a possible return to the podium if he and Chip Ganassi Racing can play it smart.
Detroit in IndyCar is a tight, twisty, and often technically challenging track to return to after the month of May in Indianapolis with the IMS road course and the Indy 500.
Coming back to the streets of Detroit, Scott Dixon looks to continue his run of form from years past in the Motor City.
Speaking on media day exclusively to Chaos in the Paddock and Fastest Formula News, we asked Scott Dixon for his thoughts leading into the weekend.
“Yeah, we’ll definitely be trying. It’s a fun place, I think Belle Isle is probably a little bit missed by most of the drivers just because it’s a fun layout, really good track, it raced really well.”
“The atmosphere downtown is really cool, I think for the first two years they’ve done a tremendous job, even the updates they’ve done for this year, so excited to get going. Yeah, we’ve had a pretty good run here, Alex won the first year, we won the second year, so it’s been a favourable place I’d say for CGR.”
From road course, to the city roads
The track type shifts rapidly from a track as iconic and unique as the IMS, unique even amongst oval tracks, to a close-quarters track like Detroit. We posed the question to Dixon to find out how he would approach the change in track type.
“Yeah, I think as always you just got to be on your toes and keep an open mind and try to be fast.”
“I think it’s all variable, right? You kind of really got to wait, you kind of have somewhat of a good idea going in. Preparation even with simulation, tyres and all that stuff can be slightly different, so conditions are always different as well.”
Knowing how degrading and draining street circuits have proven to be on the tyre and fuel usage of the teams, the question was posed to Dixon about what their possible strategies may be.
“Preparation even with simulation, tyres and all that stuff can be slightly different, so conditions are always different as well. It looks like we’re going to have a fairly clean weekend as far as weather, which is very different from last year”
“So that’s the problem, like last year you can’t really take too much effect of how long you ran on tyres, how the tyres really survived because it was damp and conditions and things like that. So even the start to restart strategy is all going to be very different.”
What do Scott Dixon and Chip Ganassi Racing hope to get done in the Motor City?
Dixon’s team-mate, defending champion Alex Palou, has also had a fair run of luck in Detroit. We asked Dixon how he thinks the race might go, given its rather chaotic nature last year with 8 total cautions called.
“They’ve moved the restart zone to Turn 1. I think probably the culprit for a lot of the issues last year was maybe the weather. A lot of the times the track was pretty wet and most people were trying to hang out like ourselves on slick tyres.”
“It worked out for us strategy-wise at the end, but it was tricky. Even to keep it on the track last year was tough. I think this year will be a little more straightforward.”
Dixon heads into the weekend, and the start of the later half of the 2025 season, 153 points adrift of his championship leading and title defending team-mate Alex Palou.
