IndyCar Series: Rexall Edmonton Indy

Topics:  Rexall Edmonton Indy

Scott Dixon
July 26, 2009

EDMONTON, ALBERTA

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by our third place finisher Scott Dixon, his eighth top five of the season, seventh in a row. Scott is the defending race winner here and with his finish today now moves into the championship points lead with 380; Dario Franchitti second at 377; Ryan Briscoe third at 366.
Scott, talk about your day out there.
SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, not too bad. I think definitely the Target Car #9 was quick, probably on new tires. The later parts of the stint we really struggled to hold onto the grip of the car, in the last sort of ten laps. So it made it definitely a long day and a very physical day to try and hold onto it.
I think strategy-wise we were fairly decent. I got out ahead of the two Penskes on the first stop, and unfortunately I cooked it a bit going into Turn 11 which allowed Briscoe to get by at that point.
From there on it was just a lot of lap traffic. Lap traffic was very annoying today. Lots of guys that just shouldn't have been racing with us, and they made it very tough. We had Marco Tagliani was just appalling for me. I don't know why they do it. But I guess in some ways it made the racing a little bit more exciting. There was lots of dodge going on.
And in the end that's how we lost the position to Helio. We got kind of caught up with the 14 and the 20 car that were fighting for position, and he got a run on us into Turn 11, and that was it.
Good points day for us, pretty happy, and unfortunately we would have liked to have won, but Will Power definitely had a fantastic weekend, and he should be very proud of that.

Q. Can you just comment on the idea that you went all but one lap on green today?
SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, it was physical. I think some of the guys probably not so much because they might have had slightly better cars. Will seemed to be pretty fresh after the race. I think he was kind of cruising for the most part at the last stint for sure.
The only thing that I was really sore with were my feet, which I'm not really sure why, but pushing on the pedals, I might have to ask for a softer brake pad or something to ease the pain on that.
Apart from that, it's just holding on. The grip level wasn't super high, which I thought would have come into play a little bit more towards the end of the race. But physically I don't know if we've ever had pretty much a green flag race, and man, it was tough. I'm glad I work out.
THE MODERATOR: That was the fewest caution laps in an IndyCar Series race history, one lap.

Q. You mentioned Marco Tagliani. Did you mean Marco Andretti or Alex Tagliani, or did you mean both when you were talking about lap cars?
SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, both, there was lots of them. I think a few of the others actually had more of a problem with Marco, which actually helped me. They had eight seconds. I was able to close that gap when they were stuck behind him. It's just frustrating when you see even Marco racing Will into a corner into Turn 1 and kind of putting a block on. You know, it's -- it just doesn't need to be done. I don't think I would do it to anybody, and maybe it shouldn't be done that way before, ever.
And Tagliani I think really hurt my race, especially in the middle stint there. I was running fairly well until I got stuck behind him, and it took him probably eight or ten laps to let me by. It's a wide track, but really there's only one line where the grip is. If you get off line it's very slippery, and we just didn't really have the chance to try and dive under some of these guys and try to pass.
It's racing. It's part of it, and what goes around comes around, and there might be a day where they need some help, and they're not going to get it.

Q. I think the last four weeks, the championship has gone back and forth, back and forth. Can you talk a little bit about your pressure and battling your teammate, and mentally how difficult is that?
SCOTT DIXON: I think still at this point, what do we have, six races to go after today. It's still very early days. We've gone back and forth. I haven't really started thinking about it.
For me I just wanting to be leading the championship at Homestead. It's good for pit position sometimes throughout the season and may come into play at some of these races that are coming up. You've just got to make sure that you're consistent, don't fall out of the chase or out of the championship part of it with two races to go.
I don't think it's played too much on the mind of the team or myself or Dario to be honest. Every race if you treat it like a single race you're trying to do the best and you're trying to win it. We got caught up in trying to drive for points last year, and we definitely lost a big margin that we had. You've just got to concentrate on getting the best points you can each race.
THE MODERATOR: Scott, we appreciate your time.