[28/05/07 - 15:42]

Post-race 2nd place driver's press conference
Indy 500: Scott Dixon


Scott Dixon took the second step of the podium following Dario Franchitti's win yesterday at the legendary Indianapolois 500. Here is the transcript of his press conference following the difficult race.
MODERATOR: Well, we know what it's like having sat through it and watched and wondered about the weather. We have no idea what it was like to be in the cockpit. Scott Dixon, it was another quality run for you and a whole year of quality finishes and another quality finish at Indianapolis. I suspect, however, one more spot would have made this a better day.
SCOTT DIXON: What a day. Everybody is the same, we sat around, and the rains come like three times and then finally at the end of the race. Just frustrating, no flow to the race, a lot of back markers causing a lot of crashes, restart after restart. It's one of those days where you feel you haven't even raced, sort of like being on the freeway and watching people smash into each other.
Yeah, I'm disappointed. Finishing second is definitely great and means a lot coming this high up the grid at such a great place and against such great competitors. But just a frustrating day, in general, and frustrating for the guys at Team Target, the amount of work they put in, all of them. And we just came up second. You know, one of those days.
MODERATOR: Scott, was this a problem that you detected from the early period of the race, in other words getting through traffic, or was it just made worse by having the restarts and the rain and trying to get a rhythm in the latter stages of the event?
DIXON: It's similar for everybody. I think for us we initially started the race pretty aggressive. So we went quite low downforce, I think similar to some of the other fast guys. In the first part of the race, we were quite sketchy, all over the place and, you know, in traffic, so that made it tough. We just wanted to sort of stay up at the top, conserve a bit of fuel, and that worked out pretty good. We saved some fuel, got that yellow, jump up to second, and the car was coming along really well.
Yeah, I think getting in the traffic and people -- the hardest thing I think today was probably for the guys sitting on the stand and trying to work out what strategy you needed. I was always on the radio asking how far away is the rain, they were pretty accurate how that was going. But it's not the way you want to drive a race, think about the weather conditions and what other people are doing.
MODERATOR: We've got microphones working both sides of the room. Let's all be patient, we've got questions.
Q: Scott, we saw some passes on the restarts today. You were sitting second on a restart. How did you approach it? Did you think you had a chance? Was that the time to try to make your move on the actual restart?
DIXON: I think it was, you know. On that restart there with Fisher sort of in between us, it was difficult. You could never get a run that big, and she was hugging the white line through (Turn) 4 where . that's where you try to get down and try and get some clean air. Especially after the rain came, the tires were getting a lot of abuse. They were perfect all day, and they just didn't last as long after the rain because it was so green out there. And after about five, six laps, in our car we struggled a bit with grip, and it was hard to get too close. If you're sitting second, I think if we had another restart there, you're always sitting in a pretty good spot. You get a good run, you've got enough grip because you're not going so fast through (Turn) 4, and you can get a run up the front straight. I think if that situation had happened, we would have had a shot at taking the win. But it didn't, and that's that.
Q: Scott, did your team do a short fill on that last pit stop? Were you expecting the rain about when it happened?
DIXON: We came in straight after the restart. We had, I think, three yellow laps, we came in and then we didn't pit after that. Oh, actually we did. We didn't take a short fill. I came in a lap early just because my car was sort of out of tires, you know, sort of skating and we had traffic. So we thought it was better. But no, we didn't short fill. We were just out of sequence to everybody else, myself, Dario and Briscoe.
Q: Can you spell out what you did during the rain delay? What did you do to keep from being bored and stay focused on the race?
DIXON: I went back to the truck, and the only thing we had to eat was a corn dog, so I had a corn dog. I went back to the bus and hung out with my dog and fiancée, and that was it. Went to sleep for about an hour. Pretty boring.
Q: Scott, the other day Dario described you and him as the invisible men. So there's got to be a little bit of satisfaction that you guys can be seen loud and clear at the end of this race.
DIXON: Yeah, you know, we were quick I think most of the day. We were sort of -- everybody was chasing strategies and knowing where to place yourself. Dario was really lucky finding that cut tire on that (Lap) 113 and then the restart there. Because otherwise he wouldn't have pitted, and he would have been in the same situation as everybody else, which would have been good for us in hindsight.
But, yeah, I think we kept it pretty simple all day. There was a lot of aggressive driving out there, I think people just getting anxious. There was no flow to the race and making dives and a few silly mistakes. But, no, it was great to see Dario. Congrats to them and AGR. They were definitely strong all day.
MODERATOR: Other questions for Scott Dixon?
Q: Yeah, Scott, given the conditions and the clouds, you went from ninth to second when all these other people pitted. Were you surprised so many of them went in?
DIXON: No, you know, we knew all those people -- that's kind of what happened -- we knew all those people and the ultimate strategy. We sort of had to leapfrog them again. That's the thing, the whole day was just about which group of people leapfrog the next group. At (Lap) 113, we were in the not-so-good group, and obviously after the restart and where we ended up that way. But continuing what we did have, almost 50 or 45 laps to go, everybody had to pit. They were probably about 12, 15 gallons burnt of fuel and we had only burnt sort of four or five. We knew those people were going to come in.
Q: Scott, several laps before that first rain delay, it looked like a lot of you guys picked up the pace. Were there thoughts of the race ending at that point?
DIXON: I guess it does. Your team is coming on to you saying the rain is about 30 minutes out, 20 minutes out, 10 minutes and then it was almost in about four. So I guess you do pick up the pace. I think the biggest thing today, a lot of the front guys went aggressive today on the aero. They were quite trim just so they could race the last part, and the track started to rubber up a lot more, especially with traffic, big drafts, you know, the speeds were just coming up big time.
Q: If you could talk a little bit of the first 113 laps of that race, the nature and urgency the guys drove and you mentioned how aggressive it was, was it a wild ride for you to see all that because there seemed to be some pretty bold moves being made?
DIXON: There were some pretty bold moves by a lot of guys. I saw a few just with the guys I was racing with. Obviously, the biggest one was probably Sam and Tomas and that kind of ruined their day a little bit. Michael Andretti was really aggressive out there but, you know, he's a hard man to pass and a good racer. But, yeah, I think it was. Just a lot of, you know, a lot of pressure built up, especially after the delay and how the race was going to go and this morning was going, just a lot of people want to get this race over, and obviously they wanted to get to the front.
MODERATOR: Other questions for Scott?
Q: After 113 laps, neither you nor Dan were obviously where you wanted to be. After the rain stopped the first time and you knew that there was a window for you to get back out there, get 20, 30 more laps in, talk to me a little bit about how anxious you were to get out there to finish up whatever you could.
DIXON: Yeah, big time, man. Obviously, when we saw the rain come at 113, nobody wanted the race to end there. There was a big shift in where people had been running; there was a lot of guys from the back that made it to the front through pit stops, and especially for us, I'm not even sure, I was sitting like eighth, and Dan was maybe 15th or something. So it was not where we wanted to be. We had had pretty good cars, I think. Dan had been struggling a little bit during the day, but we wanted to move to the front. For sure, all I wanted to do was get out there and try and improve on our position.
MODERATOR: We don't want to put Scott up here any longer than need be. Any additional questions for Scott Dixon? Scott, we'll go ahead and let you go and congratulate you on a great run here at Indianapolis once again.
D.B. © CAPSIS International
Source IRL Indycar


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