With the Honda Indy Toronto in the books, Helio Castroneves continues to lead the IZOD IndyCar Series championship. But his rear view mirrors are starting to fill up with the “Target red” of Scott Dixon.
And that’s the main focus for “The Iceman,” who now sits just 29 points behind Castroneves after completing a weekend sweep at Exhibition Place this afternoon. When NBC Sports Network’s Kevin Lee mentioned the $100,000 bonus he’d won for taking both races in the doubleheader, Dixon instead talked about the bigger picture.
“One hundred grand is good, but I’d rather take the points,” said Dixon after his third consecutive triumph in an eight-day span. “The points are what we’re here for…We’ll narrow it down and try to go for [the championship].”
Dixon has the momentum, and it bears noting that the next IndyCar race is at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (Aug. 4, 3 p.m. ET, NBC Sports Network), where he is the two-time defending race champion and a four-time winner in his career.
And that could mean trouble for Castroneves, who had a relatively strong weekend in Toronto with a sixth-place finish on Saturday and a runner-up finish today. Even so, he couldn’t help but marvel at Dixon’s brilliance.
“[Dixon] was in another league,” Castroneves said to NBCSN. “I was pushing as hard as I could and I had a very good car, don’t get me wrong. But…Whatever he’s having for breakfast, I want it. Man, that was something.”
Castroneves had one final chance to get past Dixon on the last restart of the day with two laps to go but was unable to pull it off.
“I only had one “push to pass” [overtake] and I was trying to be smart with using the push-to-pass to keep up with Scott,” he said. “I was going for it, but in the end, it was really hard and Scott was smart. He’s not a rookie. We gotta work but we’re very happy with a good second-place.”
Meanwhile, the Toronto troubles continued for Ryan Hunter-Reay, who fell to third in the championship after contact with Will Power on that particular restart sent him into the wall near Turn 1. As a result of his 19th place finish, RHR is now 69 points behind Castroneves in the title race.
Three events ago, he had been just nine points behind him.
“Will was coming out from the bottom and I had a good run around the outside and I was right next to him,” Hunter-Reay told NBCSN. “He was sliding across and when I talked to him in the [medical car] that took us back, he said he got loose on the bottom and he just drove right up into us.
“There’s two lanes going through there and everybody kind of respects that. I don’t think he drove into me on purpose, but it took us out of the race.”