You would think Scott Dixon doesn’t have much to complain about from 2015. He won three races (Long Beach, Texas and Sonoma) on the way to earning his fourth Verizon IndyCar Series title and he surpassed 250 career starts, almost all of them with Chip Ganassi Racing.
But in an interview with FOX Sports, Dixon wasn’t a fan of one aspect of the 2015 season: the new aero kits.
“My opinion is the aero kits were very unneeded,” Dixon said. “In some areas I think it made the racing slightly worse.”
It may have felt worse in the cockpit and to those watching in the stands and from home. But Chevrolet, which powers Ganassi cars, won 10 of the season’s 16 races, and lost out to Honda in four of the last six.
“Behind cars, the dirty air was much worse,” Dixon said. “It was hard to get close on road courses.
“We have a fantastic sport right now and before the aero kit we had fantastic racing. We still have fantastic racing but it was a little bit better a couple of years back.
“However long this evolution goes on with the aero kits I think the money could be spent in better areas.”
But more money will continue to be spent on aero kits, especially in the Honda camp, which was allowed by IndyCar to improve its package in the offseason after IndyCar found in analysis that it had an inferior kit to Chevrolet.
That comes even when Honda hasn’t officially renewed its deal with IndyCar for 2016.
“It’s hard to know but I think IndyCar did as much as it could to fully understand the aero kits so that it wasn’t too one-sided,” Dixon said.
“But they have to be very careful. If it’s a whitewash by Honda [this year] there will be some big problems down the road.”
We will begin to see pros and cons of Honda’s improvements with the season opener in the March 13 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.