Sixth victory for
Dixon at Mid-OhioRossi wasn’t on top form
but still closed points gapPoleman Power’s
two-stop strategy
fell short with fourthLe
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1 AUGUST 2019 AUTOSPORT.COM 39meanwhile, had been held up by the
relatively slow Rossi in the previous stint,
but then lapped rapidly when he made
another early pitstop. The pair also jumped
Power who, like fellow two-stoppers Dixon
and Rossi, was driving to a fuel number and
trying to preserve tyres for his longer stints.
Dixon’s team had made one error: sending
him out on the less durable reds for his final
30-lap stint. With 20 laps to go, his lead
over Rosenqvist was nine seconds, with 10
to go it was 5.5s, and with five to go it was
barely more than two. Fortunately for Dixon,
within those two seconds were four battling
backmarkers, and Rosenqvist was out of
push-to-pass boost; instead he had to pick
them off with aggressive outbraking moves.
Finally clear of them, on the penultimate
lap Rosenqvist zoomed onto the tail of his
ailing team-mate, and down to the fast
hairpin at Turn 2, he thought Dixon was
letting him through. As he tried to dive
into a gap on corner entry, the door closed,
and the rookie mounted the inside kerb to
reduce the impact with Dixon’s car. Now
with dirt on his tyres, Rosenqvist gave chase
again but Dixon placed his car expertly for
the remainder of the lap to win by 0.0934s.
There had been more drama just a
couple of seconds further back. Third-
placed Hunter-Reay left a small gap on
the inside of Turn 2 and Newgarden over-
optimistically moved in, clipped the Andretti
car’s rear wheel and spun into a sandtrap.
This dropped him from fourth to 14th.
Thus Rossi – on a day when he was
slower than all three Penskes, both Ganassis
and one of his team-mates – came home
fifth and reduced his points deficit to
Newgarden from 29 to 16 points.
DAVID MALSHERPOWERED BYNEXT REPORTPOCONO 22 AUGUST ISSUE
Can Rossi close in again at
a circuit he won on in 2018?RESULTS ROUND 12/16, MID-OHIO (USA), 28 JULY (90 LAPS – 203.220 MILES)Q3 1 Power 1m05.1569s; 2 Rossi 1m05.5317s;
3 Newgarden 1m05.7885s; 4 Pagenaud 1m05.8958s;
5 Bourdais 1m06.2040s; 6 Rosenqvist 1m06.4914s.
Q2 Rossi 1m05.1898s; Rosenqvist 1m05.3968s;
Newgarden 1m05.4004s; Pagenaud 1m05.4207s;
Power 1m05.4261s; Bourdais 1m05.5616s; 7 Herta
1m05.5650s; 8 Dixon 1m05.6999s; 9 Harvey 1m05.7231s;
10 Hunter-Reay 1m05.7328s; 11 Hinchcliffe 1m05.7567s;
12 Ericsson 1m06.0428s.
Q1 - GROUP 1 Bourdais 1m05.2702s; Rossi 1m05.2810s;
Newgarden 1m05.3809s; Herta 1m05.4335s; Pagenaud
1m05.6464s; Dixon 1m05.7294s; 14 Ferrucci 1m05.7588s;
16 Chilton 1m05.9981s; 18 Jones 1m06.1800s; 20 Veach
1m06.2115s; 22 Enerson 1m06.3196s; 23 Kanaan
1m07.0491s.
Q1 - GROUP 2 Power 1m05.3775s; Ericsson 1m05.7286s;
Hunter-Reay 1m05.7484s; Rosenqvist 1m05.7631s;
Harvey 1m05.9107s; Hinchcliffe 1m05.9152s; 13 Pigot
1m05.9377s; 15 Rahal 1m05.9745s; 17 Sato 1m06.3723s;
19 Andretti 1m06.4156s; 21 Leist 1m06.5488s.
CHAMPIONSHIP
1 Newgarden 504; 2 Rossi 488; 3 Pagenaud 457;
4 Dixon 442; 5 Power 356; 6 Hunter-Reay 333; 7 Sato 322;
8 Rahal 312; 9 Rosenqvist 296; 10 Hinchcliffe 287.POS DRIVER TEAM / CAR TIME
1 Scott Dixon (NZL) Chip Ganassi Racing / Dallara-Honda 1h45m15.6974s
2 Felix Rosenqvist (SWE) Chip Ganassi Racing / Dallara-Honda +0.0934s
3 Ryan Hunter-Reay (USA) Andretti Autosport / Dallara-Honda +1.2578s
4 Will Power (AUS) Team Penske / Dallara-Chevrolet +6.9878s
5 Alexander Rossi (USA) Andretti Autosport / Dallara-Honda +10.7949s
6 Simon Pagenaud (FRA) Team Penske / Dallara-Chevrolet +11.9029s
7 Spencer Pigot (USA) Ed Carpenter Racing / Dallara-Chevrolet +12.3671s
8 Colton Herta (USA) Harding Steinbrenner Racing / Dallara-Honda +12.9546s
9 Graham Rahal (USA) Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing / Dallara-Honda +19.9289s
10 Jack Harvey (GBR) Meyer Shank Racing with Arrow SPM / Dallara-Honda +20.4762s
11 Sebastien Bourdais (FRA) Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan / Dallara-Honda +20.7715s
12 Santino Ferrucci (USA) Dale Coyne Racing / Dallara-Honda +21.2696s
13 Ed Jones (GBR) Ed Carpenter Racing / Dallara-Chevrolet +46.0085s
14 Josef Newgarden (USA) Team Penske / Dallara-Chevrolet 89 laps-spun off
15 Marco Andretti (USA) Andretti Herta Autosport / Dallara-Honda -1 lap
16 Max Chilton (GBR) Carlin / Dallara-Chevrolet -1 lap
17 RC Enerson (USA) Carlin / Dallara-Chevrolet -1 lap
18 Matheus Leist (BRA) AJ Foyt Enterprises / Dallara-Chevrolet -1 lap
19 Takuma Sato (JPN) Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing / Dallara-Honda -1 lap
20 Tony Kanaan (BRA) AJ Foyt Enterprises / Dallara-Chevrolet -1 lap
21 Zach Veach (USA) Andretti Autosport / Dallara-Honda -1 lap
22 James Hinchcliffe (CAN) Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports / Dallara-Honda -3 laps
23 Marcus Ericsson (SWE) Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports / Dallara-Honda 2 laps-accident
Winner’s average speed 115.837mph. Fastest lap Hinchcliffe 1m07.3644s, 120.669mph.