Shop
It unfolded on a 1.645mi street circuit which is the narrowest on the calendar, after the Detroit event was moved from Belle Isle back into the city’s central business district in 2023.
However, Dixon disagreed when asked if the spectacle was embarrassing for IndyCar.
“I don’t think it’s ever embarrassing,” he replied.
“I think, you do a survey, most people go to races to watch crashes. I don’t,” smiled the New Zealander.
“I know when I watch some kind of NASCAR race, they have a similar kind of effect. It’s obviously exciting. Obviously you don’t want to see the caution laps and them taking over.
“From my perspective, it was pretty calm up front. Got wild with the 6 [Theo Pourchaire] and the 27 [Kyle Kirkwood] at some point. Then when I was at the back, it was actually pretty calm.
“I was around the 14 [Santino Ferrucci]. He gets wild here and there. He must have used it all up at some point.
“Yeah, I don’t know, I didn’t see a lot of it. Obviously once I watch the race back and see what happened…
“But you’re in confined streets here. It’s tough, man. You make any kind of mistake…
“Anticipating the hybrid, the tyre was pretty hard here. Very hard to turn the black tyres on. Front tyres makes it easy to lock. Colder conditions than last year. That probably definitely played a factor, as well.”
IndyCar does not yet have hybrid systems yet, with the introduction delayed from the start of the current season to the upcoming Mid-Ohio event, yet tyre production schedules are somewhat inflexible.
Ironically, while the primary (‘black’) tyre was difficult to turn on, the alternate (‘green’) degraded far quicker than expected, as Dixon’s team-mate Alex Palou found out when he ran a used set of the latter in his first stint.
“Definitely not expected,” said Dixon.
“Obviously, the Friday set of tyres, some cars went well into the 20s [lap count].
“It’s weird. There’s a lot of wheelspin at this place. We try to counteract, driving the car and stopping the wheelspin.
“The first stint I wanted to wheelspin the car more, which creates temperature, soaks the tyres, you get some thermal heat. It wasn’t doing that. I think it was actually wearing the tyre out.
“Ten laps into the first stint, I really starting easing off on applying throttle. I don’t know what happened to Alex. Looks like he had no rears left.
“Definitely unexpected. [It was] Supposedly the black tyre from last year, which was the tyre to run on, but it looked like it caved pretty hard, man.”
‘The Ice Man’ now has four wins in Detroit, the other three having been achieved at Belle Isle.
Asked to compare them, he said, “Any win feels awesome, man.
“I would say there’s no fountain to jump into, which is definitely a bit different. Some people rode the lions and stuff. That was put to a stop after [Ryan] Hunter-Reay.
“It’s cool. It’s a new venue, this is kind of going back to historic Detroit, downtown city racing.
“I have to say a huge thanks to all the fans. It was cool to do the parade lap and look up. On top of all the buildings, it was just lined with people. It was pretty fantastic.
“That is difficult, especially when it looks like there’s going to be a lot of rain.
“Any win is special. It’s kind of cool to win in two different places.”
Dixon’s win propelled him to the series lead, with an 18-point margin over 2023 champion Palou, ahead of this weekend’s race at Road America.
