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Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson have been left perplexed as to how they were unable to advance from Round 1 of Qualifying at the Portland IndyCar event.
The duo are only 14 and 17 points away from the series lead with two races left in 2022 but will have to start the second-last of those from 16th and 18th respectively.
Making matters worse, Team Penske qualified one-two-three, with series leader Will Power to start second and team-mate Josef Newgarden, who is three points in arrears on the table, from eighth due to a grid penalty for an unapproved engine change.
Dixon had bumped Ericsson out of the top six with the chequered flag out on Group 2 of the opening round of qualifying, but they were both vanquished when Christian Lundgaard and Felix Rosenqvist improved.
Asked what he needed to get through, Dixon said on the Peacock stream which is carried by Stan Sport, “I’m not sure.
“Balance was a little different to what we had this morning, just we’d made a few changes; not big changes.
“Balance on blacks actually felt okay; there were probably a couple of things we could have made better for Q2 if we had have moved on.
“Just low on grip, I guess, on the reds; we just never really converted the speed, and it kind of looks like that was the same for all three of us.
“We didn’t convert, which sucks.”
Ericsson was asked what he was still lacking and the Swede said, “It’s a good question.
“I think we did improve the car a bit [relative to practice] for qualifying and I think we’re closer to the fastest guys, so that was a step forward, but we seem to have been a bit on the back foot all weekend and we just struggled a little bit.
“The car feels pretty good out there but we just lacking a bit of pace.
“I think all three of us [Dixon, Ericsson, Alex Palou] are quite close together and I felt like I hooked up some good laps, especially on the reds, but just missing that last couple of tenths of ultimate pace.”
Palou did get to the Fast Six in the #10 Ganassi Honda, but was second-slowest in that segment.
The results represent an unwanted turnaround for the squad, which put Palou on pole and Dixon third on the grid at Portland last year, when the former earned a series lead which he would not relinquish with victory in the 110-lapper which followed.
Ganassi opted to test at Laguna Seca days before this weekend’s event whereas Team Penske did indeed cut laps at Portland, having been the strugglers there last year.
“I think all of us have kind of being going down different roads, just kind of fine-tuning for your own thing,” said Dixon.
“I think the basic set-up’s pretty similar.
“It’s frustrating because there’s not a whole lot different that we’ve done from last year and the cars were right at the pointy end of the field, so definitely frustrating, and here it’s just such small amounts that you’re missing and unfortunately we didn’t convert.”
Final Practice takes place today from 09:15 AEST, and the Race tomorrow at 05:30 AEST.
Stan Sport’s live and ad-free coverage resumes on Monday morning at 05:00 AEST.
