Dixon’s IndyCar title hopes fade after opening lap crash in Portland

Any aspirations of winning the Grand Prix of Portland for Scott Dixon ended with a tough crash just moments after taking the green flag.

After starting ninth, the 44-year-old New Zealander made quick moves to push his No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda further up the grid. Once through the first sector, though, he was pressed by the No. 27 Andretti Global Honda of Kyle Kirkwood, who pulled a move to the inside of Dixon. 

Left with no room and unwilling to back out of the throttle, Dixon dropped wheels off course on the 12-turn, 1.964-mile natural terrain road course. He returned after falling a few positions and immediately made wheel-to-wheel contact with a significantly quicker No. 30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda of Pietro Fittipaldi, which then sent Dixon back off course before crashing hard into the Turn 8 barrier. 

Dixon, who came into the weekend third in the championship standings at just 65 points behind teammate Alex Palou (443-378), was left climbing out of his machine as the first retirement of the race due to severe left-front damage.

Fittipaldi was handed a drive thru penalty by Race Control for avoidable contact, which Dixon thought should have been given instead to Kirkwood, who was able to continue on.

“Yeah, (I’m) totally fine,” Dixon said. “The No. 27 [Kirkwood], I think caused all that mayhem, to be honest. Just a lunge and then gave me zero room on the exit, which knocked me off. And then you try to recover and obviously, I think with, you know, Fittipaldi, honestly getting the penalty there it’s no real fault of him; just funnels there. But yeah, the penalty should have been on the No. 27.”