Motorsport: Big black cloud with a tiny silver lining

By PETER MARTINEZ

It would be fair to say that New Zealand's top racing driver, Scott Dixon, had his patience tested to the limit in this year's Indy Racing League.

Dixon must have breathed a sigh of relief when his season from hell ended last weekend in Texas - he crossed the finish line in sixth in the 16th and final race.

The result secured Dixon 10th place in the points standings - a big blot on a previously impeccable CV packed with titles and records.

He went from thinking of retaining the championship at the start of the season in February to just trying to win one race all season.


"It was probably the worst year I ever had," Dixon said.

"What probably made it worse was coming off the championship season that we had."

Last year, in his first IRL season, Dixon won three of his first seven races.

He didn't have another win, but led 14 of 16 races at some point - a total of 748 laps - and finished in the top five nine times.

He finished second at the season-ending Chevy 500 to take the drivers' title by 18 points over Gil de Ferran, the race winner.

This year, even though he had 10 top-10 finishes, he led only three laps all season, in the opener before an accident ended his day.

His best finish was second to Tony Kanaan in the second race.

Kanaan, from Brazil, is the new IRL champion, taking Dixon's crown three weeks ago in the penultimate race in California.

"It's been bad in a few different ways," Dixon said.

"Being close to winning and then crashing, having good cars and not finishing, having bad cars ... not even being able to finish a race because the car was so bad.

"It's been many bads and not really any goods. It's been very tough after last year when we had a lot of good times."

He didn't have to hesitate to find the positives he could take out of this season - there weren't many.

"We learned a lot of things from the way we approached races differently this year, and just from the bad luck we had at different points.

"We can take that away from it, but that's about all."

Dixon knew where the problem lay, but it was not fixed until it was too late to do him any good.

"I think the biggest thing was starting the season with a deficit in power from the Toyota engine we had.

"We were probably not bad, but Honda had such a big jump on everybody."

Not driving above the car's capability was probably the biggest thing he had learnt on the ovals.

"If you drive beyond the car, you find yourself in the walls, as I found out a few times.

"The thing is, you have less power to start with. So you try to trim the car out more - that makes it more difficult to drive, there is less grip, and then your balance becomes very fine and it becomes a lot easier to step over the limits."

For Dixon, it was a different style of racing.

"Being at a power deficit, you have to learn how to carry momentum through the corners, learn to drive a car that's probably not as good as you would like - you pick up on a lot of different areas that you probably wouldn't look for if you had the power to start with."

Work for next season had started, and Dixon was fairly confident Toyota was on track to rectify the problems.

"It looks great for next season - Toyota have raised the budget hugely, more so than the first year, and they have brought a lot of the Japanese engineers back."


The debacle of the IRL season was not Dixon's only disappointment.

He had two test drives with Formula One team Williams, but despite drawing praise from team owner Sir Frank Williams and matching Williams veteran Ralf Schumacher in his lap times in Barcelona, Dixon was crossed off the list.


"I think it is always very difficult to position yourself in Formula One," he said.

"It [the test drives] went pretty well with Williams, but I think they always had the programme that they were trying to get the current drivers that they have for next year."


Though the miss with Williams still leaves Dixon on the outside looking in, he did not think he would change his approach of trying to get into a top Formula One team.

"We'll keep trying. We hope to do some kind of testing next year as well.

"We are still talking - nothing has been finalised to do anything, but we'll still keep trying."

Kanaan, powered by Honda to his title, is getting a test drive with BAR Honda, but the Toyota Formula One team has said it does not want Dixon.

Dixon said he knew nothing about that.

"We have never talked. Toyota USA and Toyota in Europe, who run the Formula One programme, are totally separate.

"We have never even spoken to anybody from Toyota in Europe."

He knew what the problem was with getting a Formula One drive.

"You need time in the car. The problem with a lot of the Formula One teams is they want somebody to step in that can be as quick as the current drivers and at the same level as their current drivers, which is never going to happen."

He cited former Formula One champion Jacques Villeneuve.

The Canadian made his comeback with Renault Japan after 18 months out, and was far from impressive, complaining afterwards that he lacked the physical preparation.

Said Dixon: "You can even see from Villeneuve coming in after some time away, he's not at the same level.

"So the problem is trying to get the time and the break so that they [the prospective team] can be with you for a little while you go through the changes and things that have happened in the team."

At 25, Dixon is prepared to wait until he gets into the right team.

The test driver route remained unlikely.

"It's hard to know if I will do that because I have a great team that I race with now and IRL is a great series and I have a lot of fun.

"I get to compete, whereas if you become a test driver, you might be that for a couple of years. You might get lost doing that."

- NZPA