Motorsport: Polesitter Dixon quietly confident

Aucklander Scott Dixon has his car on pole for Monday morning's Indianapolis 500. Photo / Photosport

New Zealander Scott Dixon is quietly confident he might be in with a better than fair chance of winning his second Borg Warner Trophy at the 101st running of the Indianapolis 500 on Monday morning (New Zealand time).

The Chip Ganassi Racing IndyCar driver will contest his 15th Indy 500 and has an impressive record around the daunting squared-off 4km banked track. He won in 2008, finished second twice (in 2007 and 2012), and has crossed the yard of bricks eight times inside the top six.

"I feel good, yeah, I think so. It's the best I've felt in recent years as far as having a clean one [race]," Dixon told the Weekend Herald.

"We didn't start the buildup as well as we would have liked, but have since worked really well as a team and made some good headway and made the gains. I feel good and positive and hopefully with a little bit of luck we'll have a win."

Despite changing engine manufacturers and aero kits during the off season, Dixon has one of his better starts to an IndyCar season in years.

In the opening five races he has finished third, fourth, second, fifth, second and with setting pole unofficially (IndyCar only confirms points after the race) leads the championship by 21 points from Simon Pagenaud.

Normally when a team makes such monumental changes it takes a few races for them to get the hang of what the new package will do and a while to get the best out of it. Not so with Dixon and his crew who have been building momentum heading into the race.

"Honda has done a great job on the engine side of things. Unfortunately, you can't do too much with the aero package as there's a freeze on that now, but you can run with different configurations which we've done well with.

"Last year, we made a lot of mistakes and it's a bit like getting a new toy this year. There's been a big refocus this year and we've started from scratch with new ways of re-thinking things and not relying too much on past setups," he said. "In a lot of ways it has been good to refresh and reset this year and look at new ways of doing things."

Setting pole at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is probably a bigger media event than an indicator as to who might win the race. Dixon is chuffed he's on pole - he won from there in 2008 - but is well aware that in the greater scheme of things, like winning the race, it's not a big deal.

"The further up you can start the better because you're out of dirty air and to an extent harm's way. At this place it [being on pole] doesn't really help with winning the race and these days you can pretty much win from anywhere.

"I think there's a stat that says since 2012 no one's won the race that started as part of the fast nine [final cars for pole shootout].

"You need a bit more luck now and it'll depend on how the cautions fall and you'll see more passes for the lead. Good for the fans but taking a gamble on set up doesn't reward you as much as it did in the past.

"There are so many things in the race that are out of your control because it's so long," Dixon said.

Anyone in the field is capable of winning the race as Alexander Rossi showed last year and it's not so much a single driver that Dixon is worried about, but more what team has its act together on the day including his own (his teammates are Tony Kannan, Charlie Kimball and Max Chilton).

Along with the regular IndyCar drivers and the one-off Indy 500 specialists, keep an eye on two-time Formula One champion Fernando Alonso, who as a rookie has been impressive and will start from the second row in fifth.

"Everything is going to be tight and compact as far as the race is concerned and it'll be interesting to see how the race pans out," Dixon said.

"It's hard to break the tow these days and it creates a pack that is definitely exciting for the fans. You [want] to be able to trim out in 15 laps before a pit and pull away, but now you can't so it's all about being good in traffic.

"This year you might see cars stringing out a bit, but it'll depend on the weather and you never really now what anyone is going to bring until the race."