“Sundays haven’t always gone to plan. Sometimes we’ve qualified quite high, so the expectation has been quite high, and something has gone wrong. I don’t think it’s been a great year for me so far.”
There have been some highlights. At the Indianapolis GP in May, the 23-year-old rose from eighth to fifth, and he gained his best finish this season with a podium at the Detroit GP in June, when he drove from 20th to cross the line third.
“It was chaos but my strategist Taylor [Kiel] did a great job of navigating all that and making the most of all the chaos; very pleased with the end result,” said Armstrong.
Having Dixon as a teammate has been a great bonus for Armstrong. The six-time IndyCar champion has experienced just about everything the series can throw at a driver and knows how to navigate adversity.
Dixon is famed for his ability to maximise points on a bad day, a skill Armstrong wants to develop.
“Scott always makes the best of a bad day. Things like that [dropping down the field] are what Scott is really good at avoiding. I feel like at the moment, we need to make a step up in qualifying to get to the very front to be with Alex [Palou], for example.
“We’re in that no-man’s-land where we’re inside the top 12, top 10, but not consistently quick enough to be inside the top [five]. I’m working hard to try and find that last little bit to get there.”
The New Zealander has a chance this weekend to get his campaign back on track and make a push up the points table. He has a new car sponsor at the double header at Newton, Iowa.
Hoping to make a good impression for new sponsor Root Insurance, he knows the first thing he’s got to sort out is qualifying.
“Coming back to the circuit a second time around is a lot easier, obviously. Also, on top of qualifying, in the races, we just need to work hard, be more prepared, because we’ve been letting our qualifying position carry us to a certain extent.
“I feel like I can put more prep into those race days. Also, they’ll hate to hear it, but [I need to] ask more questions because there are so many variables in IndyCar and you need to know exactly what you want to do at every moment.”
Palou leads the championship on 329 points, with Will Power second (281), Pato O’Ward third (258), Dixon fourth (258) and Colton Herta fifth (249).
The other Kiwi in the field, Scott McLaughlin is eighth (224), slowly recovering from a disappointing start to the season which saw him stripped of his third place at St Petersburg.
