INDYCAR HARVEST GP 2-Race Weekend Brings A Cooler Challenge For Pagenaud, Power, & Herta

Will Power is looking forward to racing in the INDYCAR Harvest GP, a track he has won on three times before, matched only by his teammate Simon Pagenaud. Power said he believes his success at the IMS GP track boils down to his qualifying, an area of mastery. Power has 60 INDYCAR poles, just seven shy of tying Mario Andretti’s record of 67. Each of Power’s wins on the IMS road course have come from the pole. "For me, generally if I qualify on pole at that track, we have a great shot of winning, and that’s been the case for me every time except this last one," Power said. "I can’t really put my finger on why that is the case, but some tracks favor you a little, maybe it’s the way the strategy works out, maybe it’s the fact you can use your raw pace." Image above, Will Power - salvages 2020 season with a win at Mid-Ohio's Honda Indy 200 Race 1 - Sept. 12, 2020. Image Credit: Matt Fraver via NICS (2020)

INDYCAR HARVEST GP 2-Race Weekend Brings A Cooler Challenge For Pagenaud, Power, & Herta

To some, open-wheel racing in October during NFL Football season is a crime against Humanity ... especially with the previous owner of the INDYCAR SERIES. It is tough to compete when the series owners are more concerned about their skybox seats and relationships with team owners than watching cars buzz around a track with temperatures dropping down into the 50's and lower. This just isn't the meaning of Fall.

Bring in a disruptive pandemic health event, a change of ownership and a reactive salvation from a planned 17 race season, to a possible 9 or 10 race season, then rebuild it back to a 14 race season through a series of 2-Race weekends at supporting and series owned tracks, then, voila, October 1-3, 2020 plays host to the aptly nicknamed INDYCAR "Pumpkin Spice" Grand Prix on the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

NTT IndyCar Series News Conference - Tuesday, September 29, 2020 - Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Currently P4 In Championship - Colton Herta, Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Racing

Currently P5 In Championship - Will Power, Team Penske

Currently P8 In Championship - Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske

THE MODERATOR: Good morning. Welcome to today's NTT INDYCAR Series video news conference featuring three drivers who will race this weekend in the INDYCAR Harvest GP at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

We're pleased to be joined by Simon Pagenaud and Will Power from Team Penske, and Colton Herta from Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Racing.

Colton, you're the most recent winner in the NTT INDYCAR Series, winning the front pole at Mid-Ohio. Indianapolis has been a place where you've had success in the junior formula and finished fourth in July. What are your expectations heading into a doubleheader this weekend?

COLTON HERTA: Definitely keep the momentum from Mid-Ohio and try to win. If you want to try to get Newgarden, second in the championship, we're going to have to have two good races. He's a little bit ahead, so we might need a little bit of help from him. If we can win both races, that will definitely help our chances.

THE MODERATOR: Will, you started on the pole there, won at IMS three times. What is it about the IMS road course that seems to suit your style pretty well?

WILL POWER: It's a pretty straightforward track. But every corner sequence, it's quite technical. There's a lot of compromise in there. I kind of like that stuff.

Yeah, I mean, it's just another track that I enjoy. All pretty good for me. Yeah, I can't put my finger on why I've won there three times. I think being fast is one of them.

THE MODERATOR: How important is it to try to end the season on a strong point, try to maybe grab top three in the championship?

WILL POWER: Yeah, that's obviously the goal, try to finish in the top three. More just looking at race wins honestly. The whole championship thing, I mean, I'm only interested in contending for a championship win. Other places don't really mean anything to me.

Trying to get wins, that's all I'm aiming for. I mean, do my absolute best honestly, not even aim for wins. Just get the most out of myself every weekend.

Three time IMS GP event winner Simon Pagenaud on racing the IMS road course the first time - “I grew up at a racetrack that’s quite similar in terms of driving technique, that racetrack was only 20 minutes from my home, and that’s where I learned to drive a car,” Pagenaud said. “I was very well suited to (IMS) because it suited my driving style and therefore it was working together very well. I felt at home right away. I didn’t have to search too far on my driving side to produce lap time. Those are the fun times in racing.”  Image Credit: Chris Owen via NICS (2020)

THE MODERATOR: Simon, you also are a three-time winner at the IMS road course. 20th to third in July. It's a completely different race in October than July with temperatures being probably 40 degrees cooler ambient. What do you expect from the weekend?

SIMON PAGENAUD: Well, of course it's an interesting dynamic. Hasn't been the greatest season. We've had a streak of bad races, starting in Indianapolis Speedway, unfortunately. So the season didn't develop as we wanted.

Certainly right now we're honing in on what the car needs in terms of setup. That's super exciting. We've got three races to go. For us, it's about winning, quite frankly winning races, nothing else.

The other goal is to understand the car the best we can for next year, come out of the gate next year to win the first race and go on and try to fight for the championship.

Different dynamic than last year for sure. We were in the championship. This year it's going to be about, like Will said, doing the best, just extracting the best out of yourself and the car. Also really understanding, that's what I'm aiming for.

THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions for any of the drivers.

Q. When the whole thing starts off with one driver taking the first three races, a truncated season of 14 races, kind of sets the bar in a weird way. Everybody is struggling. There's been some really great driving. I would like to hear what your experiences have been driving with the new rookies that are out there.

SIMON PAGENAUD: Yeah, you're absolutely right. There's been a lot of great driving. Colton was winning in Mid-Ohio. Pato has been tremendous in a lot of races. The young guys coming up, it's interesting to see them, how they handle their cars.

Like you said, there's been difficulties for everybody. Some, like Scott Dixon, managed to get the best out of tough situations. Wish we could have done the same, but we didn't. Try to focus and go forward.

Definitely new race format, new qualifying format. Very different season. No testing, which I personally love going testing for improvement. I'm missing that. I hope we can go testing very soon.

WILL POWER: Yeah, the rookies again this year have been very impressive. Alex Palou, Pato who is not a rookie but pretty much is. They're all quick. Rinus VeeKay. I know I'm missing one there, I feel bad. There's one other guy who is really fast.

Yeah, they've been very impressive with the limited running we have. The field just seems to get tougher every year. Get these young guys in, barely 20, and already right on the pace. Have 20 years of racing ahead of them.

It's good. I love racing against the young guys. I even go back and I'll race karts against the 15, 16-year-old guys just to embarrass myself amongst some aggressive, fast kids.

Yeah, it's good to see.

Q. Colton, you were one of the young guns coming up. Now you're established in the field. How has it been going side-by-side with the rookies?

COLTON HERTA: No, it's been nice. I think for a lot of my career, I grew up racing against a lot of these guys anyway through karting. This isn't really new for me with this rookie class.

Yeah, I think like the guys have said, it just seems like the series is getting tougher and tougher. Another really good crop of rookies. Definitely makes you work harder. You know there's a lot of guys coming in that are really fast and can take your seat. Yeah, definitely makes you work really hard.

I think it is impressive. Especially with the limited running time that we have, just one practice for a lot of the weekends, it is impressive to see they've gotten right on the pace. Who knows, maybe they will be even better next year when we have a lot more running time.

Q. I know with the two races on the IMS road course this weekend, we have a couple different race distances. You don't want to necessarily give too much away. Just with those two distances, how do you feel that could have a chance to shake things up as far as strategy?

COLTON HERTA: I don't even know the distances, so it's probably someone else's question.

WILL POWER: I think it's going to be pretty straightforward honestly. I think the longer race will be a three-stop and the shorter will be a two-stop. Yeah, kind of mixes things up.

Yeah, I guess it's good because everyone learns on the first day what the best strategy is. So having two different race lengths keeps everyone guessing. Might make the racing a little better.

SIMON PAGENAUD: I join Will on that. It's a really great point. In Iowa, for example, on our team we had a strategy starting from the back. Even before the yellow came out, we were already back to the front.

On the second day, actually use that strategy, so we can come back as quickly to the front. We ended up being more in traffic. I thought that was super interesting to see. Obviously everybody is paying attention to strategies. But that could be changing the format for the second race, probably (indiscernible). I think it's good for racing.

Any time something unexpected happens, makes the racing more exciting in some ways. Yeah, I would agree with Will 100%.

Q. Cooler temperatures than in July. A lot of times when the road course race is held in May, it's fairly cool. What type of race do you think we'll see with the cooler temperatures, hopefully drier conditions?

WILL POWER: Yeah, I think the track will be a lot faster. There will be less deg, more horsepower basically. It's really difficult to actually say what effect it will have on racing. Maybe the racing will be similar, honestly. I think the cars will just be a little easier to drive, more downforce in the cool temps.

SIMON PAGENAUD: Yeah, definitely be less physical, as well. The heat personally was excruciating in the first Indy Grand Prix. The Harvest one should be a lot easier physically speaking. Should allow the driver to be 100% as well, all of us. I expect that to be a bit different.

Now, I don't know about the race, if it's going to change anything, like Will said. Might make the out lap more exciting because tires are colder. Something to watch there, yeah. Less degradation on the tires, for sure, faster cars, faster pace.

COLTON HERTA: I'm not really sure what it will do for the racing. I think there's a possibility that guys will try different downforce options if it's that much cooler. This is a place you can sometimes get away with trimming if it's a little bit cooler because how long the straights are, no major high-speed corners. It might be interesting in the race to see what people go for with downforce options that might open up the passing a little bit.

Q. Back in December, Chip Simmons predicted at this time a year ago to now, meaning now, everybody will be talking about how great the racing is and not about the Aeroscreen. Do you think we're at that point yet?

WILL POWER: Yeah, it's honestly been a difficult year because people haven't had much track time. You are kind of running on the go.

Yeah, I believe everyone's become pretty immune to the Aeroscreen. I think it looks really good from the side angle. Obviously the front angle it's a little bit wide. I think, yeah, it's going to be the normal look in INDYCAR. I think if we see one without a screen, it's going to look kind of strange.

SIMON PAGENAUD: I mean, it's just a different format this year. Again, like I just said, are we completely used to it in terms of setups? No, personally on our car I think we still have a long way to go on setup to be very happy with how the car handle. So we're not there yet.

Some of that is due to lack of time. Even less practices at the racetrack doesn't allow you to make much changes. You just show up. If you unload quick, then you stay there all weekend. If you are not too quick, you can't make big changes because you don't want to get lost. That's really what happened this year for everybody, I imagine.

But in terms of driving comforts, like we talked about, INDYCAR has improved the cooling. We've also been lucky with not really hot races yet. In terms of safety, we've seen it. It's been amazing. Thanks to INDYCAR for protecting the drivers and making sure that we are still the pioneer in safety going forward.

COLTON HERTA: Yeah, I'd agree with Will and Simon. I think it's hard to say relatively what the racing has been like this year because of how little practice, I think very few guys get it right on a weekend. Maybe that tops three or four guys that kind of break away from the pack, got it right on that weekend.

It's hard to say relative to any year if the racing is better or not. I think we have had good races at some places and others haven't been so great. I think that's an aftereffect of what we're allowed to do in a COVID situation practice-wise, trying to get as much track time as we can.

I don't necessarily think that's an effect of the Aeroscreen, though.

Q. Is this one of the more challenging championships you have ever been a part of with all the uncertainty you've had this season?

WILL POWER: Yeah, I think what was challenging about it was not knowing exactly what races were coming, when they would be to prepare for them, the lack of testing.

But I actually don't mind the short weekends. We only have an hour to get it right. I feel like I can get on top of it pretty quickly. I've kind of enjoyed the short weekends, kind of wonder if INDYCAR will look at that and think, Well, maybe we don't need these three-day weekends, get it done in two anyway, have a lot less practice, just get on with the weekend next year with a normal schedule.

SIMON PAGENAUD: Yeah, I found it just, like Will said, challenging in the ways you didn't know really, like Mid-Ohio, what was going to happen when it got canceled.

For any athletes, I think you prepare yourself mentally, even though it's just subconscious sometimes. You prepare physically and mentally for an event. When the event gets canceled, it's on to the next one. All of a sudden you have to reshuffle your ideas.

There's a whole preparation with the race team also, communication with your engineer on preparation going into the weekend, what is going to be the practice like, what is the race going to be like, what you need.

All that has been really kind of shaky this year. 'Adjustments' has been the king word of the year, I would say. Challenging for sure. Different, absolutely. Yeah, just have to deal with it, I guess.

COLTON HERTA: It's definitely been really challenging. I think, like they alluded to, you always kind of physically and mentally are preparing yourself, whether that be in the gym or on the sim, doing prep work with your engineers. So it's tough when you kind of have these (indiscernible) and go weekends where you don't really know if they're going to happen, you don't know the next race on the schedule.

But I also do like the weekends being a little bit shorter. Like Will, I think it's a good thing. I think if you're a professional racing driver, you have to be able to get on top of it. An hour session should be plenty of time to get up to speed in a race car.

Yeah, I do like that. I particularly like it more for the short ovals. Maybe there's a chance we can do more doubleheaders, one-day or two-day events on the shorter ovals.

Me personally, I really like the full weekends on the road courses.

Q. Obviously the top two goals for a season would be Indy 500 and championship. This year at this point it's kind of chasing down second now. Do you embrace swinging for the fences this weekend? How do you balance that and trying to stay in the top five of a championship?

COLTON HERTA: I mean, I think if you're not going for the championship, you're kind of mindset is to win races. That's really the mindset. Obviously don't overextend it and throw a good result away. I have a little bit to lose.

Obviously we need to do well. If we really do want to get second place in the championship, we need to win another race. I think we do need a little bit of help from Josef on this weekend.

But, yeah, like I said, if you're not really in the championship, I think the goal for everyone should be to win races. That's what we're going to try and do. Try to get on pole, just like Mid-Ohio, then be able to lead the whole thing.

WILL POWER: I mean, I do the same thing every weekend, doesn't matter the situation. Unless you're truly points racing, all you have to do is cover the guy you're racing the points with. You're just trying to execute the perfect weekend. Everyone understands the goal. The whole field are going there with one goal in mind. They're just focusing, trying to get the most out of it.

There's no real benefit for going for a big move or something that's 50/50. It just never works out.

SIMON PAGENAUD: Yeah, I mean, for me it's a bit of a different approach I guess. Obviously if we manage to get the car where we wanted it to be, go for the win, execute, like Will said. Obviously if we execute as a team, we should be in contention to win the race. One goes after the other.

But to me and to my engineer and my 22 team, the goal is thinking about championship next year already. Considering the lack of testing, really want to understand what we need for next year. We'll take some risk on setup choices and hope that it works. If it doesn't, then we revert back and try to do the best we can. That's really our goal at this point, think about 2021 as well.

Q. Colton, obviously this weekend you have Hinch back in the car, also for St. Pete. How beneficial is that for you given he's got the experience of being with you guys this season, given that it's a truncated schedule, but also coming off the back of the momentum from the last race in Mid-Ohio?

COLTON HERTA: Yeah, I really like working with Hinch. I think a lot of guys know he's a great driver, deserves to be in INDYCAR. It's nice that he's back.

I think as far as setup-wise, I think he's really good at setting up a car. His feedback was really important in Indy. I think you can sometimes get it where, like, maybe a teammate likes to set their car up a different way. You try their setup changes and it doesn't work out for you. I found the very opposite for me and Hinch. I think it was very compatible.

He really did do an amazing job with the car in setting itself up in May. I could use a lot of his ideas and things from his car that kind of transferred right over to my car. I felt the same exact balance.

Q. Similar driving style?

COLTON HERTA: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Q. With the momentum going forward from Mid-Ohio, anything you can take from that into this weekend?

COLTON HERTA: I think just a bit of relief that we got the win in this year. I think it's important for me to win at least once a year. I think for a lot of guys, they feel the same way. It was nice to get that win done, kind of take it off my shoulders, kind of push forward.

Q. Will and Simon, I spoke to Josef yesterday about Helio coming back in. What are your thoughts on that? Are you going to have any advice for him? Josef said he's probably going to be a bit rusty.

WILL POWER: I think it's great that he's able to run in INDYCAR again. It will be really interesting to see how he goes because he's been in a sports car, which is quite a different animal to drive. He has a lot of experience, very quick driver.

I hope he does really well. I hope he does real well.

SIMON PAGENAUD: I don't think Helio ever gets rusty quite frankly. He's fast as hell. I've seen him obviously as my teammate in sports cars. He's been putting the car on the poles more often than ever.

Q. He won at the weekend, as well.

SIMON PAGENAUD: He won three races in a row. He's super excited to be back in INDYCAR. That is what he loves. It's different for us. He's not going to be our teammate. We love having him with us because he brings that energy.

Yeah, I wish him good luck. Hope he doesn't do too well. Yeah, he's going to be just fine. Obviously McLaren Schmidt team is really good. Should be in really good shape this weekend.

Q. The championship for you guys is difficult. As you alluded to, you're kind of focusing on 2021.

SIMON PAGENAUD: Yeah, I think like I said we're going to do some aggressive setup change that we think should go in the right direction. Obviously it's not just like throw a dart and try it. It's something that we think might be interesting for the future. We'll try it. We'll see. If it's in the right direction, we stick with it. If not, we revert back. Like Will said, basically extract the best out of the weekend.

Like Colton said, there's a few things I'm looking for in the car that we haven't really been there yet. It's not far. Should be an exciting weekend for those reasons.

Q. Will, is it the same for you, almost like a test session?

WILL POWER: Yeah, not really. I mean, I'm approaching it like a normal weekend, like I would any weekend. Try to get the car in the window, I guess preempt as much as we can on setup to what direction we think it will go with the cool weather, kind of evolve what we had earlier in the year at that track.

Just the normal progression of trying to get the car in a window. I think it was obvious to us that we needed to improve the car a little bit from what we had back in May, I can't remember exactly when it was, but earlier in the year.

Q. A lot of running at the IMS this season. Next season you might be doing something similar. Are there any changes you'd like to see for the Indy GP weekend in terms of track layout?

COLTON HERTA: I think I would love to maybe see -- I think you could do it each day, do a different track each day where you can have the turn one like the Formula 1 cars used to use, I think that might make overtaking a little bit better. The other day you can do the normal track. You can practice on the normal track, run it Sunday, shouldn't be a huge adjustment to run the track Sunday. It should be easy flat out for these cars, so...

WILL POWER: Actually, I agree. I actually was going to suggest it to Roger. You change the track from one day to the next, do exactly what Colton said, which is open up turn one of the oval. I think that would create actually a lot more passing.

I don't know with Firestone, we have to change the tire, like they had issues in Formula 1 for the long-loaded banked corner. But, yeah, I think that would be quite interesting.

SIMON PAGENAUD: I don't care (laughter). I really don't care. You ask that question, I was like, Well, okay, whatever they decide quite frankly. I have zero opinion on it. I drive whatever they give me. Love just being at the Speedway. Whatever the track is, it's going to be fine.

Q. What do you think about doing more off-season iRacing? Would you like to see INDYCAR put something together like they had done back in March, April, May?

WILL POWER: Definitely not.

COLTON HERTA: Yeah. I was going to say the same thing.

WILL POWER: Drives me crazy. I don't miss that at all. I guess it was fun, it was good for the series to be able to do it virtually. But, man, it consumes so much time. It becomes very frustrating.

I think iRacing is great. I think they've created an awesome product. Man, if they have the series in the off-season, I won't be doing it. Consumes way too much time.

SIMON PAGENAUD: I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. Brought competition home, which was cool personally. I liked actually spending the hours, something I enjoy. I thought that was cool.

Obviously iRacing is a great product. Also raced the 24 Hours? Colton, did you do the 24 Hours?

COLTON HERTA: No, no way.

WILL POWER: 24 Hours, man, you're crazy. I could not sit there doing that.

SIMON PAGENAUD: It was fun. It was fun.

I hope that INDYCAR is going to work on having the official game though someday. It's great to see the F1 game come out every year, the new car, livery, sponsors, all the drivers. It's a great reach, right, for the youth and also anybody that is interested in racing. It's just great to have a video game, just like NBA players or NHL. It would be amazing.

I don't know. I don't know what the future hold. I really hope that INDYCAR is going to have its official game someday.

THE MODERATOR: That is all the time we have today with our three drivers. We thank them for their time, wish them the best of luck this weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

[ht: FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports]

This two race test weekend event (starting Thursday Oct. 1, 2020 with Practice and Qualifying) may actually live up to its nickname of the INDYCAR Pumpkin Spice Grand Prix. The inside prediction of the series points championship for this Wuhan Virus health event truncated 14 race season may be decided in the favor of points leader Scott Dixon (by 72 points over Team Penske's Josef Newgarden) gaining his historic Sixth (6th) NTT INDYCAR SERIES Championship leaving only one driver to have secured more championships - AJ Foyt at Seven (7).

INDYCAR HARVEST GP SCHEDULE:

Thursday, Oct. 1

2:25 p.m.: Practice (INDYCAR Pass on NBC Sports Gold)

6:20 p.m.: Race 1 qualifying (INDYCAR Pass on NBC Sports Gold)

Friday, Oct. 2

3:30 p.m.: Race 1 (USA Network)

Saturday, Oct. 3

10:20 a.m.: Race 2 qualifying (INDYCAR Pass on NBC Sports Gold)

2:30 p.m.: Race 2 (NBC)

All action carried on the Pennzoil INDYCAR Radio Network 

... notes from The EDJE

TAGS: NTT INDYCAR SERIES, INDYCAR Harvest GP Presented by GM R, Simon Pagenaud, Will Power, Team Penske, Colton Herta, Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport, Chevrolet, Honda, Firestone, Pumpkin Spice, The EDJE

Two Race Weekend & 72 Points Separate Leader Dixon From Chaser Newgarden

Team Penske's two-time series champion has a very tall order to fill if he were to capture the a third (3) title in this age of COVID-19 modified 2020 season with only three races left and no "double-points" awarded for the final race of the season. It seems that Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon has a better than even money chance at posting a major historic mark with his sixth (6) championship title. Image Credit: Chris Owens - via NICS (2020)

Two Race Weekend & 72 Points Separate Leader Dixon From Chaser Newgarden 

This next weekend has the Wuhan Virus truncated fourteen race season - down from seventeen races and no West coast swing - running Races 12 & 13 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway permanent road course for the INDYCAR Harvest GP Presented by GM R. 

Scott Dixon, after winning the first three races of the season, looked to be walking away with this year's title and a possible modern record sixth NTT INDYCAR SERIES Championship to his excellent record. But as we know, nothing is ever that easy, even with only three races left and no double-points finale. 

For Josef Newgarden's part, he has remained steady in an emboldened field with several strong second year and new guard drivers as well as the strongest crop of Rookies to come along since the merger of the North American open wheel championship in 2008. This chopped up season has turned out to be the most competitive in all of the highest levels of professional motorsports. Needless to say, points are not easy to come by. If Josef Newgarden expects to win his third NTT INDYCAR SERIES Championship, he will need to win out while Scott Dixon needs to finish low or DNF in each of the three races and no double-points, as in previous years, to count on.

It was just just 5 years ago in 2015, that the roles of a Chip Ganassi Racing driver (Dixon) and a Team Penske driver (Montoya) were reversed where Scott Dixon needed to gain points in the last three races in order to have a chance at securing his 4th series championship. The last race of the season was held at Sonoma Raceway, Sears Point in Northern California and was a double-points paying race. 

At roughly the same situation in 2015, with four races left (counting Sonoma Raceway double-points as two races), Scott Dixon was 48 points down to Juan Pablo Montoya coming out of Mid Ohio, with Pocono and Sonoma venues left in the season.

Scott Dixon won the GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma and earned enough points to tie Juan Pablo Montoya, who had won the Indianapolis 500 for a second time, lost the championship to a tie-breaker in the rules. Scott Dixon had won three races on the schedule whereas JP Montoya just two.

Scott Dixon, driver of the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, can clinch the season championship at IMS by finishing the two races as he has the first 11 of 2020 – somewhere in the top five -- and it likely won’t even take that much. Dixon’s lead over Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden is a comfortable 72 points, the largest for a series leader this late in the season since Dixon led the 2008 pursuit by 78 points. Dixon only needs to score 90 points in the final three races – below his season average finish of 4.5 – to win the championship, and that assumes Newgarden scores the maximum number of points the rest of the way. Image Credit: Matt Fraver - via NICS (2020)

Last Points:

Winning the season’s final three races, as Newgarden likely needs to do, is a significant ask – it has been 65 years (Jimmy Bryan in 1955) since an Indy car driver accomplished that. 

Newgarden won’t even be mathematically eligible for the title if he is not within 54 points of Dixon heading to St. Pete. Remember, double points won’t be available in the finale as they have been each year since 2014.

If Dixon competes in the remaining events, as expected, only three other drivers will have the ability to win the championship, and third-place Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren SP and fourth-place Colton Herta of Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport would need to win out.

The closest comparable recent comeback to what Newgarden would need occurred in 2013 when Dixon overcame 49 points in the final three races.

[ht: Curt Cavin - IMS]

NTT IndyCar Series News Conference - Monday, September 28, 2020 - Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Points Leader - Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing

Points Chaser (-72 points) - Josef Newgarden, Team Penske

THE MODERATOR: Welcome to today's NTT INDYCAR Series video conference. Today we are joined by both Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden. Scott drives the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing, and Josef Newgarden drives the No. 1 Hitachi Chevrolet for Team Penske.

We're headed across the street from where I am now to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the INDYCAR Harvest GP Presented by GM R. Scott goes into the weekend with a 72-point lead over Josef in the NTT INDYCAR Series championship standings.

Scott, you have the potential to clinch [your sixth championship title] this weekend. What is your mindset going into the weekend?

SCOTT DIXON: I think, I don't know, for us, we just have to treat it like any other race weekend and try to get maximum points. The obvious goal is to go out there and try to win, but unfortunately there's 23, 24 others that have the same goal. Try to do better than we did at the last doubleheader at Mid-Ohio where I definitely made a very large mistake, that gave away some pretty easy points there.

Looking forward to it. I think it's going to be fantastic to have up to 10,000 fans on each day. It's definitely been a different dynamic I think for a lot of us this season, especially the Indianapolis 500 that ran without fans. We welcome the fans greatly. Hopefully the weather cooperates and we can have a fantastic weekend.

For us personally, hope we have a smooth weekend, one we can fight for a win.

THE MODERATOR: Josef, in Mid-Ohio Scott finished 10th both races, but you finished second and eighth. Going into the weekend, how do you feel your momentum is going to gain some points?

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: I think I feel similar to how we felt all year. We sort of just approach it where we try and do the best job possible every weekend, control what we can control, try and score the most points, just like Scott.

It's been kind of an up-and-down year. Some weekends seem to go kind of according to plan, how you think, a lot of other weekends have just gone away from us.

I feel optimistic. I always feel optimistic going into a weekend. We'll see what we got. I think we had some pretty good pace there earlier in the year. Certainly some things we can work on and be a little bit better at. I think we have a good base to kind of draw from, so I feel optimistic we'll have some speed.

I know the boys are excited to get back out there. They've done a really great job all year. So proud of the effort on the 2 car specifically. I think at Team Penske we've had some good efforts this year.

Optimistic. Excited to see fans back at a weekend. Everybody has been eager to get to a racetrack, at Indianapolis. Fun to see people around, socially distanced. Hopefully the weather is good. I haven't even looked. Hopefully we have a good forecast for everybody that's going to come out.

THE MODERATOR: It's currently raining in Indianapolis, but it is expected to be perfect fall pumpkin spice weather with some mild temperatures and no rain in the forecast. We've been jokingly calling it the Pumpkin Spice Grand Prix around here.

We'll open it up for questions.

Q. Josef, coming into this season, I mean, how it all got kicked off, now there's only three races left to go. Did you think that coming into such a weird season you'd be second in the championship with three races left to go, battling Scott for a chance at winning?

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Honestly every year before it starts back up again, I always wonder if we're going to have kind of the grit and performance that's needed to run for a championship. It's so difficult to be in the fight nowadays in INDYCAR. I mean, you have to be on it every weekend. The team has to be perfect. You have to do a great job as the driver. Everybody has to do a great job every single weekend. You have to have good consistency, you have to have performance at the right points.

I always sort of wonder before we start back up are we going to have what it takes to be in the fight again. I think we all know how difficult it is to be in that fight. You always go into the season with that question mark, but with high anticipation, certainly a lot of enthusiasm. I felt enthusiastic we could be good, but you never know where you're going to be.

This year has been a lot stranger as far as trying to predict where everyone is at and what we're doing. Everything has been so much in the air as far as the schedule, when we're racing. It's been moving around a lot. So I think it's even been more difficult to predict what is going to take place.

We have been relatively solid, pretty pleased with our performance. I think we've been a little bit better than last year in some respects. It's been good. We got to try to close out as strong as possible for this season.

Q. You're going to be coming to this track quite often this season. Have you spoken about doing it differently? Have you spoken about setting up the Formula 1 style racetrack here at Indy?

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Talking just the course layout?

Q. Yes.

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: I haven't heard of any discussion of changing the current course. I think it's raced pretty well for the most part. There's definitely some options that we could look at.

No, I mean, we haven't talked about changing anything. I think kind of the calendar has been the most interesting topic. It was really great to be here with NASCAR earlier in the year. Unfortunately with the pandemic we couldn't really take advantage of what a great weekend that could have been. I think if the fans are present and you're able to walk amongst the paddocks, the INDYCAR guys can check out a practice for NASCAR, vice versa, ideally that's what we would like to be doing.

For the future I hope we have a weekend like that again, where we're teamed up with NASCAR. Hopefully we can maximize it so everybody can enjoy it.

Q. Scott, obviously having won here earlier in the year, does that give you added momentum or does it add any kind of benefit to you heading into this weekend? Given that the temperatures are going to be different to what we had earlier in the season, is that going to affect how the car operates and handles on track?

SCOTT DIXON: I don't think you can really rely on past races, even if it's at the same track. I think obvious situation there is that the track conditions are going to be a lot different. I think 90 degrees to maybe in the 50s somebody said to me yesterday. We'll see.

I think it's going to be similar to when we typically race in April. Obviously this year's schedule has been a little bit crazy. Yeah, I think things will change. Race distances have changed. We have two different race distances. Fuel mileage will favor one group slightly more than the other. I think our team is confident in the cooler conditions, we seem to fare a little bit better, especially for qualifying speeds. Hopefully that plays true.

Again, you just can't rely on any of that stuff. It's a new weekend, one we're going to have to approach flat out and make sure we get the best out of it.

Q. Josef, how excited are you to see Helio back on the grid?

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: It's good to see Helio. He's hustling. What is he, 45, and he's hustling to get a race seat, back on the grid. I love it. He doesn't want to slow down. It's fun to see. He has a huge passion for this sport. I think everybody can recognize that.

Yeah, I'm excited to see him on the grid. We'll see how he does. I think he's going to be a little rusty in the INDYCAR personally. I'll tell him that when I see him. It's tough, even being in it full-time, it's difficult to keep up with the speed of the pack. I think he'll have his work cut out for him. He's a good shoe. He'll be fine. He'll add a good dynamic to the grid.

Yeah, good to see him back. We'll see what he can do.

Q. Looking ahead to this weekend, obviously you're coming off a bit of momentum from Mid-Ohio. What can you take from that into this weekend to come out with the maximum result possible?

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: They're totally different. Certainly different approaches. They race definitely as well with the track layout. I don't know that we can draw a lot from that weekend. Race one was a lot better for us. Race two, we didn't really make the most of the day.

So I think if you're going to look at that, I think we need to be better across both days in both races. If we can score a couple podiums both days, that's more where we want to be compared to what we were doing in Mid-Ohio.

Q. Scott, don't mean to get too philosophical here. When you showed up in Victory Lane at Nazareth way back when, kind of this shy, bashful kid from New Zealand, you just wanted to have a chance to get out here and race against the big guys. Here you are on the cusp of history. Pretty impressive numbers not only with victories but championships. I know you're not a reflective guy, but you can't help look back and think this has gone pretty well.

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, a lot of credit to the team. It's been definitely an interesting journey with many ups and downs as each race weekend can be or each season can be.

Just very proud of the group that I've been able to work with. Next year will be my 20th year with the team. We've achieved a lot together. They achieved an amazing amount of stats with their whole group of drivers they have had throughout the years.

For me, I think I was definitely lucky in some situations where I caught contracts at the right time, was able to hang on to the situation, especially in the early to mid 2000s.

Yeah, for me it's the love of the sport. I feel very lucky and privileged to do what I do. I really enjoy the people that I work with. They as a whole really drive me, their will to win. I think the whole kind of mindset when you walk into the Ganassi race shop throughout the years has never changed. At no point do you not go to a race weekend without thinking about not winning. That definitely I think helps a lot.

It's been a great ride so far. I definitely want to keep winning, I want to keep racing. Again, just feel super lucky to work with a great group of people I get to work with.

Q. Not to put you on the spot because he's also on the conference, of any driver in the series at the moment that reminds you of yourself, would it be Josef Newgarden? Two titles, not 30 yet, yet here he is in a position to challenge for another one.

SCOTT DIXON: I think everybody is unique in their own way. There's different portions that every drive maybe does a little bit different or a little bit better or a little bit worse. There's no doubt that Josef is a fantastic driver, very accomplished. What he's achieved so far is huge. I suspect there's going to be many, many more race wins, many more championships.

He's a good person. He's a good friend. We get to enjoy racing against each other for many years so far and hopefully for a few more into the future.

I think everybody is very unique in the way they go about championships, the places they maybe struggle at a little bit more, the ones they're very confident and strong at.

Yeah, I wouldn't label Josef similar to me. In some ways maybe he is, but he's his own person and one that has some amazing stats already.

Q. You were in Indy Lights. If you look at it, the top four guys in the championship right now have graduated from Indy Lights, have all had pretty good Indy Lights careers. What does that say for the Road to Indy series? Indy Lights this year had to take a pause. Roger is wanting to bring them back. How impressive is it the top four guys, including those two youngsters in third and fourth, all came up through Indy Lights?

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, it's great to see. I think over the last five or more years, it's been an interesting road with just kind of like the sheer size of the field. But it's still producing amazing talent. Even if you look at the rookies this year with VeeKay and Palou, they're extremely fast, producing amazing results in situations that have been tough, starting from the back. They've been very resilient.

The Road to Indy definitely produces fantastic drivers throughout. As you said, I think with the talent that's been coming in recently has been a standout, even some of the guys that have come from Europe. Great to see them. I know this year has been a little bit different, but I hope it continues and has great strength in the coming years.

Q. Scott, talk about Josef from earlier in the year. Obviously the caution in the Grand Prix race affected him quite badly. He looked pretty quick. Do you read much into that coming into this weekend, worry about his position, or is it all focusing on yourself?

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, just focus on our own program. I think we or I definitely made a mistake in qualifying. I think in Q2, had I just used my first portion of lap two I think would have had us quickest in that group and we moved on. It's little mistakes as Josef alluded to. With the competition right now in the INDYCAR Series, if you give up a little bit, it's going to alter your day greatly.

A lot of the time these races become pretty much track position. If you can use the strategy, obviously I think race one is going to be interesting, some people tried to split that earlier race of 80 laps into a two-stopper, a lot of others went for a three-stopper.

It is what it is. Sometimes you catch it on the right side and sometimes you don't. I think all of us have been in those situations before. I think we had extremely good pace. I think the race was won by almost 20 seconds. It puts a massive emphasis on making sure you get the right lap and the correct lap together throughout the whole week. I just didn't do it.

We'll keep our head down and focus on our program. Hopefully we can qualify well and strategy doesn't become too lopsided in splitting the field.

Q. Josef, obviously didn't go to plan there earlier in the year. Does your approach change how willing you are to risk things to try to pull points back? Do you have to put your faith that you got the right strategy from the start? Can't judge when the cautions are going to come.

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: No, for us, we're going to race how we always race. A lot of these things are sometimes unpredictable. For sure in certain situations you can hang yourself out by trying to stay out too long, creating a little bit too much risk for yourself.

But I think for the most part we've (indiscernible) in taking it in any sort of a risky way. Most of these races wrong time, wrong place with the yellows for this year - a lot of the time. You can't control that.

I've had years where it just seems like we catch the yellow at the right point all the time. This year's been the opposite of that. It's hard to complain about it. It's INDYCAR racing. Sometimes it falls your way, sometimes it doesn't.

What I'm hoping is that these last three races we just have the good end of the luck to finish the season. But we're going to focus on probably racing the same we raced back in July. We'll try for a fast strategy. Like Scott said, you have to have a really good qualifying lap. Pretty critical around this track. If strategy doesn't come into play, qualifying up front is really, really important. Putting a good lap together, racing a similar race like we did in July, hoping there's not odd cautions in there, I think we should be all right.

Q. Between you, you have seven championships. One of you could win the championship this time next month. Would this be one of the more rewarding championships you've had with a pandemic, Aeroscreen, limited practice, doubleheaders? Where would this rank as far as the Championships you have had?

SCOTT DIXON: I think it would probably be the strangest just I think how the season's gone, the schedule change, the ups and downs. Honestly, I'm so thankful that the NTT INDYCAR Series and everybody involved were able to get the ball rolling. A huge thanks to NASCAR for paving the way, letting us kind of use their handbook a little bit with the COVID situation, get back to it.

No, I don't know. All of them are very unique. They're all very different, at least from my memory. But I think each one becomes that much more meaningful. This one for me would definitely mean the most.

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Yeah, I would agree with Scott. It would be the strangest. I don't know how you're going to forget this year. It's always going to be kind of marked in the book as an odd year, not just from a racing standpoint, but from everything else.

I think because the year has been so strange even personally for everybody, it's going to mark this racing year as certainly a highlight. Every year is different, so individualized. Scott's season is going to be different than ours, everyone else in the championship. Everyone has a different story to tell with how their year has unfolded.

For us it would be a very gratifying championship if we were able to somehow get everything conjured together at the end. It's been a tough year on our car specifically with the yellows, certainly some of the races have fallen.

But you got to take the good with the bad, the bad with the good. They're all so different, sometimes things fall for you, sometimes they don't.

Yeah, probably a little more gratifying for our car.

Q. Qualifying has been so important this year with how tight the field is. Josef, you still have a couple teammates involved with an outside shot of winning. Scott, both of yours are on the outside looking in. Do you weigh on your teammates a little bit for setup help for practice on Thursday?

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, it depends. At least from our program, Felix and I have started to work out, if the 9 does this, the 10 will probably do that. You start to get a bit of a program together. With Marcus, it's still a little bit unknown, especially because of how the season has been. We really haven't had that much testing. Even race weekends, just such a limited amount of running that most of the cars start the same, then you don't veer off too much.

I think we work really well as a team. I think we've got a better understanding of what directions we need to be. Again, this is a little more unique, too, because we've already raced here this season. I think a lot of the time the biggest change for us is going to be ambient conditions but also tires. Each year the tires change a lot. At least for us, that's what you chase the most. Then obviously with the Aeroscreen, that's been one of the biggest changes, but we've already run it here.

Yeah, still limited practice. I think it's more about making sure you get on with your own program as quick as possible, then understand what you need to do for qualifying, make sure you get those laps together as best as possible.

Q. Josef, is there anything Will and Simon, anything they can help with Thursday for you, too?

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: Honestly, it doesn't change. We lean on each other every weekend. This weekend will be no different. Whether we're in the championship fight or we're not, we lean on each other the exact same way. It would be the same if we were all in the championship fight here. If we're all pretty close and fighting for it, we'd be leaning on each other just like all year.

Like Scott said, you kind of get into a rhythm with your team, sort of understand what everyone's strengths and weaknesses, specific likes and dislikes are. You kind of can build a notebook with everybody so we all understand, yeah, like Scott alluded to, one person does this, it kind of means this for the other person. We have a lot we can lean on. We'll be doing that just like we've been doing all season.

Q. Josef, I know you said you plan to tackle these next few races just like others by having the championship on the line. How do you get yourself into the mindset, I don't know if it's something learned or innate in you to try your best to pursue the last couple races, just like you would the first couple of the year? Some people might see a lot of pressure with a championship on the line, a lot to be done.

JOSEF NEWGARDEN: I think this year is probably the least pressure-packed for us. We're certainly in the chase position. We're not being chased. We don't really have much to lose. We could slip backwards in the championship from our second-place position. If you're not winning the championship, I don't know how much you weight that. You really don't. From our side, we don't weight it that much. The championship is really all that matters.

There's not a lot of pressure to take risk. But like I was saying before, we don't ever really stray away from our normal plan. We're always trying to maximize points. If that means taking a little bit of risk at one point in the race to maximize the points, we'll do that. Maybe it's dialing back the risk to maximize the points.

We really don't approach weekends differently. It's always the same goal. I think that part doesn't change. If you are going to say is it easier or harder, I'd say it's a little bit easier to go out there and try to make the most of the weekend. We don't have a lot to protect at this point.

Q. Scott, going into this weekend being a little bit tentative, trying to protect a lead or going and trying to seal up your championship, how important for you would it be to be able to put together the results to lock things down, kind of go into St. Pete without any sort of pressure might be there?

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, that's the ultimate goal, right, is to leave this weekend without having to worry about the championship. The reality is that it's still going to be very tough. We're very similar to what Josef spoke of. We don't really change our approach each weekend. I think when you come down to the nitty-gritty of the championship, you are aware of the points and the outcomes a little bit more than you would be, say, at the start or middle part of the season.

We'll focus on doing what we always try to do, and that's win the race. I think if we can win race one or race two, that makes things a lot easier. If we can win the both of them, that seals the deal. We'll go in there with that mindset, see what we come out with.

You have to work hard. Very tough, up and down through different portions. For me, there would be no better way to close it out and show the thanks for the effort that everybody on our side has put out.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you to Scott and Josef for joining us today.

[ht: FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports]

This weekend has a better than even chance at delivering a historic sixth NTT INDYCAR SERIES Championship to Scott Dixon leaving only AJ Foyt to catch and tie on the all-time annual championships list with seven championships.

... notes from The EDJE

TAGS: NTT INDYCAR SERIES, INDYCAR Harvest GP Presented by GM R, Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing, No. 9 PNC Bank Honda, Josef Newgarden, Team Penske, No. 1 Hitachi Chevrolet, The EDJE