How Herta’s Detroit ‘Hail Mary’ almost derailed Dixon’s IndyCar victory

When one of the eight cautions of the day flew on lap 53, Dixon’s Chip Ganassi Racing Honda was called in to make his final pitstop three laps later.

The gamble to stop so early – with 44 laps remaining – was a calculated one, as cautions were the theme of the race on the demanding 1.645-mile, nine-turn temporary street circuit.

Of the 47 total laps run under caution, 14 of those happened after Dixon made his last stop. The New Zealander cycled to the lead on lap 66 as other frontrunners pitted under the last caution of the day.

But his lead was far from safe as Dixon was left to manage the gap to the field, namely team-mate Marcus Armstrong, who made four stops – having earlier opted for wets for a couple of laps following a rain shower – but his final one was on the same lap as Dixon.

Polesitter Herta was also a factor, but for the wrong reasons as he was pressing to get his lap back and was also at the front hounding Dixon.

Herta got his lap back, but wasn’t able to break away from the leader, which drew the likes of Armstrong and Marcus Ericsson, Herta’s team-mate at Andretti Global, closer as the laps ticked down.

Armstrong closed a gap over the final 14 laps that was 3s down to a couple of car lengths with six to go before a desperate Dixon, still trying to conserve fuel, made a bold pass on Herta at Turn 3.

Upon being passed, Herta dove to pit road for more fuel, while Ericsson managed to get around Armstrong and closed from 1.8s back to less than 0.9s behind Dixon at the checkered flag.

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“Colton made it definitely more difficult,” Dixon said. “The way that I might save fuel is different to him.

“He was getting me very out of sync. You need free and clean air because you want a very positive front. That’s why I made the lunge on him. We know he’s not going to go to the end. They were throwing a Hail Mary to get their lap back and work it out.

“Had to push on him. The cars from behind were starting to encroach on us. It was a bit frustrating there. I’m watching obviously on my dash, the gap behind. Marcus was doing a great job getting the number, obviously great speed. When he got kind of within a second, I’m like, ‘We need to go here.’

“It was a little tighter than I thought it was going to be on fuel. I was getting some pretty big numbers, thought it was going to be pretty easy. Maybe our fuel was off a little bit. Got the blue light with two to go, that’s not good. But we were totally fine.”

Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, Linus Lundqvist, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, Marcus Ericsson, Andretti Global Honda, podium

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

This race marked the second time of 2024 that Dixon, now the championship leader, pulled off a masterstroke with making fuel mileage, backing up his win at Long Beach in April.

“I think some of today is a little bit of luck,” Dixon admitted. “I think [at] Long Beach, we took an aggressive approach.

“If we were lucky, we would have had some caution. We had to do it the very difficult way of having no caution.

“Today it kind of played out that way a little bit, but it was tight. A lot of people on our strategy didn’t make it.

“I think for us as a team, we just try to cover all bases. I don’t think there’s a style or a classic way of winning. Honestly, you just take any win you can get.”