IndyCar Media Conference

Friday September 14, 2018

Scott Dixon

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Joined also by our points leader, Scott Dixon, driving the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing team, third overall in the speed charts today, combining first and second practices, a three-time race winner here and also a pole winner here at Sonoma Raceway. Scott, we've been talking about this championship contention, points battle, everything, for over a week now since we exited Portland, so now you're here, you're on track, you got your first and second practices in today. What are some things that you're noticing from the car heading into this weekend?

SCOTT DIXON: It's definitely difficult. I think everybody has probably mentioned that the conditions are tough. I don't think the track has changed too much. It's weathered a little bit over the years. The surface I think is getting pretty slippery, but then to have maybe 30 percent on downforce here, it definitely exposes the car a lot. So mechanical situation is something that we really tried to focus on, I think, throughout the year, even in development stuff coming into Sonoma, which at the moment seems to have helped. Tomorrow could be different. It all depends, we'll see how the competition does.

But yeah, really hard to get braking correct, and even the difference from your first, second to third, fourth lap is pretty intense. Hopefully we get it right tomorrow. It's going to be tough. We can see a pretty good spread already in the speeds today, which is pretty good. It's pretty good to see an Indy Lights champion up there, too.

Q. You did a quick spring change there at the end on the rear. What were you guys trying to accomplish?
SCOTT DIXON: A faster car. Always going for a faster car, man. No, I think we're just trying to put tomorrow -- I think the temperature here is pretty critical. Even from this morning to this afternoon, we noticed some pretty big balance shifts, and it was more just to try and understand if we can manipulate it a little bit more, whether it's for the reds or the blacks or weather tomorrow. Yeah, just trying to get through the motions and try and find some more gains if we can.

Q. It's been quite a year of unparalleled reliability for you. You had a bad run at Iowa, but generally it's been great. In terms of the odds of something happening at some point in the season, does that leave you waiting for the axe to fall tomorrow?
SCOTT DIXON: I was trying not to think about things like that. Thank you. We had some pretty miserable races at the start of the year and some pretty big mistakes and some pretty bad luck, I think, in strategy, where we had a podium going in Long Beach, same in Barber, Indianapolis we handled it in qualifying but the car was good in the race. I think you can ask any driver; there's many scenarios and situations throughout the season that, yeah, we could have done that better or we could have had some more luck here and there. I found during the course of the year it kind of evens its way out.

But yeah, I can't change that, so I'm not going to really think about it. We'll just keep our heads down and try and make the most of it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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