Dario Franchitti may have taken the glory of winning the 91st Indianapolis 500, but second place was just as valuable for Scott Dixon, who overtook Target Chip Ganassi team-mate Dan Wheldon at the head of the championship standings.
On a bizarre day, which saw a three-hour mid-race rain delay, Dixon led three times for a total of eleven laps, but had to give best to Franchitti when the rain returned on lap 166. To that point, he had been sitting comfortably in second, waiting for his moment to make a move on the leader.
"It was just frustrating," the Kiwi admitted, "There was no flow to the race, a lot of backmarkers causing cautions, restart after restart. It's one of those days where you feel you haven't even raced - sort of like being on the freeway and watching people smash into each other."
Despite the disappointment of being denied a shot at victory, second still marked Dixon's best finish at the Brickyard.
“Finishing second is definitely great and means a lot coming this high up the grid at such a great place and against such great competitors," he noted, "But it was just a frustrating day in general - frustrating for the guys at Team Target, after the amount of work they put in.
"I think we started the race pretty aggressive. We went quite low downforce, similar to some of the other fast guys, but, in the first part of the race, we were quite sketchy, all over the place and, in traffic, that made it tough. We just wanted to stay up at the top, conserve a bit of fuel, and that worked out pretty good. We saved some fuel, got that yellow, jump up to second, and the car was coming along really well...."
Team boss Chip Ganassi shared his driver's frustration, but was happy to see at least of his cars come home intact.
"Even though I am disappointed about not winning, I am very happy for Scott and the whole Target Chip Ganassi racing team and the second place finish," he insisted, "I think we just ran out of sunshine - and that last caution didn't help either."
