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NTT INDYCAR SERIES: IOWA 300

July 20, 2019

Newton, Iowa

THE MODERATOR: We have second-place finisher Scott Dixon, of Chip Ganassi Racing, who for the fifth time this season and 45th time of his career finished second. Not surprisingly, I had no idea how you did that. You were a lap down, fading fast, here you are on the podium.

SCOTT DIXON: I think, yeah, we might have almost been two laps down. I don't know. I actually feel bad.

JAMES HINCHCLIFFE: You can give us the points and the prize money if you want.

SCOTT DIXON: You can have the prize money, we'll take the points.

Yeah, I don't know. It was just one of those nights where we just really didn't have the pace. We burned through the tires really quickly. We tried adjusting the balance. I was really loose on the first one. Second one lots of understeer. It was just like I think -- I haven't spoken to Felix, but looked like he was struggling with similar stuff.

Huge credit to the team. They hung me out pretty long before the last caution. It enabled us to stay on the lead lap, get that lucky yellow there, get new tires. We were the first on the new set of tires. Had a good restart, were able to pick up some cars.

Josef had kind of marched off out front. All in all, considering how our race was going, we were actually probably going to be happy with a top 14 or 15, so that was pretty stellar.

THE MODERATOR: An amazing stat, listen to this, James, 316 career starts for Scott Dixon, he's finished first or second 90 times, that's 28%.

SCOTT DIXON: I guess I'm lucky. I don't know.

Tonight was just one of those things, man. I can only thank the team for what they did. I tried to hold on till the end and make the most of it. Yeah, we'll take it.

THE MODERATOR: James Hinchcliffe, on the podium for the second straight year. Continues a recent strong performance. Wasn't the victory, but it sure was probably as good as anybody but Josef.

JAMES HINCHCLIFFE: Yeah, I think kind of best of the rest after Josef is probably where we were. That first stint, the No. 5 car was a little off. We were just kind of learning, feeling out the track, seeing what the setup really was like. Big credit to the guys. Every time we came into the pits, we made it a little bit better. Adjusting tire pressures, wing, whatever. Working with the tools in the car, every stint we took a step forward. We were picking guys off slowly. Fell back to seventh.

To get Simon on that last restart, running second. A shame Seb was involved. He definitely stopped us from getting after Josef. Obviously Scott with the brilliant call with tires came up and got around us. We were starting to come back.

A couple more laps, it would have been a good little bat. For the No. 5 guys, it's been a tough year. A lot of rough luck on Sunday. We're happy to be back on the podium here in Iowa, where we've had success before. Hopefully we can carry this momentum into Mid-Ohio.

THE MODERATOR: You thought it was going to be a warm race at 6:00, then it green flags a little before 11. Big difference.

JAMES HINCHCLIFFE: Yeah, I had to pee a lot more than I was expecting to have to. But I didn't. Don't worry. But, no, I mean, obviously with this track and these cars, the tires are very temperature sensitive. Track temp, air temp, changes quite a bit.

With the very different conditions, we had to run in these conditions all weekend, it was a bit of guesswork in the first stint. I think we were on the conservative side, which was fine. Felt out where the track was going, did have the best car we wanted at the end, which is what you want.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Scott, we got the news earlier this week, you're going to be a father. Knowing how expensive it is to have kids these days, is it more motivation for you to win more races, race longer?
SCOTT DIXON: Absolutely. Definitely another 10 years. Kids make you go faster. It did work the last couple times. Emma is here actually. Yeah, I'm excited. Going to be cool. Should be around Christmastime. Christmas baby. Another one. Sort of a break there, you know, eight years. I don't know what we got ourselves into, but should be exciting.

Q. And your oldest daughter Poppy is the right age to be the babysitter.
SCOTT DIXON: Yes, we discussed that. Told her she would be doing the night feedings.

THE MODERATOR: The fans that stayed around this late, this is a late one for everybody.

JAMES HINCHCLIFFE: Yeah, I'm getting old, I was getting ready to go to bed at 10:30. It was tough. For all the fans that stayed out, weathered the storm literally, huge, huge thanks. I think it was well worth the wait. Hopefully everybody that did come and stayed for the race enjoyed the show. Felt pretty exciting from where we were sitting. Imagine from the outside, too.

Q. Scott, you said earlier you were struggling and you didn't expect maybe the second position, if I understood correctly. Did you already have an indication after yesterday's final practice that you were not aware you had a perfect car for the race?
SCOTT DIXON: We didn't have a perfect car at any point this weekend. I feel we actually made some pretty good gains end of the final practice. It was really bizarre, too. We didn't really change too much.

Had a pretty good understeer car for the start, then once the race started, it was extremely loose, especially through two and four. It was just really bizarre.

We kind of chased it all night. It was one of those situations where we didn't really have the gap. Even adjusting the front wing, tire pressure was shifting balance of the car a ton, much more than I really experienced before.

The second to last set of tires I thought were extremely bad. The last set felt good, but we had a lot better tire laps than the rest.

I don't know. We really struggled here the past few years. Not exactly sure why. We tested here with Felix. It looks like we didn't really accomplish much. It's definitely a track that we need to totally revamp and try to understand where we're going wrong.

Q. James, the delay for the start, how was it for you? Was it difficult for you to stay focused for the race? Did you expect we have a race foam?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE: I think we were ready for anything. We weren't quite sure what the weather was going to do, what the decision was going to be. I know INDYCAR, everybody at the track was very committed to try to get the race in today for the fans. They did an excellent job getting it dried out quickly.

Had to re-plan dinner, had to cook out for Conor (Daly) because he doesn't have anywhere to go, Rossi. It was a bit of a weird time. Watching Lion King, the original. I forgot how awesome that movie was. Stoked to see the new one.

You're kind of burning time. Then all of a sudden you have a 20-minute warning to get dressed and get in an Indy car. Can be tough.

We've done it before. It's what we do in this series sometimes. Glad we got it in tonight, though.

Q. Scott, when you got lapped, did you think this could be a long night? Or the way the yellows fall, if you got the right set of tires, I could do what I did at the end?
SCOTT DIXON: I knew it was going to be a long night. It was pretty immediate. Yeah, I don't know. Ferrucci at the start, it was a man on a mission. Actually shocked me a little bit. Got a little bit scared when he came by.

Yeah, I knew immediately we just didn't really have it. On throttle, even on fresh tires, we were really struggling. Just one of those things where you hope through the night you can keep up the changes a little bit quicker. I think we did a good job of chasing it. Honestly we started in a really bad place.

Q. James, the third-place finish, your first podium, best finish since Iowa last year, how special is it to get that finish tonight?
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of shocking actually that it's the first podium of the year. It just kind of sums up our year. We had good racecars on Sunday, had bad luck. A mistake or two of our own. We've been there or thereabouts. Fighting for the odd win, fighting for a couple podiums, just had unlucky breaks.

To kind of have a clean evening, not have anything work against us, it's nice to be back up here. I think that we've had -- yeah, we've had some races we probably should have been on the podium. That's racing. We just got to keep doing what we're doing as a team and hopefully see a few more podiums before the end of the season.

THE MODERATOR: Guys, thanks.

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