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Analysis

Five lessons and questions from IndyCar in Texas

The 2020 NTT IndyCar Series season opener at Texas Motor Speedway, the Genesys 300, threw out several talking points. David Malsher-Lopez discusses the five principal topics.

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Photo by: IndyCar

Towards the end of the 2018 season, the first with the current aerokit, Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda had a thorough rethink of its roadcourse setups, feeling Andretti Autosport and Team Penske had edged ahead packages. None of the team is likely to go into specifics until Scott Dixon retires or at least until the current spec chassis is ditched, but race engineer Chris Simmons and technical director Julian Robertson got their heads down and started thinking outside the box and came up with a slight shift in philosophy that would require a slight shift in Dixon’s driving style. All produced the goods, the changes worked and the end result was enough to ensure Dixon sealed the championship.

By the end of last season, in which Dixon finished ‘only’ fourth in the title race, the team’s new bugbear had become inconsistency on oval tracks. It wasn’t that Ganassi cars were poor, but they weren’t guaranteed to be exceptional across the five ovals on the schedule – Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway, Iowa Speeday, Pocono (as was), and Gateway’s World Wide Technology Raceway.

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