ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Scott Dixon won his sixth career IndyCar Series championship Sunday in the final race of the 2020 NTT IndyCar Series season in St. Petersburg.
Dixon secured the Astor Cup in spite of Josef Newgarden winning the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
Newgarden was second in the points heading into the race and needed to win and have Dixon finish 11th or worse in order to win the championship himself.
That result did not play out as Dixon kept Newgarden in his sights all race long. Dixon would finish the race in third, just two spots behind Newgarden.
“It’s all the team,” said Dixon of winning his sixth championship. “I can’t thank everyone on this team enough. Two out of three years, that’s pretty good going.”
“It’s never just one thing or one person. Credit to Josef, and Team Penske, they drove the last part of the season flawlessly. Six is good seven sound better!”
The championship is also Dixon’s sixth driving for ChipGanassi Racing.
The win for Newgarden is his fourth of the season but was nonetheless a hollow victory.
“It’s definitely bittersweet,” Newgarden said. “Congrats to Scott, it’s a credit to win six championships.
“I don’t know what else I’d do differently this year. All my guys were flawless. We just came up short. We’ll hit them harder next year. We had a fairly quick car and we did what we needed to do, but we knew fate wasn’t going to be in our hands.”
Newgarden finished the season second in the points for Team Penske, just 16 points behind Dixon. Colton Herta ends the season third in the points 116 points back of Dixon.
Arrow McLaren SP rookie Pato O’Ward finished second in the race cementing a fourth-place result in the championship standings.
Sebastien Bourdais finished the race fourth in just his third race of the season for AJ Foyt Enterprises. Ryan Hunter-Reay was the high Andretti AutoSport car in fifth.
Alexander Rossi led most of the first half of the race for Andretti Autosport, but crashed soon after making his second pit stop while trying to make up spots. He finishes the season without a win, the first time that has happened in his IndyCar career.
Pole-sitter Will Power also wrecked out of the race early.
Dixon’s championship holds him steady in second all-time in most IndyCar championships by one driver behind AJ Foyt who won seven USAC IndyCar championships.
The series will be back at St. Petersburg in March for the beginning of the 2021 season.
