IndyCar: Scott Dixon championships usually mean two things
By Asher Fair
Scott Dixon championships: There won’t be a car number 1 in 2021
The reigning IndyCar champion has the right to choose car number 1 for the following season. Scott Dixon did just that in 2004 after winning his first title in 2003 and had a terrible season, and he didn’t do it after any one of his next four championships (2008, 2013, 2015 and 2018).
Don’t expect that course to change in 2021 (even if he tries to trick us again like he did in 2019).
Of course, a terrible season by Dixon’s standards is pretty much any season that results in a fourth place finish in the championship standings or lower, but this was actually a terrible season in that he failed to win a single and finished on the podium only one time.
Excluding the 2002 CART season, this season is still the only season during which he failed to earn a single victory.
He finished in 10th place in the championship standings that year. Since Ryan Hunter-Reay won the 2012 championship, every champion not named Dixon has used the number 1 the following season.
Hunter-Reay did it in 2013 after winning the 2012 title, Will Power did it in 2015 after winning the 2014 title, Simon Pagenaud did it in 2017 after winning the 2016 title, and Newgarden did it in 2018 after winning the 2017 title and then again in 2020 after winning the 2019 title.