NTT INDYCAR SERIES: FARM TO FINISH 275 POWERED BY SUKUP

July 13, 2025

Marcus Armstrong

Scott Dixon

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We'll get started as we finish up another Sukup INDYCAR Race Weekend here at Iowa Speedway, the Farm to Finish 275 powered by Sukup. Alex Palou, Marcus Armstrong will be here shortly.

Joined now by Scott Dixon, driver of the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda with the second runner-up finish of 2025, third podium of the season, that's 145 now of his career, which extends the all-time record. I think it's 152 top 5s, which also extends that record as well. A lot of action out there today. Another podium for you; how does it feel?

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, it was definitely an interesting weekend for us. I think all the cars yesterday weren't typically great on the high lines. On the 9 car side at least we threw the kitchen sink at it, at least try something different, use it as a bit of a test session.

It was a bit iffy at the start. We were a bit off on COP and bars and all that kind of stuff, but once we got it dialed in, it was pretty good. I think we were able to manage the stints quite well, tire life was quite good, and that enabled us to save a bunch of fuel and extend the windows when we needed to. I think today for most people it was about catching the caution and going as long as possible.

The undercut was not great for us. The overcut was a bit better. Obviously you could run really fast times at the end. I don't know, I think we worked on the car all day and got it pretty good, and another stint I think we could have had a really fun race with the 10.

Congrats to Alex, a big year, and continues to have a massive year, so congrats to him and the 10 car.

Q. You said you potentially could have had a good battle with Alex with a little bit more time. What was his car doing well today? Do you feel like your car was just as good?

SCOTT DIXON: I didn't really see much of him, to be honest. We knew that they were particularly good. I think the biggest thing here is finding a car that's suitable for both lanes, and once we got two-thirds into the race, we find that balance for us. We could run low, we could run high, which definitely helped. I think you'd be able to pick and choose a little bit.

Alex was obviously very strong, led a lot of the race, a majority of the race. So really kind of hard to comment.

I think at the end we seemed to have a little bit more speed in 3 and 4, even on the low line. Even 1 and 2 actually, our kind of mid off was pretty good. You don't know where that's going to go in the long run. I was definitely a lot more excited at the end of the race with how the car balance was and what we had.

Q. You've been around for a while. Can you put the season that Alex is having in perspective, how it compares to some of the great seasons we've seen?

SCOTT DIXON: It's huge. You can't say enough good things about what that whole group is doing. Obviously it's great for the team. It's great for all of us. A lot of happy faces, that's for sure. Anything they kind of do just rolls their way.

Whether it's with setup stuff -- you can't take anything away. Just everybody on that side of the group -- everybody in the team, they're firing really well and just doing a better job than everybody else.

THE MODERATOR: We haven't seen something like this since '94. Al Unser Jr. was the last driver to win 7 of the first 12 races, so pretty spectacular stuff.

Also joined by Marcus Armstrong, driving the No. 66 SiriusXM Root Insurance Honda for Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian. First podium of the season, ties your best career finish with a third at Detroit now, third here at Iowa Speedway. Apparently you're now an oval racer. Is that how it works?

MARCUS ARMSTRONG: It comes with the accent.

Q. Just tell us about your day.

MARCUS ARMSTRONG: Day was good really. I was pretty happy with our pace toward the end of stints. Even last night I thought we found our feet a bit towards the end of the race. We made a few changes today that I actually think was a bit of a backwards step, but nevertheless we were always very strong towards the end of stints when the tires were going off.

I was always racing Scott, so he looked a lot quicker today than he did yesterday in my opinion, and then he was very quick at the beginning of stints, and I was sort of hanging on a bit, especially on restarts.

But we've been saving fuel for two days straight now, and we caught that yellow at the end, so that was good.

Q. Scott, we've talked so much over the last two years about how the track has changed here. Now that we're through another double-header weekend here, can you talk about the track race this weekend and how hard it was to pass from your perspective?

SCOTT DIXON: I think we were kind of pleasantly surprised to be honest. I think day one for a lot of our group we couldn't really utilize the high line, so it made it tough. Today I had a lot more fun. I could see fellow teammates, and they were having a lot more fun too because we could actually use the high line.

I think as the track degrades, as we've seen from last year and the repave in the corners, I think it will definitely get a lot better. Today was definitely good. You saw a ton of cars passing.

I think for us the glory days were kind of two years ago where you could just kind of place the car anywhere. As long as you had a good car, you could kind of get it done. But I see that definitely coming back right now.

Q. What happened between the two of you on lap 197?

SCOTT DIXON: I don't know. He just drove into me.

MARCUS ARMSTRONG: He just drove into me. He always drives into me, this guy.

SCOTT DIXON: No, it was racing tight, man, and I haven't looked at the replay, but we definitely hit pretty hard, and my front wing came up. I could see it come up, so I'm like, man, I think my front wing is done, and there was quite a bit of smoke too. So I figured we'd maybe cut his tire down as well, which wouldn't have been so great. But luckily we were both okay.

Q. Were you surprised the wing held up? You were sitting in second place.

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, they kept saying the COP is the same. I'm like, I don't think so. I had to change a bunch of stuff in the car to try to help the car turn after that, but it stayed on there, which was the main thing.

Q. Also, we saw some tires after they got taken off had some cords showing through. How concerned are you when you start seeing that?

SCOTT DIXON: I don't know. I didn't hear anything on our stuff. We've had no tire issues, from the test to both the races. I think you've got to use them wisely, and when you do, then there's no real issues.

Q. Marcus, six straight top 10s for you, Scott five, so some consistency. Talk about the relationship with Ganassi and Meyer Shank. Scott, I know you've worked with both Felix and Marcus as teammates, so talk about what you guys have been able to learn off each other and the success we've seen on both teams as Meyer Shank continues to add to their most top 10s in a season.

MARCUS ARMSTRONG: Yeah, I mean, the most important thing for me is the continuity from last year. I've kept my race engineer, Angela Ashmore, and that's a real help because we know each other very well. The majority of the engineering crew is similar, as well.

Obviously it is a very different crew. The Meyer Shank crew have done an amazing job so far. They were especially good on pit lane today.

It's great to be able to learn from Alex and Scott and Felix as well, and Kyffin has been great lately too. We're all pushing each other forward, which is awesome.

There's always something to learn from Scott. Every day is a school day for me. Mid-Ohio was a proper schooling. Raced him all day, and he ended up finishing like half a minute ahead of me. There's always something to learn, which is so cool.

But I think six top 10s, I think you said, we're starting to build momentum, and I think that we're just getting better every single race weekend.

Q. Scott, for you second, and then Kit's second favorite driver won yesterday. So Dairy Queen tonight? What are we doing on the way home? Are we celebrating a bit for him?

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, he didn't make the podium for both races. We should have planned that a little bit better. I haven't seen Kit -- no, I didn't even him on the grid today. He's got a bit of an earache, so I don't know if Pato was talking too loud in his ear or something. But he's not feeling great today, so I haven't seen him yet.

Yeah, it's been a great weekend for us. Back to the relationship, I think what CGR and Meyer Shank have done, the relationship just works really well. It's pretty seamless and a lot of happy faces right now.

Q. Marcus, you mentioned a lot of fuel saving over the course of the two races. Kind of talk about that last restart. Was that just inexperience in traffic? What was the differentiating factor?

MARCUS ARMSTRONG: When Scott got me?

Q. Yeah.

MARCUS ARMSTRONG: I owed him one, you know.

No, to be fair, I struggled a lot on new tires at the beginning of every single stint today. Also Alex, I was joking with Alex earlier because he went to block me, high line sort of took the air away from me a bit. Scott just committed to the low line and off he went. But he had more pace than me for sure at that stage, and those two were quality laps basically to the end.

I was, as well, to be fair, but I just didn't feel that comfortable with the car on new tires. I always felt better towards the end of a stint for whatever reason. Yeah, it is what it is.

Q. Street course next week; are you excited?

MARCUS ARMSTRONG: So excited, man. Are you? Great.

Q. To both of you, talking about 197, I guess you could compare that with driving down the Auckland Motorway really, couldn't you?

SCOTT DIXON: Yeah, I'm going to steer clear of that because I think a comment that came into my mind is not going to work. I'm going to get in trouble.

MARCUS ARMSTRONG: Let's stay politically correct on this one.

Q. Scott, having the high line as well, how important does the yellow flag play when the sweepers get out there and clean that track up? Does that help with consistency on the high line?

SCOTT DIXON: I think it seemed like it was used quite a bit today, so I don't think there was really any issue with the sweeping. The sweeping definitely helps.

I think when they do it, it kind of gives everybody confidence to know that it's fairly clean. Plus if you get out of the groove a little bit, it's clean even higher, so kind of gives you a bit of a safety net there.

It was used most of the race. Even I think some stints, I think, I used the high line probably 70 percent of the stints. It was well in use today.

Q. Marcus, a ninth and a third today and oval races this year after not doing the ovals last year. Are you adjusting to oval racing, considering that we don't have it here in New Zealand?

MARCUS ARMSTRONG: Yeah, there's a lot to learn about oval racing, and it was sort of a baptism of fire last year. Having not done the 500 with the engine failure obviously, and then this event was my actual first oval race.

I mean, there's so much to learn. There's so many nuances. Luckily I've got loads of data and video to dive through. Every single event I feel like I'm improving.

Qualifying this week was a bit of a disappointment. I thought we were going to be a bit quicker than we were, but ultimately we had a strong car in the races and I felt comfortable, most importantly.

Q. Marcus, you obviously say you're getting better, but are there any specifics that you feel in this third year of your development that you are really improving on to have achieved this consistency across all types of track?

MARCUS ARMSTRONG: Well, it's very tight margins, obviously. I think Mid-Ohio qualifying was probably the best example of how close it is nowadays. It's very fine margins with the car and just maximizing what you have underneath you.

Yeah, every single day you've got to do your absolute best around here. I know it sounds very generic, but you can't really have a bad day. Alex is a great example. He never really has a bad day, nor does he have a bad lap, I don't think. That's the blueprint.

Q. Scott, you mentioned obviously watching Alex do what he's doing. Does it frustrate you as a teammate seeing him dominate as he is, and where do you feel like he has gained such an edge this year within the team?

SCOTT DIXON: It's hard to really pinpoint. I think, as far as the team, they really haven't any mistakes, even if it's in session. This year with us, we've had a ton of failures. We've had a lot of things kind of go wrong, and it's kind of hard to build on that. For them, they came out of the gate.

Qualifying was a little bit different for them at St. Pete, but they won the first race and then they were able to build on that. We kind of had our own issues there, which was kind of frustrating.

Yeah, I don't know. I think they're just covering everything. I think the style of car right now -- Alex, if you look at driving style, he has a very smooth driving style, actually quite similar to Dario, whereas with all that weight at the back in the hybrid it's quite difficult for me. It's not something that feels natural, and I just agitate the car a lot with my aggressive kind of style.

It's been a learning year for me and one to really try to grasp and do things a little bit better. The race stuff for me and slowing my hands down and all that stuff has been easier to adapt to than the qual situation.

But honestly Mid-Ohio, with the exception of Turn 9, I think the laps were very good, very close to Alex, and I'm making kind of small mistakes.

Yeah, they're just doing a hell of a job. It can be frustrating, but it's also cool to see. Some of us have had years like that where everything just clicks. For him and for the 10 car group, it's firing on all cylinders, and all you can do is just say congrats and clap. Good on them.

Q. Are you in favor of these double-header weekends, or would you prefer races like Iowa to go down to a single race in the future?

SCOTT DIXON: I think if the race is good -- this was definitely a rebound from last year. I think a successful kind of double-headers in the past -- Toronto was always a good one, Houston was quite a good one -- I think it works.

Yeah, I don't know. It's kind of above my pay grade to be honest. I'm happy to race wherever.