\u201cI\u2019ve had some wheel-time racing at Daytona [24 Hour] and I bought a kart during the off-season. Some people may think driving a kart isn\u2019t that good but it\u2019s really helpful and very physical.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel rejuvenated this year and I know what I have to do. I don\u2019t have to change too much, just execute better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team Penske\u2019s year to forget included major senior role changes after numerous cheating allegations and the biggest driver change in decades. Will Power was let go after 17 years of being in the hunt for a championship with the team, delivering two IndyCar titles and being Penske\u2019s best-placed driver in 2025.<\/p>\n
Heading into his 25th consecutive IndyCar season, Kiwi Scott Dixon already has six titles and looks set to continue setting all-time records that will probably never be beaten. He has 23 seasons with at least one win and 21 on the spin, he has 419 race starts with 356 of them consecutive, 145 podiums, 216 top five finishes and 59 wins (second only to A.J. Foyt).<\/p>\n
The 45-year-old still has the same passion for the sport as he had when he first arrived in the series and ruling him out of clinching his seventh IndyCar championship would be churlish.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very excited for 2026 with the No 9 PNC Bank Honda team. We had a big deep dive into the data this off-season,\u201d Dixon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were lots of positives and we found some things we could have executed a little bit better on. For us, it\u2019s all in the details. As a team, we\u2019ve got to keep the momentum going, and I think this year should be big for all of us at Chip Ganassi Racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
This weekend, the now Sir Scott Dixon will be hoping to get a bit of a monkey off his back. He\u2019s had 21 starts at St Petersburg and has yet to stand on the top spot, although he has finished on the podium seven times.<\/p>\n
The third Kiwi in the field is Marcus Armstrong, who was a bit of a sleeper in 2025 after he produced his best season so far by finishing eighth with Myer Shank Racing.<\/p>\n
He had his first podium with a third at Iowa and 11 top-10 finishes. With most of the paddock and fans watching the likes of Palou, Dixon, McLaughlin, Power et al, Armstrong could be the joker in the pack.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the risk of sounding boring, I\u2019d have to say 2025 was consistent,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were fast but I didn\u2019t always execute perfectly, but we were always there or thereabout.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of those where we\u2019ve been in the game but haven\u2019t really done what we wanted to do. The important thing is that we have been getting better every single race and that\u2019s a real thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cMomentum is important going into this year and keeping the same team helps with continuity, which is very important and a fundamental part of doing well. This championship is so competitive and if you don\u2019t do everything perfectly you\u2019re going to P19 in qualifying.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you put it all together you can get right up there on the front row, and if you don\u2019t get it right, you\u2019re at the back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019ve had some wheel-time racing at Daytona [24 Hour] and I bought a kart during the off-season. Some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2246,74187,95,1975,18239,32294,124,84394,15211,5756,194,7240,20297,111,139,69,20248,10521,167119,18833,1439,8139,1963,21410,213,11420,1961,4767,6923,1533,102],"class_list":["post-305545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-2246","tag-ages","tag-and","tag-at","tag-championship","tag-charge","tag-could","tag-dixon","tag-drivers","tag-indycar","tag-kiwi","tag-lead","tag-mclaughlin","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opener","tag-opening","tag-petersburg","tag-round","tag-scene","tag-scott","tag-series","tag-shine","tag-sports","tag-st","tag-this","tag-weekend","tag-what","tag-will","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}