IndyCar: Ganassi's Hull on "the hardest-fought championship that we have ever won"

Scott Dixon's work behind the steering wheel of the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevy on Sunday played a massive part in the New Zealander's ability to clinch his fourth Verizon IndyCar Series championship.

And on pit lane, the work of his pit crew – led by Blair Julian, and on the timing stand, with race strategist Mike Hull and engineer Chris Simmons – made a big difference in Dixon's rise from third to first in the standings.

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"We went in thinking it was going to be a three-stop race, it's not going to be four," Hull told RACER as he started to describe how the race unfolded from the team's perspective. "We thought [Team Penske's] Tim Cindric and Will Power were going to look at it the same way since Will was starting on the pole. We thought at the end, after the last stop, the race is going to come down to Power and Dixon.

"The reason we thought that would happen was we looked at the race like Penske would look at it – if they could hold Dixon to second place with Power winning the race, which Will was certainly capable of doing at Sonoma, then Juan would win the championship. That is how we prepared ourselves to race. We assumed through three stops that we were going to be with Power at the end of the race."

With Power, a championship longshot, expected to keep Dixon from earning maximum points to use against Montoya's championship lead, Hull says focusing their efforts on any one driver in contention for the title was abandoned. Going after the win, rather than focus on points scenarios, was the only strategy worth pursuing and simplified their assignment.

"We talked about it briefly on the stand, and agreed there was no reason to get caught up trying to race any one guy, or worry about what kind of points they had at any point in the race," Hull continued. "We knew Power was going to be at the front, but then that changed. From the strategy side, it didn't turn out the way we thought it was going to turn out in terms of who we were going to be racing to the end.

"And it may sound obvious, but the goal that we set for ourselves was to win the race. And then with the math and the points, we figured winning would tell us if we won the championship or not. In fact, we never talked about the championship on the timing stand until after the race was over. And I honestly didn't know if we had won the championship until Scott crossed the line."

An unbelievable pit stop from the No. 9 crew moved Dixon into the lead among the pack of cars that stopped during the caution period on lap 35. Entering the pits in third, Dixon came out ahead of Power, who had been leading, and the rest of the title hopefuls. That transformational stop, as Dixon's engineer confirms, included a full tank of fuel.

"It wasn't a short fill," said Simmons. "It was full fuel and four tires. We were fortunate in where our pit box was located because we had a clear path in and a clear path out. Our crew needed to perform the three best pit stops of their lives, and that's exactly what they did on Sunday."

Dixon led the rest of the way and clinched the championship on a tie-breaker where his three wins trumped Montoya's pair of victories. Just as Hull noted the Target team wasn't keeping track of championship points, he also admits they didn't want to congratulate Dixon before confirming the final standings.

"I said to Dixon on the radio, 'Well done, great win,'" Hull remarked. "There was a long pause and I know he was freaking out in the car. He told me afterwards, 'I knew with the pause that there was a question about whether he won the championship...' Then Simmons said, 'We won, we won,' and I said, 'I'm not saying anything to Scott until you guys confirm and reconfirm for sure that that is the case."

Even though the rest of the world knew Dixon was IndyCar's newest champion, Hull & company broke out the calculator to make sure it was true.

"Then the fingers started working quickly, just to double-check the math, and they confirmed it," he continued. "So I told Scott as he was up around Turn 4 or 5, and I had a hard time talking, because for me this was probably the hardest-fought championship that we have ever won. Everyone's been having a hard time with what happened to Justin Wilson, and this one for me was emotionally difficult at the end. But it was a relief to tell Scott congratulations, and that he was the new champion. It was really cool, really cool."