MONTREAL — New Zealand’s Scott Dixon, chasing his fifth IndyCar season title, won his third race of the year at Sunday’s Indy Toronto event, nearly doubling his edge in the points chase.

Dixon won his 44th career IndyCar race, third on the all-time list, and took his third win in six races since taking third at the Indianapolis 500 after triumphs in Detroit and Texas.

“I’m stoked. It was a big win,” Dixon said. “We were pretty sweet.”

A week shy of his 38th birthday, Dixon was a winner for the third time in his career over 85 laps on the 11-turn, 1.786-mile temporary street course at Toronto’s Exhibition Place.

Dixon, who won Toronto twice in 2013 when a pair of races were staged on back-to-back days, kept the lead through two intense restarts.

“I’m worn out. That was definitely a physical race,” Dixon said. “It was definitely a tough race on those restarts.”

France’s Simon Pagenaud was second with Canadian rookie Robert Wickens third in the field of 23 cars for the 12th of 17 season races.

Dixon entered the race with a 32-point lead in the season standings and left leading by 62 points over pole-sitter Josef Newgarden, who was undone by scraping the outer wall on an early restart.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” Newgarden said. “This doesn’t help but we have a lot of racing to get in.”

Defending champion Newgarden, starting alongside Dixon in row one, jumped ahead at the start and stayed there until compatriot Ryan Hunter-Reay hit a tire barrier to bring out caution flags.

On a lap-33 restart, Newgarden went wide and struck the outer wall, forcing him into the pits for repairs and allowing Dixon to seize the lead.

“We already had a lot of marbles,” said Newgarden. “I went straight into the wall. I thought it would be low grip but not zero grip.”

“It was easy to pick up debris on the tires and that’s what I think happened to Josef.” Dixon said.

Dixon pulled away on a lap-40 restart with Wickens second and Pagenaud third and the Kiwi racer kept his edge to the end.

Pagenaud passed Wickens in a bump-exchanged fight for second with 30 laps remaining.

“I wasn’t going to be nice. It’s racing,” said Pagenaud. “It was really tough out there. The track was changing all the time. It was a blast to drive, really difficult. When you have a good result like this it’s really rewarding.”

“I thought it was good, hard and fair,” Wickens said.

The next race will be the Indy Mid-Ohio 200 on July 29. — AFP