Former Formula 1 pundit Will Buxton has shocked fans by claiming that IndyCar driver Scott Dixon should be considered not just one of the greatest drivers of all time, but one of the greatest athletes — period.
The claim comes after Dixon won the most recent IndyCar race at Mid-Ohio, which means that he’s taken a victory in 21 consecutive seasons.
Will Buxton argues Scott Dixon should be considered ‘one of the greatest of all time’
While Spanish driver Alex Palou has been nearly unstoppable this year in IndyCar, his team-mate Scott Dixon snatched victory in the closing stages of the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio this past weekend. That means Dixon has taken at least one victory in American open-wheel racing for 21 consecutive seasons.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver opted for a bold two-stop strategy during the event in Ohio, even as his competitors all made great use of a three-stop strategy. Dixon’s choice meant he had to aggressively save fuel throughout the entire race — and even then, it looked as if he’d be usurped by Palou.
Then, in the final five laps of the event, Palou lost concentration and ran into the marbles. The rare moment of distraction was enough for Dixon to slip through, and he was able to defend against the younger driver all the way through to the chequered flag.
That means Dixon has won a race in American open-wheel for 21 consecutive seasons, and that he’s won in 23 seasons overall (as he failed to win races in 2002 and 2004).
Quoting a post from the IndyCar Series on X that stated the aforementioned stat, long-time F1 pundit turned IndyCar commentator Will Buxton wrote, “Give me another elite athlete, in one of the most physically and mentally demanding sports on earth, who has performed this well and this consistently for over 20 years. Dixon is a beast. And an absolute legend. One of racing’s all time greats. No question.”
Those are impressive stats… but does that qualify Scott Dixon as one of the greatest racers in motorsport history?
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Scott Dixon is an exceptional driver, but…
Scott Dixon’s decades-long winning streak in IndyCar is certainly a stat worth being proud of, but it ignores a lot of critical history to contextualise the accomplishment. Namely, the health of American open-wheel racing throughout Dixon’s tenure in the sport.
The sport we know as IndyCar in 2025 was formed out of the ashes of two near-bankrupt American open-wheel series that joined forces in 2008 to stave off bankruptcy. Those two factions changed names over the years but had been at one another’s throats since the late 1970s.
Dixon’s top-level professional career began in 2001, prior to that reunification, when he joined the CART series. CART had thrived the previous decade, but by the 2000s, it was clear that its time in the sun was rapidly coming to an end. The health of American open-wheel suffered as a result.
Dixon was able to enjoy the final few years of success, which included international racing events and an active schedule, but that quickly faded. In its place arose a sport that adopted a spec chassis, haemorrhaged teams and engine suppliers, and lost many of its major, eye-catching events. While many talented drivers remained, many more simply filled out the field because they could offer a pay cheque to keep their team afloat.
The racing was often exceptional, wins were often hard-fought, and the cream of the crop — i.e., drivers like Dixon — emerged as championship winners.
Dixon has 59 open-wheel wins to his name, as well as six championships. He’s maintained a level of performance required to win for two and a half decades, and he’s also translated his open-wheel success into major endurance racing wins.
When it comes to the IndyCar series, there is absolutely no question: Scott Dixon is the GOAT. But is he the greatest racer ever?
Can you ever compare IndyCar to Formula 1?
Given Buxton’s bona fides in the F1 space, many of the folks who replied to his X post raised examples of Formula 1 legends they thought were perhaps more deserving of the title — men like Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton who have had lengthy and impressive racing careers of their own.
Buxton adamantly shut down the argument that Alonso should be considered in the same realm as Dixon and noted that drivers like Hamilton and Michael Schumacher came the closest to Dixon’s consecutive win record with 15 seasons of victories.
But is it even possible to compare an F1 driver to an IndyCar driver? Is it even possible to compare Dixon to an earlier IndyCar legend, or Hamilton to the F1 drivers that came before him?
In all forms of motorsport, the circumstances around competing for years at a time have changed, which dramatically influences stats regarding things like consecutive years winning races.
Racing cars in the 1950s, for example, were notoriously dangerous and unreliable, which meant that otherwise great drivers could have been killed well before they ever came close to racing for 20 years; if they lived, the chances of their car surviving a majority of races in race-winning capacity would still be extremely slim.
That doesn’t mean those earlier drivers were less skilled; it just means the sport looked a lot different to today.
There’s a similar logic at play when comparing two different series. Modern F1 pushes technological boundaries that has drawn significant manufacturer interest, while the spec nature of IndyCar means it’s been tough to convince automakers to make the investment.
So, in F1, it’s completely possible that one automaker produces a shoddy engine and totally demolishes an otherwise great driver’s ability to secure victory, such as Alonso slamming his “GP2 engine.” It’s possible that one team has the financial resource to pour into building a dominant team, like Mercedes in the late 2010s. Theoretically, IndyCar should provide a more level playing field for all competitors, so can we compare an IndyCar driver’s mastery over fairly stable circumstances to F1’s changeability?
The only real way to determine a title like the “greatest racer of all time,” shouldn’t be looking at any driver’s mastery of a single motorsport discipline; we should be looking at the drivers who are competitive any time they race something.
Scott Dixon is great — one of the greatest drivers to ever compete in American open-wheel racing. But the greatest athlete ever? That’s a much harder sell.
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