In 2015, he won his fourth IndyCar championship, tying Juan Pablo Montoya on points but being declared series champion due to a count-back on the number of victories taken by both drivers.

[5][6] The family moved to Australia in 1976 in search of better opportunities, settling in Townsville before returning to Auckland, New Zealand, a decade later after a major accident involving his father.

[1] His father worked long hours importing Omega karts and cars from Japan,[1][2][12] to finance his son's endeavours and borrowed so much money he did not inform his wife about all of it.

[5] Aged 13, he began car racing, earning dispensation from Motorsport NZ to obtain a junior competition licence to enter club and national level events in categories up to Formula Ford after lobbying by his parents.

[1] For the 1995–1996 season, he drove a 1600cc light, low-downforce pushrod open-wheel car in the higher-tier New Zealand Formula Ford Class II Championship,[1][16] winning the category title with 13 victories in 14 events.

[1] Driving the 1992 SH Racing Reynard 92D–Holden car in the 12-round series,[17] Dixon achieved five wins, five second-places and seven pole positions to claim the Australian Gold Star Drivers' Championship,[16][21] after a season-long duel with future V8 Supercars racer Todd Kelly.

After seeing Dixon compete in Australia, media manager Brett Murray encouraged PacWest Racing's (PWR) Indy Lights development squad to employ him for the 2000 championship.

[30] Dixon won the Lehigh Valley Grand Prix at Nazareth Speedway on his third career start, driving 116 laps without stopping for fuel, becoming the youngest winner of a major open-wheel race at the age of 20 years, 9 months, and 14 days.

[4] Dixon and CGR switched from CART to the IndyCar Series before the 2003 season, partly due to financial incentives and a desire to compete in the Indianapolis 500.

[28] He entered the season-ending Chevy 500 at Texas Motor Speedway as one of five title contenders and tied on points with Team Penske's Hélio Castroneves who required a victory to win the championship.

[49] Dixon then won the following wet-weather Watkins Glen Indy Grand Prix, his fifth career victory, after passing Buddy Rice with nine laps left.

[56] Going into the season-ending Peak Antifreeze Indy 300 at Chicagoland Speedway, Dixon was one of four drivers mathematically eligible win the championship;[57] however, he finished second and was fourth overall with 460 points.

[28][49] He won three consecutive races at Watkins Glen, Nashville and Mid-Ohio, tying a series record set by Bräck in the 1998 season and Wheldon in the 2005 championship,[58] lowering Dario Franchitti's points advantage from 65 to 24.

[73] Following his finishes at Watkins Glen and Edmonton,[28] Dixon won his season's fourth race in the Honda 200 at Mid-Ohio, breaking Hornish's all-time victory record.

[77] Dixon's 2010 season began with three top-seven finishes in the first four races before leading 167 laps of the RoadRunner Turbo Indy 300 to win the event for the second consecutive year in Kansas.

[97] Dixon drove a Chevrolet-powered car for the first time in the 2014 season, after CGR switched from Honda to have both the IndyCar and NASCAR teams partnered with the same engine manufacturer.

[28] He qualified on pole for the Indianapolis 500; during the race, he crashed airborne into the inside barrier after hitting Jay Howard's left-rear wheel on lap 53.

[116] He finished no lower than tenth in the next six races, including consecutive second places at Gateway Motorsports Park and Watkins Glen, and was three points behind championship leader Josef Newgarden heading into the season-ending GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma.

[127] Following four top-five finishes, he held off teammate Felix Rosenqvist to win the Honda Indy 200 from eighth, his second and final victory of 2019 and sixth at Mid-Ohio.

[28] The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic delayed and shortened the 2020 season to 14 events,[129] and Indiana's lockdown required Dixon to prepare at home for the return to racing.

[136] Dixon took two pole positions in the second Genesys 300 round and the Indianapolis 500 but lost the championship lead to teammate Álex Palou after finishing 17th in the latter event.

[142] Dixon started the 2023 season improving his performance in qualifying from the year before, and securing a third position at St. Petersburg and top ten finishes in the three of the next four races as a result of a byproduct of an engineering and strategy team reshuffle.

[149] After two more top six finishes in the following three races with sub-par performances in qualifying,[28][150] he won the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix through another fuel-saving strategy and holding off Marcus Ericsson to take the championship lead from teammate Palou.

[151] Although he lost the realistic prospect of winning his seventh drivers' title after an accident at the Grand Prix of Portland,[152] his second-place finish in the second race of the Hy-Vee Milwaukee Mile 250s moved him past Mario Andretti for the record of most career IndyCar podiums with his 142nd.

He competed in the 2004 24 Hours of Daytona (part of the Rolex Sports Car Series) with Jimmy Morales, Max Papis, and Scott Pruett, finishing sixth in class and tenth overall in CGR's No.

1 car alongside Sébastien Bourdais, Palou, and Van Der Zande;[184] he missed the 12 Hours of Sebring because of an IndyCar commitment at Texas and was replaced by Ryan Hunter-Reay.

[154] Dixon was one of twelve drivers invited to compete in the four-race IROC stock car racing series in 2004, driving an identically prepared Pontiac Firebird.

7 Holden VE Commodore for the 2010 V8 Supercar Championship Series' Armor All Gold Coast 600 double header event,[g][198] finishing 20th in the first race and crashing in the second.

"[205] According to Racer's Jeff Olson, Dixon prefers to drive a car with oversteer for better driveability,[54][119] and racing journalist Marshall Pruett observes the driver's ability to perform 100 micro-corrections with the steering wheel during each lap.

[218] In July 2017, he appeared on Jay Leno's Garage,[219] and his life and 2017 IndyCar season were the subject of the 2018 Bryn Evans documentary Born Racer.