Will Power scored his first IndyCar Series championship. The Australian who started from the twenty-first place has made an incredible comeback that has allowed him to win the championship. Kanaan won the race at Auto Club Motorspeedway, becoming the eleventh different winner this year and has done well with the historic 10th Wheldon and Franchitti used to wear.
The race of their life for Team Penske drivers, Helio Castroneves, from pole position and Will Power from the last place. Although the two Penske drivers were the favorites for the title, we also had to have the European Simon Pagenaud, who needed to win the race to become champion. Castroneves instead needed to win the race and Power to finish eighth, if he finished second, he needed Power to finish sixteenth and if he finished third and Power in twenty-first. Power came instead to a 50-point lead and only needed to finish sixth or better, complicated task considering starting with his rivals ahead of him.
The race began with a Castroneves losing the lead with Montoya, though the two teammates would change this place under the gaze of Scott Dixon. Power was nineteenth, and fifteenth Pagenaud, in this situation Castroneves was champion. But in the eleventh lap, Castroneves lost the second with Dixon, making Power the interim champion from sixteenth position.
While Power making his comeback, Pagenaud was the opposite and was forced to stop suddenly on lap 22, a stop that went wrong matters worse, where the French lost much time. Despite this bad luck, Schmidt Peterson Motorsport was out of the fight for the championship seeing how Carlos Huertas stopped his car in the pit lane, taking the twenty-first position.
On lap 34 Montoya stopped for the first time, then the other drivers would do the same. Once everyone had made ??their stops, Montoya continued to maintain the lead followed by Dixon, Hinchcliffe, Kanaan and Castroneves in fifth place; Power was twelfth.
On lap 50 the top 3 were together, and Hinchcliffe would get between the Chevys of Montoya and Dixon in second place. The Canadian was not content with second place and began to attack the Colombian for the race lead. The Andretti Autosport got the top spot on lap 58.
Montoya was the first to make the second stop on lap 66, everyone but Hinchliffe still on track until lap 73 had followed the Colombian, bad move for the Canadian who lost two seconds per lap. This radically changed the ranking with Hinchcliffe coming down to eighth place, Montoya back into the lead with a distance of 7 seconds over Castroneves, Carpenter was third, followed by Dixon and Hunter-Reay, Power rolled tenth.
Castroneves hurry to close the gap with his teammate, half a second a lap faster with tyres with 6 laps less than the Colombian. But when the Brazilian had managed to cut the distance to 4 seconds ahead Carpenter would overtake him on lap 85, 8 laps later the Penske was surpassed by Dixon, Hunter-Reay would do the same. Meanwhile, Carpenter managed to be at 1 second from Montoya around lap 100, when Montoya decided to make his third stop, Carpenter did it 2 laps later, leaving the lead to Hunter-Reay, who stopped on lap 107. Unfortunately for Carpenter, all efforts have caught Montoya had been for nothing, with the penalty for speed excess in the pit lane.
Montoya was leading the race after the third stop, Castroneves was second with Hunter-Reay third, fourth Kanaan, Newgarden fifth and Power ninth.
Castroneves lost second place on Lap 117, the 2012 champion was going directly to Montoya, getting the lead of the race on lap 120 Hunter-Reay managed to gain a distance of up to 5 seconds.
The fourth stop came on lap 132 for Newgarden, but the front did not stop until lap 137 with Castroneves. Hunter-Reay did in the 140, Dixon did two laps later.
This made Castroneves return to the lead after the fourth stop, Montoya was second but lost two places at once with Kanaan and Hunter-Reay. Dixon was fifth and seventh Power rolling in no man’s land.
A lack of 80 laps and a few laps before the fifth stop, Kanaan and Hunter-Reay kept an intense battle for second place with the participation of Charlie Kimball by blocking Indy 500 champion who was suffering, but this spun on lap 175, causing the first caution of the race. This made close the pit lane, so it meant that when opened, all drivers would stop at the same time. This is what happened on lap 178, Kanaan took the first position followed by Dixon, Castroneves, Power and Montoya at the pit lane exit.
The race resumed on lap 187, Power and Castroneves were parallel in the fight for third place, but Power overtook him and so did with the two Target Chip Ganassi, getting the first position in the absence of 60 laps. Kanaan regained the lead eight laps later, with Power coming down to third place. A few laps later, Carpenter was also ahead him.
The sixth and final tyre change was made to wait for the leaders of the race, which tried to maintain the maximum possible their set of tyres, they had to get in the end. On lap 216, Castroneves came at last, Dixon, Carpenter, Power and Montoya did a lap later, Kanaan was the last to stop.
Kanaan was the leader followed by Caprenter, Castroneves and Power, but Castroneves was penalized for raping input line in pit lane. This left Castroneves out of any attempt to secure the championship, and losing 1 run on the race leader. Power could roll it quiet with his two rivals out to get a good result. Thus Power fell to fifth place with 25 laps to go, four laps later he was overtaken by Hinchcliffe. Then by Sato and Briscoe, all in a conservative and smart strategy. Muñoz will also overtake him in the absence of 5 laps.
Kanaan has become the eleventh different driver to win a race this year, Power wins the championship and Castroneves ends a runner-up for the fourth time, Pagenaud has dropped from third to fifth in the final standings.
Results:
Pos. | Car | Driver | Team | Gap | Diff | |
1 | 10 | Tony Kanaan | BRA | Target Chip Ganassi Racing | 250 Laps | |
2 | 9 | Scott Dixon | AUS | Target Chip Ganassi Racing | + 3,675 | + 3,675 |
3 | 20 | Ed Carpenter | USA | Ed Carpenter Racing | + 7,305 | + 3,630 |
4 | 2 | Juan Pablo Montoya | COL | Team Penske | + 7,923 | + 0,618 |
5 | 27 | James Hinchcliffe | CAN | Andretti Autosport | + 11,885 | + 3,962 |
6 | 14 | Takuma Sato | JAP | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | + 12,688 | + 0,803 |
7 | 8 | Ryan Briscoe | AUS | NTT Data Chip Ganassi Racing | + 16,511 | + 3,823 |
8 | 34 | Carlos Muñoz | COL | Andretti Autosport – HVM Racing | + 23,280 | + 6,769 |
9 | 12 | Will Power | AUS | Team Penske | + 28,345 | + 5,065 |
10 | 67 | Josef Newgarden | USA | Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing | + 32,185 | + 3,840 |
11 | 25 | Marco Andretti | USA | Andretti Autosport | + 1 Lap | |
12 | 83 | Charlie Kimball | USA | Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing | + 1 Lap | |
13 | 19 | Justin Wilson | GBR | Dale Coyne Racing | + 1 Lap | |
14 | 3 | Helio Castroneves | BRA | Team Penske | + 1 Lap | |
15 | 98 | Jack Hawksworth | GBR | BHA / BBM with Curb-Agajanian | + 1 Lap | |
16 | 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | USA | Andretti Autosport | + 1 Lap | |
17 | 17 | Sebastien Saavedra | COL | KV AFS Racing | + 2 Laps | |
18 | 11 | Sebastien Bourdais | FRA | KVSH Racing | + 5 Laps | |
19 | 15 | Graham Rahal | USA | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | + 6 Laps | |
20 | 77 | Simon Pagenaud | FRA | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | + 7 Laps | |
DNF | 18 | Carlos Huertas | COL | Dale Coyne Racing | Driver illness | |
DNS | 7 | Mikhail Aleshin | RUS | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | Friday Accident |
Final classification of the championship:
1 | #12 | Will Power | Team Penske | AUS | 671 |
2 | #3 | Helio Castroneves | Team Penske | BRA | 609 |
3 | #9 | Scott Dixon | Target Chip Ganassi Racing | NZL | 604 |
4 | #2 | Juan Pablo Montoya | Team Penske | COL | 585 |
5 | #77 | Simon Pagenaud | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | FRA | 565 |
6 | #28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | Andretti Autosport | USA | 563 |
7 | #10 | Tony Kanaan | Target Chip Ganassi Racing | BRA | 483 |
8 | #34 | Carlos Muñoz | Andretti Autosport-HVM Racing | COL | 463 |
9 | #25 | Marco Andretti | Andretti Autosport | USA | 461 |
10 | #11 | Sebastien Bourdais | KVSH Racing | FRA | 461 |
11 | #8 | Ryan Briscoe | NTT Data Chip Ganassi Racing | AUS | 456 |
12 | #27 | James Hinchcliffe | Andretti Autosport | CAN | 442 |
13 | #67 | Josef Newgarden | Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing | USA | 406 |
14 | #83 | Charlie Kimball | Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing | USA | 402 |
15 | #19 | Justin Wilson | Dale Coyne Racing | GBR | 395 |
16 | #98 | Jack Hawksworth | BHA/BBM with Curb-Agajanian | GBR | 366 |
17 | #7 | Mikhail Aleshin | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | RUS | 364 |
18 | #14 | Takuma Sato | A.J. Foty Enterprises | JAP | 350 |
19 | #15 | Graham Rahal | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | USA | 345 |
20 | #18 | Carlos Huertas | Dale Coyne Racing | COL | 314 |
21 | #17 | Sebastian Saavedra | KV AFS Racing | COL | 291 |
22 | #20 | Ed Carpenter | Ed Carpenter Racing | USA | 262 |
23 | #20 | Mike Conway | Ed Carpenter Racing | GBR | 252 |
24 | #16 | Oriol Servia | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | SPA | 88 |
25 | #26 | Kurt Busch | Andretti Autosport | USA | 80 |
26 | #21 | JR Hildebrand | Ed Carpenter Racing | USA | 66 |
27 | #22 | Sage Karam | Dreyer & Reinbold Kingdom Racing | USA | 57 |
28 | #16 | Luca Filippi | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | ITA | 46 |
29 | #33 | James Davison | KV Racing Technology | AUS | 34 |
30 | #5 | Jacques Villeneuve | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | CAN | 29 |
31 | #68 | Alex Tagliani | Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing | CAN | 28 |
32 | #6 | Townsend Bell | KV Racing Technology | USA | 22 |
33 | #63 | Pippa Mann | Dale Coyne Racing | GBR | 21 |
34 | #41 | Martin Plowman | A.J. Foty Enterprises | GBR | 18 |
35 | #91 | Buddy Lazier | Lazier Partners Racing, Inc. | USA | 11 |
36 | #26 | Frank Montagny | Andretti Autosport | FRA | 8 |