Hunter-Reay gets second win in a row at Milwaukee

The race started with excellent weather conditions. Marco Andretti kept the first place, and Hinchcliffe lost two places with Power and Viso.

The first yellow came out on lap 22, when Simona de Silvestro (KV Racing) has made a low contact with the wall, she was able to continue on the race 6 laps behind the leader, but finally she had to retire on lap 69. Some drivers, all of them on the back positions, have pitted during this yellow period. The green flag was waved again on lap 28, but Alex Talgiani spun at the restart, so we had a new full course yellow. Graham Rahal damaged his front wing, but he has been able to continue after pitting.

When drivers in front had pitted around lap 70, Takuma Sato and Helio Castroneves, who had pitted during the first yellow, went to first and second place, but as the race kept going without yellow flags, on lap 92 Sato and Castroneves had to pit, and EJ Viso took the lead. Marco Andretti had done a very bad stop, due to an issue with fuel line, and he had to stop again, but the crew couldn’t solve the problem and Andretti’s ran out of fuel at the backstretch, causing a new yellow on lap 98 and abandoning the race. Front drivers pitted again, so Sato and Castroneves recovered the lead, but now they were on the same lap of Hunter-Reay (who overtook Viso at the pit lane), but they all had similar amount of fuels and similar tires.

The restart was quite interesting. Takuma Sato and Helio Castroneves started to open a gap over Hunter-Reay, Viso, Hinchcliffe and Power, all them doing a very consistent race. Behind of them was Scott Dixon, who had recovered four positions. The race was not being very funny in terms of position changes, but all drivers were very close to each other. Takuma Sato was opening a considerable gap over Castroneves, but Ed Carpenter was in front of him and blocked Sato during a lot of laps, so Castroneves closed the gap just before the window of the third stop. When all drivers had stopped, Sato started to open the gap over Castroneves again, but he found again with Ed Carpenter, the Japanese will dream with the American, because he blocked Sato again, so the gap went over again, and this time Hunter-Reay also took advantage of this, and he overtook Castroneves and the Sato, who pitted early for the last time. The strategy did not work, because of a yellow flag 35 laps before of the end, so Sato had to drive behind the pace car meanwhile all drivers made their final stop, so he couldn’t recover the first position and stayed on seventh. Hunter-Reay left the pits at first position, and he drove very comfortable until the end, but behind of him Will Power was trying to overtake his team mate Helio Castroneves, the final laps were a hard fight for them, but finally Castroneves maintained the second place and Will Power closed the podium. EJ Viso finished fourth after a consistent race, James Hinchcliffe finished on fifth and Dixon closed the top 6.