The decrease in the Brazilian's pace almost resulted in another yellow as Viso was caught out by the differential and only just managed to pull his HVM entry up in time to avoid collecting the back of the Penske in traffic - a plume of smoke from nose wing making contact with tyre underlining the narrowness of the escape.

Castroneves bowed to the inevitable at the end of the lap, leaving the battle for honours to be fought out between Wheldon, Mutoh and Andretti. The Briton did not appear to be under any great threat, especially as Andretti began to exert serious pressure on second place.

The AGR machine seemed to have the better pace through turns one and two, but not enough to make a move stick before the pair got to three and four. Time after frustrating time, the Blockbuster machine ducked to the outside without success and, then, after one last attempt two laps from home, had to check up, almost falling into the clutches of the recovering Dixon, showing his best form of the night.

Freed from the attention behind, Mutoh made a play for the victory, but Wheldon, having watched his Ganassi crew build up a fresh car for him overnight, repaid the efforts by holding on for his first victory since Kansas.

Just 0.1430secs separated the top two at the flag, with Andretti also less than a second from the leader. Dixon and Foyt claimed fourth and fifth - the former to bolster his points leader, the latter to record his best result of the year - having both passed Patrick on the run to the flag.

Briscoe, in seventh, Hunter-Reay, Power and Graham Rahal rounded out the top ten, with Andretti Sr, Wilson and Viso the remaining cars on the lead lap.