"For some reason, a car [Schecketer] slowed down in front of me and, in order for me to not crash him, I ended up crashing myself," Castroneves revealed, "I had to get out of the throttle which just pushed my car up into the marbles and then the wall."

Rahal, meanwhile went on to post his best-ever result on an oval of any sort.

"It shows how hard the McDonald's guys worked because, honestly, at the start of this weekend, we weren't where we wanted to be and we were struggling," Rahal commented, "We just kept working through it [and] it's great to be on the podium. We've been good on the short ovals but, now, we just need to find some more speed on the mile-and-a-halfs."

Mutoh survived to take a strong fourth, heading an AGR quartet that saw Danica Patrick - another not to stop under Briscoe's caution - Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti, both of whom used good pit work to rise from 17th and 16th respectively after qualifying, albeit coming in a lap down on Dixon.

"I wasn't sure how staying out on that first yellow would work out," Patrick admitted, "but I guess it did work out. When we first went back out we were really fast and we were picking people off, but I don't know if that had anything to do with that strategy working out."

Raphael Matos, Robert Doornbos and Dan Wheldon completed the top ten, the Dutchman recording his best oval finish, but there was to only a small improvement in EJ Viso's form, the HVM driver finishing twelfth but not enjoying the spoils of his best oval qualifying result after falling foul of the cautions and then brushing the wall in the closing stages.

Joining Conway and the two Penskes on the sidelines, Jaques Lazier found the wall on the opening lap as the Team 3G entry got away from him as the pack headed into turn three.

"The car just snapped on me and caught me by surprise," Briscoe said of his single-car accident at turn two, "It's obviously very disappointing and hopefully we can start catching back up next week in Watkins Glen."