Careful hoarding of his push-to-pass power boosts early in the race gave Helio Castroneves the means to hold off a hard-charging Takuma Sato for the final 16 laps of the caution-free Edmonton Indy race in Canada at Edmonton City Center Airport on Sunday afternoon.
Alex Tagliani had led for almost two thirds of the race, but struggled on his final set of tyres and dropped back, which allowed Will Power to complete his recovery from 17th on the grid after his engine penalty all the way back to third place. By contrast, Ryan Hunter-Reay could only manage a seventh place finish after claiming pole on Saturday and tarting from 11th following his own grid penalty.
As a result, the IZOD
IndyCar Series championship standings are closer than ever, with Hunter-Reay now just 22pts off Castroneves who has moved in front of his Penske team mate Power.
Race results1.
#3 Helio Castroneves (C) 1:38:50.9294s (75 laps)2.
#15 Takuma Sato (H) + 0.8367s3.
#12 Will Power (C) + 5.3697s4.
#38 Graham Rahal (H) + 6.9481s5.
#98 Alex Tagliani (H) + 15.2358s6.
#10 Dario Franchitti (H) + 15.8757s7.
#28 Ryan Hunter-Reay (C) + 21.5357s8.
#2 Ryan Briscoe (C) + 23.5311s9.
#18 Justin Wilson (H) + 26.3280s10.
#9 Scott Dixon (H) + 26.6481s11.
#14 Mike Conway (H) + 27.0458s12.
#27 James Hinchcliffe (C) + 31.4527s13.
#8 Rubens Barrichello (C) + 35.1256s14.
#26 Marco Andretti (C) + 39.8669s15.
#7 Sebastien Bourdais (C) + 40.8154s16.
#5 EJ Viso (C) + 55.1028s17.
#67 Josef Newgarden (H) + 56.0449s18.
#11 Tony Kanaan (C) + 57.0272s19.
#83 Charlie Kimball (H) + 1:04.8947s *
20.
#77 Simon Pagenaud (H) + 1 laps21.
#4 JR Hildebrand (C) + 1 laps22.
#20 Ed Carpenter (C) + 1 laps23.
#78 Simona de Silvestro (L) + 2 lapsRetirements24.
#22 Oriol Servia (C) + 10 laps (Mechanical)25.
#19 James Jakes (H) + 32 laps (Mechanical)Fastest lap: 77.3629s (103.491mph) on lap 68 by Josef Newgarden (#67)* includes 30s penalty for causing avoidable contact(C)=Chevy, (H)=Honda, (L)=Lotus