Having figured out the problem, he spent the next six laps plugging his radio back in, while the Foyt team worked out which of various fuel strategies it was going to follow as the first half of the race ran nearly caution free.
Pitting again on lap 38, Manning inherited the lead when everyone else ahead of him pitted when the yellow came out two laps later for Vitor Meira's shunt - and Foyt immediately told him to start saving fuel as he could possibly make it to the end without stopping. An extended yellow period caused by two incidents behind the pace car, enabled the prediction to come true, but Manning still had to negotiate a handful of restarts when the race went green.
I was a sitting duck on the first restart because I knew I'd have to save fuel and was hoping to hold off as many as I could, he said, With the yellows that followed, I knew we'd be golden and was just waiting to hear the words from AJ to go full rich on my fuel trim.
The race quickly went yellow again when Enrique Bernoldi spun off at the first restart, and Manning's luck failed to hold second time around. Deciding to gas it between turns ten and eleven to avoid the dirt that Scott Dixon had thrown onto the track, the call was all that Ryan Hunter-Reay needed as he got a run on the #14 coming to the green. The American took the lead going into turn one and, although Manning challenged on the backstraight, his chance of victory ended when he was blocked by the new leader.
I decided to use discretion when we came to the Bus Stop, the Briton said, I saw that Tony [Kanaan] had dropped back and was licking his lips, thinking we wouldn't make it through - and then there was another caution and I had AJ yelling in my ear to do the same to Ryan. But I think he learned off of my restarts not to go too late and get one done early, going through the dirt that the guys had brought up a few laps earlier.
