Having qualified on row two, Justin Wilson was hopeful of a strong result in the Honda Indy 200 but, although he again showed great pace in the #02 car he had to settle for eleventh after two separate incidents.
The first excursion was entirely the Briton's own fault, but proved to be a catalyst to the second, which involved four others cars and put the seal on a race that go away from the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing star.
Heavy rain an hour before the Mid-Ohio race saw all 26 cars start on treaded rubber but, with the sun shining on a rapidly-drying track, it only took two laps for slicks to gain the upper hand. Wilson had moved into the lead of the race by lap five, but pitted at the end of that tour to switch tyres. Having lost out to eventual podium finishers Helio Castroneves and Scott Dixon in the race off pit-road, the Briton then lost further ground when he pushed the cold slicks beyond their limit on his out-lap.
“After I left the pits, I was just trying to get the tyres up to temperature,” he sighed, "I was on a damp part of the track and spun one of the rear wheels. When it grabbed, it turned me hard right and the slide off the track lost us a few places.”
The loss of momentum dropped the McDonalds car back to 16th but, after running quickly and staying out when the leaders pitted during a full course caution on lap 27, Wilson put the hammer down with the aim of building a sufficient lead under green flag conditions to move up the order at his next pit-stop. Between laps 30 and 37, he built an impressive 4.4secs gap over the rest of the field but, before he could capitalise on it, another full course yellow undid all his hard work.
![Justin Wilson at the centre of four-car incident at Mid-Ohio involving Dan Wheldon (far right) Marco Andretti (centre) and AJ Foyt IV [pic credit: IRL/Payne]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/471888.jpg)
