Wheldon, Patrick add colour to Milwaukee weekend.

Two of the IndyCar Series' more celebrated competitors took it upon themselves to add a little more colour to proceedings 'after hours' in the ABC Supply/AJ Foyt 225 at the Milwaukee Mile.

Dan Wheldon and Danica Patrick made contact on track on lap 88 of the race, and clashed again in pit-lane after the chequered flag, with both holding different views of the initial incident.

Running close on three-wide with Wheldon and last weekend's Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti, Patrick's front wing made contact with the left-rear wheel of Wheldon's Fuji-liveried Chip Ganassi car in turn one. The Andretti Green driver was the one to come off worst, her car getting away from her for a moment before being saved, but a bent track rod meant a longer-than-average pit-stop and all but ended any hopes Patrick may have had of reaching the podium.

"I went down the inside and got a really good run on him, went past Dario, pulled all the way up alongside Dan, drove down into the corner, all the way up alongside of him," Patrick told indycar.com afterwards, "I look in my mirror last second, Dario pulls to the inside, and it looks like he's maybe a quarter car width up on me, maybe a half at the most. I can't stay looking in my mirror all the way through the corner so, at that point in time, I have to assume it's three in. And that's actually what I heard in my ear, three-wide going into the corner.

"At that point, I held my line on the way in, which is what you have to do when you're three-wide. But Dan just turned down into the corner because, as he told me, you can't get caught up in the marbles, which to me means that you got passed. He turned down into me and spun me sideways. Luckily, I caught it and kept going. I think I had a car to win."

Wheldon, however, refused to believe that his rival was anywhere near being in position to make a pass.

"I think she had a run on Dario, and I think she thought she was alongside me," he countered, "Unfortunately for her, she wasn't. As she got out of it, I don't know what happened. I've been in this business long enough to know when someone is there and when somebody is not."

The disagreement continued when Patrick marched up to Wheldon post-race, attempting to take him on one side for a discussion. Her questions were initially met with silence before Wheldon insisted that he was trying to avoid ending up on the grey line that eventually caught out several other runners. That, Patrick insisted, was a sign that he should have accepted that he was being passed.

Wheldon later commented that perhaps his rival was feeling the pressure of being in a successful AGR line-up.