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Will Power purged old demons with a dominating run to the chequered flag at Auto Club Speedway, with the season finale and title decider turning into a gruelling war of attrition.

Andrew Lewin_1

20 Oct 2013

When the chequered flag finally waved at the end of three and a half hours of non-stop action, less than a third of the starting field - just eight cars - were still on track to take their final bow at the conclusion of the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series season.

Will Power dominated the MAVTV 500 and ultimately proved impossible to beat, pulling out a big lead of nearly a second and a half in just the final eight lap run to the line following the seventh caution of the race under the floodlights at the two-mile Auto Club Speedway oval in Fontana, California, with Ed Carpenter not quite able to score a back-to-back win in the event and Indy 500 champion Tony Kanaan coming home in third ahead of James Hichcliffe.

His Penske team mate Helio Castroneves did everything he could to surge to the front early on in an effort to edge Ganassi's Scott Dixon for the 2013 title, but he faded in the midsection of the race and finally damage to his front wing put him off the lead lap and allowed Dixon a relatively easy run to the chequered flag in fifth place as the last man standing on the lead lap, thereby sealing his third championship in ten years.

There were a number of accidents during the race, but the most serious was on lap 110 when Justin Wilson got caught out by hitting one of the track seams and spun in the #19 Dale Coyne Racing car. Josef Newgarden crashed into Oriol Servi? while trying to avoid Wilson, and Rahal Letterman Lanigan's James Jakes crashed into the wall after being unsighted by wheel smoke and hit by debris from the wreck. However it was Tristan Vautier running right into Wilson's stricken car that resulted in the Englishman having to be dispatched to the hospital with suspected pelvis and back injuries.

Race results

1. #12 Will Power Penske Chevrolet 3hrs 13mins 42.8699secs after 250 laps
2. #20 Ed Carpenter Ed Carpenter Chevrolet + 1.4883s
3. #11 Tony Kanaan KV Racing Chevrolet + 1.8615s
4. #27 James Hinchcliffe Andretti Chevrolet + 3.0395s
5. #9 Scott Dixon Ganassi Honda + 15.8759s
6. #3 Helio Castroneves Penske Chevrolet + 1 laps
7. #25 Marco Andretti Andretti Chevrolet + 2 laps
8. #78 Simona de Silvestro KV Racing Chevrolet + 3 laps
9. #1 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Chevrolet + 8 laps Pit lane

Retirements#83 Charlie Kimball Ganassi Honda + 12 laps Mechanical#98 JR Hildebrand BHA Honda + 13 laps Mechanical#7 Sebastien Bourdais Dragon Chevrolet + 21 laps Contact#77 Simon Pagenaud Schmidt Honda + 33 laps Mechanical#10 Alex Tagliani Ganassi Honda + 41 laps Contact#15 Graham Rahal RLL Honda + 50 laps Mechanical#2 AJ Allmendinger Penske Chevrolet + 62 laps Contact#14 Takuma Sato AJ Foyt Honda + 106 laps Mechanical#19 Justin Wilson Dale Coyne Honda + 140 laps Contact#4 Oriol Servi? Panther Chevrolet + 140 laps Contact#67 Josef Newgarden SFHR Honda + 140 laps Contact#55 Tristan Vautier Schmidt Honda + 140 laps Contact#16 James Jakes RLL Honda + 140 laps Contact#5 Carlos Munoz Andretti-HVM Chevrolet + 150 laps Contact#6 Sebastian Saavedra Dragon Chevrolet + 181 laps Contact#18 Pippa Mann Dale Coyne Honda + 182 laps Contact

Fastest Lap#27 James Hinchcliffe Andretti Chevrolet 32.9518s 218.501mph on lap 127

Championship standings

1. Scott Dixon 577pts
2. Helio Castroneves 550pts
3. Simon Pagenaud 508pts
4. Will Power 498pts
5. Marco Andretti 484pts
6. Justin Wilson 472pts
7. Ryan Hunter-Reay 469pts
8. James Hinchcliffe 449pts
9. Charlie Kimball 427pts
10. Dario Franchitti 418pts
11. Tony Kanaan 397pts
12. Sebastien Bourdais 370pts
13. Simona de Silvestro 362pts
14. Josef Newgarden 348pts
15. EJ Viso 340pts
16. Ed Carpenter 333pts
17. Takuma Sato 322pts
18. Graham Rahal 319pts
19. James Jakes 294pts
20. Tristan Vautier 266pts
21. Sebastian Saavedra 236pts
22. Oriol Servia 233pts
23. Mike Conway 185pts
24. Alex Tagliani 180pts
25. JR Hildebrand 112pts
26. Ryan Briscoe 100pts
27. AJ Allmendinger 79pts
28. Carlos Mu?oz 74pts
29. Ana Beatriz 72pts
30. Luca Filippi 53pts
31. Pippa Mann 34pts
32. James Davison 27pts
33. Stefan Wilson 14pts
34. Conor Daly 11pts
35. Townsend Bell 10pts
36. Katherine Legge 8pts
==. Lucas Luhr 8pts
==. Buddy Lazier 8pts