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Long Beach IndyCar: Takuma Sato claims first win amid chaos

Takuma Sato claimed his first IndyCar victory in a chaotic race around the streets of Long Beach

Sato ran among the frontrunners throughout the afternoon, and moved into the lead as the field cycled through its pitstops during a caution period on lap 31.

From there, both he and his AJ Foyt Racing team were flawless. Sato was quick when he needed to be, looked after his tyres, enjoyed perfect service in the pits, and never appeared to have any problems managing the gap between himself and his pursuers.

He crossed the finish line under full-course yellows following a late crash between Tony Kanaan and Oriol Servia, but just prior to the crash he had a 5.2-second lead over Graham Rahal, so the yellow made little difference.

Rahal had matched Sato's pace early in the final stint before backing off in the hope of saving enough fuel to attack at the end, but Sato had enough in reserve himself to keep him at a distance.

Nevertheless, it was a good result for Rahal following a disappointing start to his season back with his father's Rahal Letterman Lanigan team.

Justin Wilson did a superb job to finish third for Dale Coyne Racing after starting from the rear of the field, the Brit making good use of the extra set of red tyres that he had available after not completing a lap in qualifying yesterday.

Polesitter Dario Franchitti was fourth, the Scot having lost time to a slow first pitstop.

He was followed across the line by JR Hildebrand, who had passed Panther stablemate Servia while he was recovering from his Kanaan encounter.

The Spaniard was initially issued a post-race penalty for avoidable contact, but this was later rescinded following an appeal by the team.

Servia had a similar penalty rescinded the previous day following an incident involving Scott Dixon in qualifying.

Elsewhere, there was chaos. Dixon, who started from the back of the field, was spun around early on by Tristan Vautier, sending the Kiwi into the pits to have a puncture repaired and Vautier in for a penalty.

Dixon fell a lap down, but later regained it and finished 10th.

Vautier meanwhile recovered to run as high as third late on before being issued yet another penalty, this time as the result of being released directly into the side of Will Power's car during a stop.

The resultant contact sent Power back into the pits on the next lap for minor repairs, compounding an already frustrating afternoon for the Penske driver, who had struggled badly on his primary tyres during the middle phase of the race.

His team-mates fared little better, with Helio Castroneves falling out of contention early after damaging his front wing, and AJ Allmendinger retiring with a mechanical problem.

Things were just as tough at Andretti, with James Hinchcliffe being squeezed into the wall and crashing out on a restart - an incident that also damaged the car of team-mate EJ Viso - and Ryan Hunter-Reay crashing while trying to pass Ana Beatriz.

Results - 80 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                        Time/Gap
 1.  Takuma Sato          Foyt Dallara-Honda         1h50m08.7155s
 2.  Graham Rahal         Rahal Dallara-Honda            + 5.3612s
 3.  Justin Wilson        Coyne Dallara-Honda            + 8.2386s
 4.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi Dallara-Honda         + 12.3573s
 5.  JR Hildebrand        Panther Dallara-Chevy         + 28.2402s
 6.  Oriol Servia         Panther/DRR Dallara-Chevy     + 29.4683s
 7.  Marco Andretti       Andretti Dallara-Chevy        + 30.2703s
 8.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt Dallara-Honda         + 31.8674s
 9.  Simona de Silvestro  KV Dallara-Chevy              + 33.1224s
10.  Helio Castroneves    Penske Dallara-Chevy          + 33.4118s
11.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi Dallara-Honda         + 33.6278s
12.  James Jakes          Rahal Dallara-Honda           + 35.0645s
13.  Josef Newgarden      Fisher Dallara-Honda          + 35.8945s
14.  Ana Beatriz          Coyne Dallara-Honda           + 36.3442s
15.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dragon Dallara-Chevy          + 36.5936s
16.  Will Power           Penske Dallara-Chevy          + 43.0022s
17.  Tristan Vautier      Schmidt Dallara-Honda         + 51.7961s
18.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter Dallara-Chevy       + 56.4533s
19.  Alex Tagliani        Herta Dallara-Honda             + 1 laps
20.  Tony Kanaan          KV Dallara-Chevy                + 2 laps
21.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi Dallara-Honda           + 2 laps
22.  EJ Viso              Andretti Dallara-Chevy         + 27 laps


Retirements:

     AJ Allmendinger      Penske Dallara-Chevy             51 laps
     Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti Dallara-Chevy           49 laps
     Mike Conway          Rahal Dallara-Honda              38 laps
     James Hinchcliffe    Andretti Dallara-Chevy           34 laps
     Sebastian Saavedra   Dragon Dallara-Chevy               1 lap

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