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St Petersburg IndyCar: Juan Pablo Montoya beats Will Power to win

Juan Pablo Montoya held off Penske team-mate Will Power to open the 2015 IndyCar season with a victory in St Petersburg

Power had been in command for much of the afternoon before conceding the lead to the ex-Formula 1 racer during the final round of stops.

Montoya tried to capitalise by opening a gap, but the need to conserve fuel and tyres forced him to back off and allowed Power to close down what had been a four second lead in just a few laps.

The battle between them was intense but short: Power made an optimistic move with a handful of laps to go, Montoya shut the door (and damaged Power's front wing in the process), and then finished the job by making quicker work of the lapped traffic in the final run to the flag.

"It was a good day," Montoya said. "Everybody did an amazing job.

"I saw [Power] trying a move and he was way too far back; no way I was going to give him the position.

"It's a shame we touched, but it's all good. It's racing."

Power admitted that his move was an optimistic one.

"It was my only chance," he said. "If I hadn't damaged my wing I'd maybe have had another shot, but man, he was so fast."

Ganassi's Tony Kanaan rounded out the podium after passing Helio Castroneves during his second stop, thus disrupting what would have otherwise been a Penske 1-2-3-4.

Castroneves held on to fourth despite losing some time on a restart, while Simon Pagenaud overcame minor damage from contact to finish his first race with the team in fifth.

Ryan Hunter-Reay recovered from an early mistake that dropped him to 17th to finish seventh behind Sebastien Bourdais, making him the highest-placed Honda-powered driver.

Behind the leaders, the race was a scrappy affair interrupted several times for cautions to remove debris; an apparent indicator of the new aero kits' propensity to shed winglets during contact.

Several cars needed to pit for new nosecones during the afternoon, but few drivers were more in the wars than Simona de Silvestro.

Her IndyCar comeback race was punctuated by two collisions; the first being a friendly-fire incident involving Andretti team-mates Marco Andretti and Carlos Munoz, and the second being a misjudged passing move than ended with her spearing into James Jakes.

The latter earned her a drive-through for avoidable contact; a punishment that was also meted out to Graham Rahal after he hit the crippled car of Charlie Kimball.

Amid all the messiness, Jack Hawksworth capitalised on an aggressive pit strategy to climb from last to eighth, putting him just ahead of Luca Filippi, who spent most of his maiden outing for CFH Racing nursing a broken wing.

RESULTS - 110 LAPS:

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Juan Pablo Montoya Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 2h16m58.1079s
2 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 0.9930s
3 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 11.1685s
4 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 11.4376s
5 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 12.3909s
6 Sebastien Bourdais KVSH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 16.4923s
7 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 27.7102s
8 Jack Hawksworth AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 34.9206s
9 Luca Filippi CFH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 38.1564s
10 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 38.6910s
11 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 40.3895s
12 Josef Newgarden CFH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 51.7710s
13 Takuma Sato AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 52.2688s
14 Carlos Munoz Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 56.7210s
15 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 59.6613s
16 James Hinchcliffe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m02.4581s
17 Gabby Chaves Bryan Herta Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m03.0667s
18 Simona de Silvestro Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m03.1422s
19 Sage Karam Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1 Lap
20 Stefano Coletti KV Racing Technology Dallara/Chevrolet 1 Lap
21 Charlie Kimball Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1 Lap
22 James Jakes Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 10 Laps
23 Francesco Dracone Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda Mechanical
24 Carlos Huertas Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda Mechanical

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