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Texas IndyCar: Will Power wins crash-strewn race for Penske

Penske driver Will Power claimed his second victory of the 2017 IndyCar season in a heavily disrupted Texas Motor Speedway race that finished under caution

The high-attrition event featured nine cautions, many for crashes and incidents.

Power emerged unscathed to claim the win and lead home Chip Ganassi's Tony Kanaan.

Having started in ninth place, Power hit the front for the first time after the opening caution for Alexander Rossi's early crash.

He continued to feature at the front of the pack through the pitstop phases and found himself in a close battle between five cars towards the end of the race.

The final caution came with just five laps remaining, when Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato clipped the grass and collected Scott Dixon while battling for second place.

With limited time and four damaged cars to clear - after Conor Daly and ex-Formula 1 driver Max Chilton got caught up in the aftermath - the race finished under caution.

Behind Power, it was Kanaan who rallied back from falling two laps down to claim the runner-up spot.

He survived several incidents but lost ground with a stop and hold penalty.

This was for blocking and causing an avoidable collision in a multi-car crash that took out several leading contenders and changed the course of the race.

James Hinchcliffe was drawing alongside Kanaan when he was squeezed and lost control, crashing into early leader Tristan Vautier - who then speared into Mikhail Aleshin.

Eight cars were involved in total, with Carlos Munoz, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Ed Jones and JR Hildebrand getting caught up too. Ed Carpenter also suffered damage but did later reappear.

The race was red flagged for just over 30 minutes while the cars were cleared, with Kanaan two laps down at the time, but the following cautions - two of which were competition yellows - allowed him back onto the lead lap.

Quick progress on the late restart and the Sato/Dixon collision elevated him to second, with Simon Pagenaud emerging from the incident-filled race in third place.

Last year's Texas winner Graham Rahal was fourth, with Gabby Chaves and Marco Andretti - who recovered from being lapped - the only other drivers on the lead lap.

Penske's Josef Newgarden could have been in contention for victory after bouncing back from an earlier drive-through penalty, but he tried to go three-wide late on and crashed out.

Alongside Rossi, Helio Castroneves was another driver to find the wall early on the race, suffering a flat right-front tyre at Turn 2 just after he had moved into third place.

Early leader and polesitter Charlie Kimball retired in the opening pitstop phase, during the caution after Rossi's crash, due to an oil leak.

RESULTS - 248 LAPS:

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 2h32m31.0118s
2 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 0.1978s
3 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 0.3740s
4 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 0.8112s
5 Gabby Chaves Harding Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1.8984s
6 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 4.1632s
7 Conor Daly AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Chevrolet 1 Lap
8 Max Chilton Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 3 Laps
9 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda Contact
10 Takuma Sato Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda Contact
11 Ed Carpenter Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet Contact
12 J.R. Hildebrand Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 33 Laps
13 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet Contact
14 James Hinchcliffe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda Contact
15 Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda Contact
16 Tristan Vautier Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda Contact
17 Ed Jones Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda Contact
18 Carlos Munoz AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Chevrolet Contact
19 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda Contact
20 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet Contact
21 Charlie Kimball Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda Mechanical
22 Alexander Rossi Andretti Herta Dallara/Honda Contact

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS:

Pos Driver Points
1 Scott Dixon 326
2 Simon Pagenaud 313
3 Takuma Sato 312
4 Helio Castroneves 305
5 Will Power 286
6 Graham Rahal 283
7 Josef Newgarden 277
8 Tony Kanaan 264
9 Alexander Rossi 254
10 James Hinchcliffe 232
11 Max Chilton 229
12 Ed Jones 228
13 Marco Andretti 210
14 Ryan Hunter-Reay 194
15 Mikhail Aleshin 192
16 J.R. Hildebrand 191
17 Carlos Munoz 180
18 Charlie Kimball 143
19 Conor Daly 140
20 Sebastien Bourdais 136
21 Ed Carpenter 124
22 Spencer Pigot 124
23 Juan Pablo Montoya 93
24 Gabby Chaves 83
25 Oriol Servia 61
26 Fernando Alonso 47
27 Sebastian Saavedra 33
28 Pippa Mann 32
29 Esteban Gutierrez 27
30 Jay Howard 24
31 Zach Veach 23
32 Sage Karam 23
33 James Davison 21
34 Jack Harvey 17
35 Tristan Vautier 15
36 Buddy Lazier 14

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