Castroneves beats Briscoe at Texas

Briscoe looked untouchable for the majority of the race, but found himself pipped in the closing stages for the second time in a week, as on this occasion Castroneves slipped ahead in the pits.

Ganassi's Scott Dixon took third, with Marco Andretti mounting a late charge to take fourth from pole-sitter Dario Franchitti and Danica Patrick.

The race got off to a dramatic start as Graham Rahal spun his Newman/Haas/Lanigan car and collected EJ Viso (HVM) and Milka Duno (Dreyer & Reinbold) on only the second lap.

But once that incident was cleared, an extremely long period of green flag racing ensued, allowing Briscoe to take control.

He passed Franchitti for the lead on lap 12, and steadily edged away from the rest of the Ganassi and Penske top four pack.

Helped slightly by his pursuers getting caught up trying to lap Alex Tagliani and Ed Carpenter, Briscoe was able to stretch his lead to as much as eight seconds, and lapped everyone up to seventh place by half-distance.

A debris caution on lap 151 brought the pack back onto Briscoe's tail, but he was able to stay in front until the final round of pitstops, which came under yellow after AJ Foyt IV had a suspension breakage and hit the wall.

Castroneves' crew produced a slightly quicker stop than their counterparts on Briscoe's #6 car, allowing the Brazilian to edge ahead of his team-mate coming out of the pits.

Briscoe stayed glued to Castroneves' tail throughout the final stint, but there was no way around the Brazilian, who duly clinched his second win in three races.

Dixon gradually lost touch with the Penske duo and came home third. His team-mate Franchitti had been on course for fourth until Andretti slipped ahead on the final lap as the Ganassi car ran low on fuel. Andretti had just emerged from an extremely tight late battle with his Andretti Green team-mate Danica Patrick, having earlier run as high as second as he gained speed near the end of each stint.

Dan Wheldon took seventh for Panther Racing, while Tony Kanaan made good early progress from 16th on the grid to get into the top ten, but eighth proved to be his limit tonight.

Sharp Vision Racing strategy helped Ed Carpenter recover from a mid-race slump to get up to ninth, ahead of Mario Moraes (KV) and top rookie Robert Doornbos (Newman/Haas/Lanigan).

Pos  Driver             Team                 Time
 1.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               1h55m16.1670s
 2.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske                  +  0.3904s
 3.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi                 +  2.2461s
 4.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green          +  4.3745s
 5.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi                 +  4.7695s
 6.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green          +  5.2980s
 7.  Dan Wheldon        Panther                 +  7.6203s
 8.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green          +  8.5009s
 9.  Ed Carpenter       Vision                  + 18.7088s
10.  Mario Moraes       KV                      +    1 lap
11.  Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan     +    1 lap
12.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon            +   2 laps
13.  Tomas Scheckter    Dreyer & Reinbold       +   2 laps
14.  Alex Tagliani      Conquest                +   3 laps
15.  Justin Wilson      Coyne                   +   3 laps
16.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Vision                  +   3 laps
17.  Sarah Fisher       Fisher                  +   6 laps
18.  Jaques Lazier      3G                      +  18 laps
19.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold       +  43 laps

Retirements:

     AJ Foyt IV         Foyt                 170 laps
     Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       153 laps
     Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  1 lap
     Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold    1 lap
     EJ Viso            HVM                  1 lap