Conway charges to first Indy win
Mike Conway claimed his first IndyCar Series race victory with a late charge in Long Beach, despite tumbling down the order with a messy first pitstop
Long-time leader Ryan Briscoe and reigning champion Dario Franchitti had to settle for second and third, ahead of star rookie James Hinchcliffe, while Will Power was only 10th after a tangle with Penske team-mate Helio Castroneves.
Andretti Autosport driver Conway had run third behind Power and fellow Andretti man Ryan Hunter-Reay in the opening laps, but dropped back mid-race when he overshot his markers on his first pitstop.
It had looked like this would be Briscoe's race for much of the afternoon. The Penske driver had jumped from his early 12th place to the lead thanks to having made his first pitstop just before the first caution of the race came out, and was then able to edge away from second-placed Hunter-Reay, who had jumped Power on the restart.
Briscoe was still ahead after the final stops, which took place under a yellow caused by a problem on Justin Wilson's car pitching the Dreyer & Reinbold driver - who had earlier been punted down the order by Castroneves - into the tyres.
At the restart following this incident, Power challenged Hunter-Reay for second, only for his following Penske team-mate Castroneves to slide into the back of him at Turn 1, sending both spinning. Chain reaction incidents behind saw Oriol Servia (Newman/Haas) taking an escape road detour and Scott Dixon (Ganassi) picking up damage, while further around the lap there were tangles between Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato, and Charlie Kimball and Sebastian Saavedra.
That led to another yellow, with Briscoe leading Hunter-Reay, Franchitti, Alex Tagliani (Sam Schmidt), Hinchcliffe (Newman/Haas) and Conway as the green came out. Conway passed the two Canadians at the restart, picked up another place when Hunter-Reay's car slowed with an apparent gearbox problem, then sliced past Franchitti and Briscoe in quick succession to take the lead.
Once ahead, Conway absolutely stormed away from the field, going on to win by 6s as Briscoe held off Franchitti for second.
Hinchcliffe and Tagliani completed the top five, with Servia quickly rejoining to take sixth ahead of Danica Patrick (Andretti) and KV's Tony Kanaan, who recovered well from going a lap down when he was delayed at his first pitstop.
Foyt's Vitor Meira escaped pitlane contact with Rahal to chase Kanaan and hold off the recovering Power for ninth, with Castroneves 12th behind Raphael Matos (AFS). Another pitlane incident ended Marco Andretti and Sebastien Bourdais' afternoons - the American accepting the blame after accidentally squeezing the Dale Coyne car into the wall.
Paul Tracy was only 16th on his return with Dragon Racing, having been penalised for a collision with HVM's Simona de Silvestro.
Results - 85 laps: Pos Driver Team Time/Gap 1. Mike Conway Andretti 1h53m11.1000s 2. Ryan Briscoe Penske + 6.3203s 3. Dario Franchitti Ganassi + 6.7163s 4. James Hinchcliffe Newman/Haas + 9.1705s 5. Alex Tagliani Sam Schmidt + 16.0177s 6. Oriol Servia Newman/Haas + 16.8966s 7. Danica Patrick Andretti + 17.5016s 8. Tony Kanaan KV + 18.9655s 9. Vitor Meira Foyt + 19.4723s 10. Will Power Penske + 19.8909s 11. Raphael Matos AFS + 20.4660s 12. Helio Castroneves Penske + 20.7784s 13. Graham Rahal Ganassi + 21.3464s 14. Sebastian Saavedra Conquest + 23.1137s 15. James Jakes Dale Coyne + 24.5926s 16. Paul Tracy Dragon + 1m03.7578s 17. JR Hildebrand Panther + 1m10.9001s 18. Scott Dixon Ganassi + 1 lap 19. Ana Beatriz Dreyer & Reinbold + 2 laps 20. Simona de Silvestro HVM + 3 laps 21. Takuma Sato KV + 4 laps Retirements: Justin Wilson Dreyer & Reinbold 78 laps Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti 72 laps Charlie Kimball Ganassi 66 laps EJ Viso KV 59 laps Marco Andretti Andretti 37 laps Sebastien Bourdais Dale Coyne 27 laps
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