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Mid-Ohio IndyCar: Kimball claims first win in strategy-defined race

Charlie Kimball capitalised on a perfect strategy from his Ganassi pitwall to secure the first IndyCar win of his career at Mid-Ohio

Most of the front-runners had opted to two-stop the race; a list that initially included Kimball's Ganassi team-mates Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti.

Kimball, on the other hand, took a three-stop approach, and the race was barely half over before the team tried to switch Franchitti and Dixon over as well.

The change came too late for them to influence the battle for the lead, which boiled down to a head-to-head between Kimball and Simon Pagenaud, who was on a similar strategy.

Kimball held a decent advantage over the Frenchman during his third stint but then lost time behind lapped traffic, allowing Pagenaud to exit from his final stop just ahead of his rival.

However a nice move at the Esses allowed Kimball to re-pass Pagenaud on the same lap, and before long he had built a lead that extended to 5.5 seconds at the finish.

Pagenaud crossed the line in second, while Franchitti was a distant third ahead of Will Power, who was first of the drivers to have two-stopped.

The Australian had spent most of the race chasing pole-sitter Ryan Hunter-Reay, but managed to get ahead when the Andretti driver was delayed in the pits.

Hunter-Reay was fifth, while Helio Castroneves had to survive the attentions of title rival Scott Dixon in the final laps to claim sixth.

The race was run entirely under green flag conditions, and almost entirely bereft of attrition.

Only Tony Kanaan failed to make the finish; the Indy 500 winner pulling off the track with a mechanical problem shortly after his second pitstop.

Series debutants James Davison and Luca Filippi finished 15th and 16th respectively.

Results - 90 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team/Engine              Time/Gap
 1.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi/Honda       1h43m29.1371s
 2.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt/Honda            +5.5334s
 3.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi/Honda           +28.8735s
 4.  Will Power           Penske/Chevy            +42.5032s
 5.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti/Chevy          +46.3449s
 6.  Helio Castroneves    Penske/Chevy            +48.3249s
 7.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi/Honda           +48.5496s
 8.  Justin Wilson        Coyne/Honda             +49.0431s
 9.  Marco Andretti       Andretti/Chevy          +49.5609s
10.  James Hinchcliffe    Andretti/Chevy          +49.9283s
11.  Simona de Silvestro  KV/Chevy                +50.4925s
12.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dragon/Chevy            +54.1360s
13.  James Jakes          Rahal/Honda             +54.6693s
14.  Oriol Servia         Panther/Chevy         +1m04.6395s
15.  James Davison        Coyne/Honda           +1m05.4079s
16.  Luca Filippi         Herta/Honda           +1m09.0090s
17.  EJ Viso              Andretti/Chevy             +1 lap
18.  Graham Rahal         Rahal/Honda                +1 lap
19.  Sebastian Saavedra   Dragon/Chevy               +1 lap
20.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter/Chevy            +1 lap
21.  Tristan Vautier      Schmidt/Honda              +1 lap
22.  Takuma Sato          Foyt/Honda                 +1 lap
23.  Josef Newgarden      Fisher/Honda              +2 laps

Retirements:

     Tony Kanaan          KV/Chevy                  64 laps

All drivers use Dallara DW12 chassis

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