Briscoe leads Penske 1-2 at Mid-Ohio
Ryan Briscoe recovered from an early strategic error to lead home Helio Castroneves in a Penske one-two at Mid-Ohio
The Australian dropped into the midfield after remaining on wet tyres too long in the early stages of the rain-affected race, but when he made his second stop just before a yellow, Briscoe was able to vault back into the lead group, where he would remain for the rest of the afternoon.
"We fell back in the pack because we stayed out a little too long on wets," Briscoe said. "Then it came down to making your second pit stop as soon as you could in order to be able to finish the race on one more stop.
"(Team owner) Roger Penske gambled on that second stop, we stopped two laps earlier than the other guys and when there was a full course yellow a few laps later, we just cycled through to the front."
Castroneves came through to second, fending off title rival Scott Dixon (Ganassi) in the closing laps, with KV Racing duo Will Power and Oriol Servia taking fourth and fifth.
A downpour in the build-up to the race meant that everyone started on wet tyres, but with a dry line already emerging Vitor Meira (Panther) and Darren Manning (Foyt) pitted for slicks at the end of lap one.
While Newman/Haas/Lanigan's Justin Wilson mounted an early charge to move from fourth to first within five laps, by that time the increasingly large number of slick-shod cars were lapping nine seconds quicker than the leaders, and soon everyone had opted for slicks.
Meira and Manning's foresight meant that they leapt to the head of the field, chased by Power, who had taken slicks on lap two.
Those who had waited longer for slicks were 11 seconds back, and now led by Marco Andretti (Andretti Green) ahead of Castroneves, Dixon and Tony Kanaan (AGR), with Wilson having slid off the road as he rejoined on slicks and Briscoe having fallen right back after staying on wets one lap too long.
The field closed up when a tangle between Rahal Letterman driver Ryan Hunter-Reay and Conquest's Enrique Bernoldi prompted a yellow, but Meira, Manning and Power managed to edge away slightly after the restart.
When Mario Dominguez's rear wing (already damaged in an early trip off the road) collapsed and sent the Pacific Coast driver into the gravel on lap 24, the yellows came out again and all of the leaders made their first scheduled fuel stops.
Wilson stayed out though and duly emerged back in the lead, ahead of Dan Wheldon and Jaime Camara (who also chose not to stop), and then Briscoe, Ed Carpenter and Mario Moraes, who had all made their stops just before the yellow. Power rejoined seventh, ahead of Castroneves and Dixon, as Meira and Manning fell back to 10th and 11th in the pits.
Racing resumed on lap 30, with Wilson charging away from the field and building a 4.3 second lead over Wheldon, Briscoe and Moraes, and a 19 second advantage over those on the more regular strategy, who were all trapped behind fifth-placed Camara.
Another yellow, this time for a spin by Milka Duno, gave Wilson and Wheldon the chance to pit, only for Wilson to spin after a brush with Dominguez's repaired car as racing resumed. The ensuing pile-up involved Wheldon, Andretti (who had earlier spun from 12th to 20th) and AJ Foyt IV, and caused another yellow.
At the restart, Briscoe quickly sprinted away from Moraes, who had Power, Castroneves, Dixon, Meira, Servia, Manning, Kanaan and EJ Viso queuing behind him.
The Dale Coyne driver fell to eighth during the final round of pitstops, which saw Power stay out longest and lead, yet drop behind Castroneves and Dixon once the stops were complete, with Briscoe continuing to lead ahead of the out-of-sequence Bruno Junqueira, who had pitted under the yellow for the Wilson/Andretti/Foyt/Wheldon tangle.
Moraes then spun out while battling with Manning, causing another yellow, but Briscoe shrugged off the interruption and streaked away again at the green as Junqueira bottled up Castroneves and Dixon.
By the time Junqueira made his final stop on lap 75, Briscoe had a lead of 12 seconds and duly cruised home ahead of Castroneves, who had led the previous two Penske sweeps at Lexington in 2000 and 2001.
Dixon's third place minimised Castroneves' points gain, although the Brazilian was content to have finished ahead of his title rival.
"Scott has a big lead in the championship, but I'm not giving up," he said. "I'm going for it. But I'm trying to be aggressive without being stupid.
"Today was a day that you would probably have to try something stupid to get ahead, and that probably would have ended up hurting our championship effort."
Likewise, Dixon took a circumspect approach to their battle.
"Helio and I are not going to take dives at one another," he said, "especially given our positions in the points. But other guys with nothing to lose could probably make dives at me, so I had to make sure I had enough of a gap on the guys behind me that they wouldn't be tempted to try anything stupid."
The KV pair completed the top five ahead of Meira, Kanaan, Manning, Hideki Mutoh and Hunter-Reay.
Wilson managed to get back on the lead lap and recovered to 11th, ahead of Danica Patrick and Junqueira.
Qualifying star Buddy Rice was delayed by gearbox problems on his Dreyer & Reinbold car, as was Viso, while Graham Rahal lost a lap with a spin.
Pos Driver Team Time 1. Ryan Briscoe Penske 85 laps 2. Helio Castroneves Penske + 7.2640 3. Scott Dixon Ganassi + 7.6967 4. Will Power KV + 12.7569 5. Oriol Servia KV + 13.4713 6. Vitor Meira Panther + 14.9934 7. Tony Kanaan Andretti Green + 15.2597 8. Darren Manning Foyt + 17.5053 9. Hideki Mutoh Andretti Green + 18.0084 10. Ryan Hunter-Reay Rahal Letterman + 19.2100 11. Justin Wilson Newman/Haas/Lanigan + 28.8880 12. Danica Patrick Andretti Green + 34.6822 13. Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne + 39.7940 14. Jaime Camara Conquest + 51.5572 15. Ed Carpenter Vision +1:19.9190 16. Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan + 1 lap 17. Dan Wheldon Ganassi + 1 lap 18. AJ Foyt IV Vision + 1 lap 19. Mario Dominguez Pacific Coast + 2 laps 20. Buddy Rice Dreyer & Reinbold + 3 laps 21. Marty Roth Roth + 5 laps 22. EJ Viso HVM + 5 laps 23. Milka Duno Dreyer & Reinbold + 6 laps 24. Mario Moraes Dale Coyne + 24 laps 25. Marco Andretti Andretti Green + 44 laps 26. Enrique Bernoldi Conquest + 77 laps
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