Briscoe wins season opener at St Pete

The Australian grabbed the lead from Justin Wilson in the closing stages, then fended off a strong challenge from Ryan Hunter-Reay to secure his second consecutive win after taking the non-championship season closer in Surfers Paradise last October.

Reigning champion Scott Dixon crashed out, while Dario Franchitti took fourth ahead of Tony Kanaan on his return to the series.

For much of the race it looked like Wilson would take Dale Coyne Racing's first victory in 23 years of Champ Car and IndyCar competition.

Wilson had burst into the lead at the start, going three abreast with pole-sitter Graham Rahal (Newman/Haas/Lanigan) and the fast-starting Franchitti, who surged through from fifth in his Ganassi car.

As they filtered into the first corner, Rahal was tagged by Andretti Green's Kanaan, sending the young American sideways. Alex Tagliani then ran over his front wing, while Mike Conway's IndyCar debut came to an early end in the traffic jam behind this incident, as his Dreyer & Reinbold car was spat out of the pack with rear-end damage.

Franchitti shadowed Wilson at first, with the two Penske cars running third and fourth ahead of Darren Manning (Dreyer & Reinbold).

But at the first stops neared, Wilson put on a sprint, extending his lead to nearly six seconds.

A series of simultaneous incidents brought out the next caution, as Vitor Meira ran into the back of Tagliani and gave the Conquest car a puncture, Mario Moraes was punted out by Hideki Mutoh, and Raphael Matos and Danica Patrick became entangled at high-speed and slammed into the barriers.

Briscoe, Dan Wheldon (Panther), EJ Viso (HVM), Hunter-Reay, Robert Doornbos (NHLR) and Marco Andretti (AGR) had all pitted just before the yellow, so headed Wilson and Franchitti at the restart.

Wilson soon stormed forwards again, charging to third in the laps after the caution, and then leaping ahead of both Briscoe and Wheldon at the final pitstops, staying out longer and squeezing out on cold tyres just ahead of the Penske driver.

A pair of yellows stopped Wilson getting away, as first Vision's Ed Carpenter, then reigning champion Scott Dixon ended up in the Turn 3 barriers, the latter crash thanks to damage from a tangle with Mutoh.

Dixon was already running in the midfield, having lost a lot of ground at the first stops when he was blocked by Will Power, who had missed his pit stall.

It was at the restart following this crash that Briscoe pounced on Wilson, snatching the lead into Turn 1, with Hunter-Reay capitalising on the Coyne car's loss of momentum to take second further around the lap.

Another yellow followed immediately as Doornbos and Wheldon collided and collected Mutoh, and Hunter-Reay attacked Briscoe at the restart with eight laps to go, but was rebuffed. A final yellow (caused by Tagliani punting Andretti into a spin) set up a two lap shoot-out, which Briscoe also handled adeptly, coming home 0.4s ahead of Hunter-Reay.

Second was Vision Racing's best ever result, a remarkable achievement given that Hunter-Reay's deal was only completed a week ago.

Wilson was less than a second from victory in third, ahead of Franchitti and Kanaan, who recovered well from a first lap nose change following the start incident.

Power took sixth ahead of the recovering Rahal, Manning, Meira and Tagliani.

Pos  Driver            Team                 Gap
 1.  Ryan Briscoe      Penske
 2.  Ryan Hunter-Reay  Vision               + 0.4619s
 3.  Justin Wilson     Dale Coyne           + 0.9490s
 4.  Dario Franchitti  Ganassi              + 1.5230s
 5.  Tony Kanaan       Andretti Green       + 2.3214s
 6.  Will Power        Penske               + 3.4622s
 7.  Graham Rahal      Newman/Haas/Lanigan  + 4.0672s
 8.  Darren Manning    Dreyer & Reinbold    + 4.7283s
 9.  Vitor Meira       Foyt                 + 5.9559s
10.  Alex Tagliani     Conquest             + 1 lap
11.  Robert Doornbos   Newman/Haas/Lanigan  + 4 laps
12.  Stanton Barrett   3G                   + 4 laps

Retirements:

     Driver            Team                 Laps
     Marco Andretti    Andretti Green       94
     Dan Wheldon       Panther              86
     Hideki Mutoh      Andretti Green       86
     Scott Dixon       Ganassi              80
     EJ Viso           HVM                  75
     Ed Carpenter      Vision               71
     Danica Patrick    Andretti Green       31
     Raphael Matos     Luczo Dragon         31
     Mario Moraes      KV                   31
     Mike Conway       Dreyer & Reinbold    1