Franchitti wins at Milwaukee

Ganassi driver Franchitti led much of the race, with Helio Castroneves (Penske) and Tony Kanaan his main rivals, in the latter's strongest run since joining KV Racing Technology for 2011.

All three drivers had stints in the lead amid some classic racing on the much-loved short oval, but both the Brazilians would hit trouble in the closing stages, with Kanaan spinning into the wall with 29 laps to go, and Castroneves having to pit with a deflating tyre, leaving him ninth at the flag.

Graham Rahal therefore came through to second after a strong run for Ganassi's new second team, with Newman/Haas' Oriol Servia taking his first IndyCar Series podium in third after running with the frontrunners all day. His team-mate James Hinchcliffe made rapid progress from a midfield start to take sixth.

Power had looked unlikely to get much from Milwaukee as he fell as low as 19th in the opening stint, but he clawed his way up the order as the race progressed and eventually salvaged fourth place ahead of Andretti Autosport's Danica Patrick.

Scott Dixon (Ganassi) fell down the order from his second row start and was then caught up in an early pitlane incident with KV's Takuma Sato and Penske's Ryan Briscoe, caused by Sato pulling into the wrong pit stall. Dixon and Sato recovered to seventh and eighth, with Briscoe 11th behind Dreyer & Reinbold's Justin Wilson.

Sato ended up being KV's best finisher, despite all three of its cars running in the top six at first. As well as Kanaan's crash, EJ Viso also hit the wall hard while fighting in the front group.

Other drivers in trouble included Ana Beatriz, whose Dreyer & Reinbold car needed a long stop repairs after a brush with the wall, solo crashers JR Hildebrand (Panther) and Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti), and Alex Lloyd and Sebastian Saavedra - who collided on a mid-race restart.

Simona de Silvestro took the start after her heavy qualifying crash but withdrew early on.

Results - 225 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team                    Time/Gap
 1.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi            1h56m43.5877s
 2.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi                + 1.4271s
 3.  Oriol Servia         Newman/Haas            + 2.7703s
 4.  Will Power           Penske                 + 3.8756s
 5.  Danica Patrick       Andretti               + 4.2289s
 6.  James Hinchcliffe    Newman/Haas            + 5.2021s
 7.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi                + 5.7803s
 8.  Takuma Sato          KV                     + 6.1011s
 9.  Helio Castroneves    Penske                 + 6.3643s
10.  Justin Wilson        Dreyer & Reinbold      + 6.8905s
11.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske                 + 8.2475s
12.  Mike Conway          Andretti               + 8.9469s
13.  Marco Andretti       Andretti               + 9.8659s
14.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi                  + 1 lap
15.  James Jakes          Dale Coyne              + 2 laps
16.  Ed Carpenter         Sarah Fisher            + 2 laps
17.  Ana Beatriz          Dreyer & Reinbold       + 3 laps

Retirements:

     Alex Tagliani        Sam Schmidt             196 laps
     Tony Kanaan          KV                      194 laps
     EJ Viso              KV                      163 laps
     JR Hildebrand        Panther                 120 laps
     Alex Lloyd           Dale Coyne               79 laps
     Sebastian Saavedra   Conquest                 78 laps
     Vitor Meira          Foyt                     69 laps
     Simona de Silvestro  HVM                      11 laps
     Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti                  0 laps