Fontana IndyCar: Ryan Hunter-Reay takes title as Will Power crashes

The championship battle was turned on its head on lap 54, just as the title protagonists encountered one another on the track for the first time.

Hunter-Reay was running a high line and Power tried to go underneath him to take the position but dropped the rear, snapping his car around and putting him into the wall. Hunter-Reay was fortunate not to be caught up in the accident as well, with Power's car barely missing him on its journey towards the barriers.

Despite the severity of the damage to Power's car, Team Penske committed as many personnel as it could muster to patching it back together and somehow managed to get it back onto the track.

Power, now more than 60 laps down, staggered around in a car entirely bereft of any sort of set-up for just long enough to complete 12 laps and gain another position and another two points, meaning that Hunter-Reay now needed to finish fifth rather than sixth to secure the crown.

The Andretti Autosport driver had spent most of the second half of the race just one position shy of where he needed to be when Alex Tagliani, who had been fighting for the lead, suffered an engine failure, bringing out the yellows and promoting Hunter-Reay into fifth and giving him a one-point lead over Power.

An aggressive restart allowed Hunter-Reay to climb as high to third when Tony Kanaan lost control and crashed on lap 242. Rather than cleaning up the wreckage under a yellow, race director Beaux Barfield threw a red flag, setting up a six-lap sprint to the finish line - a decision that caused some dismay on the Andretti pit wall.

Shortly after the restart, Hunter-Reay found himself under pressure from Scott Dixon, who he let past, and Takuma Sato, who he battled for a couple of laps before the Japanese driver lost control and crashed on the second-last lap, sealing Hunter-Reay's triumph by moving him up to fourth and bringing the race to an end.

"I cannot believe we are IndyCar champions," he said. "I cannot believe this. That last red flag got the nerves going. It hasn't sunk in yet. We put a lot of hard work in and we've got the right people surrounding us."

Carpenter took the race win after fighting Dario Franchitti over the closing laps.

"We were really good early, kind of struggled through the middle and the team made some adjustments and we got back in," said Carpenter, who had earlier distinguished himself by catching a lurid slide towards the wall with 30 laps remaining.

Dixon completed the podium ahead of Hunter-Reay and Helio Castroneves, who had gambled on an extra stop at the final restart to throw on a new set of tyres and could potentially have gained another position or two had the race run full distance.

Early race leader JR Hildebrand's evening was ruined when he glanced the wall at Turn 4 and damaged his suspension, costing him two laps in the pits while his car was repaired.

Rubens Barrichello was also in the frame for a good result, running as high as third before his engine went up in flames just before the halfway mark.

Results - 250 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                         Time/Gap
 1.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter Dallara-Chevy     2h57m36.6565s
 2.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi Dallara-Honda           + 1.9132s
 3.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi Dallara-Honda           + 2.6091s
 4.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti Dallara-Chevy          + 3.0477s
 5.  Helio Castroneves    Penske Dallara-Chevy            + 4.1933s
 6.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi Dallara-Honda           + 5.4381s
 7.  Takuma Sato          Rahal Dallara-Honda               + 1 lap
 8.  Marco Andretti       Andretti Dallara-Chevy            + 1 lap
 9.  Katherine Legge      Dragon Dallara-Chevy              + 1 lap
10.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi Dallara-Honda             + 1 lap
11.  JR Hildebrand        Panther Dallara-Chevy            + 2 laps
12.  James Jakes          Coyne Dallara-Honda              + 2 laps
13.  James Hinchcliffe    Andretti Dallara-Chevy           + 3 laps
14.  Wade Cunningham      Foyt Dallara-Honda               + 4 laps
15.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt Dallara-Honda            + 4 laps
16.  Josef Newgarden      Fisher Dallara-Honda             + 6 laps
17.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske Dallara-Chevy             + 6 laps
18.  Tony Kanaan          KV Dallara-Chevy               + 10 laps*
19.  Oriol Servia         Panther/DRR Dallara-Chevy       + 19 laps

Retirements:

     Alex Tagliani        Herta Dallara-Honda              229 laps
     Sebastian Saavedra   AFS/Andretti Dallara-Chevy       118 laps
     Rubens Barrichello   KV Dallara-Chevy                 107 laps
     Justin Wilson        Coyne Dallara-Honda               80 laps
     Will Power           Penske Dallara-Chevy              66 laps
     EJ Viso              KV Dallara-Chevy                  65 laps
     Simona de Silvestro  HVM Dallara-Lotus                 16 laps

* Not running at finish