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Franchitti dominates in St Pete

Dario Franchitti steered clear of a destructive start and went on to dominate the opening round of the IndyCar Series in St Petersburg

The champion led home his 2010 title rival Will Power at a comfortable distance, with Tony Kanaan starting his new partnership with KV with a very promising third, just ahead of Simona de Silvestro, as the HVM driver took a career-best fourth after her best IndyCar drive yet.

Several frontrunners had immediately been wiped out in a chaotic start, triggered when Helio Castroneves (Penske) nudged the back of Marco Andretti's car under braking for the first corner. Andretti spun into and over Ganassi's Scott Dixon, landing upside down as the tangle also collected his Andretti Autosport team-mate Mike Conway and Penske's Ryan Briscoe, and forced Oriol Servia (Newman/Haas) to come to a halt in avoidance.

The uninjured Andretti and Conway's races were over, while Dixon, Briscoe and Castroneves' cars all needed lengthy repairs.

Detractors of the series' new double-file restart format were then given plenty of ammunition as a string of restart lap incidents followed, causing four yellows inside the first 15 laps. Among the drivers requiring repairs were Ganassi's Graham Rahal, who needed a new rear wing after a clash with Ana Beatriz (Dreyer & Reinbold), and Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti), who was up to fourth until contact in a wild moment triggered by de Silvestro lunging down the inside of the lead pack.

That move paid off for de Silvestro. She had already got up from 17th to seventh, and then surged a further five places in a single dive at the fourth restart. It put de Silvestro second behind Franchitti, and ahead of Kanaan, Justin Wilson (Dreyer & Reinbold), and Power, the polesitter having been elbowed back in two restart traffic jams, while Franchitti had swept around the outside of Power to take the lead as racing briefly resumed after the first caution.

When the race finally started to run smoothly, Franchitti was able to pull away from de Silvestro, who kept Kanaan behind her until the first pitstops, during which Power managed to vault to second ahead of Kanaan and de Silvestro.

But rather than giving chase to Franchitti, Power had to focus on resisting constant attack from Kanaan, with de Silvestro catching back up with them as the race went into its closing stages. As de Silvestro put pressure on Kanaan, Power was able to get away, though Franchitti was uncatchable and won by 7.1s. Kanaan held off de Silvestro for the final podium place by just 0.4s, with the Swiss driver climbing all over the back of the Brazilian in the final laps.

Takuma Sato also scored an IndyCar career best as he took fifth for KV, holding Alex Tagliani, Raphael Matos and Vitor Meira at bay - the Schmidt, AFS and Foyt teams all taking extremely encouraging results as well.

Servia came back from a puncture after a brush with Briscoe and a pit penalty to take ninth ahead of Wilson, who fell back following a puncture and later a spin while chasing Servia, but regained two places on the final lap as JR Hildebrand (Panther) and Danica Patrick (Andretti) tangled ahead of him.

Sebastien Bourdais' eagerly-anticipated return to American racing will have to wait a little longer - the four-time Champ Car champion damaged his Dale Coyne car beyond quick repair in a warm-up accident and missed the race.

Results - 100 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team                   Time/Gap
 1.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi           2h00m59.6886s
 2.  Will Power           Penske                + 7.1612s
 3.  Tony Kanaan          KV                   + 16.1045s
 4.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM                  + 16.5616s
 5.  Takuma Sato          KV                   + 29.9435s
 6.  Alex Tagliani        Schmidt              + 30.4655s
 7.  Raphael Matos        AFS                  + 31.5227s
 8.  Vitor Meira          Foyt                 + 35.7291s
 9.  Oriol Servia         Newman/Haas          + 49.1432s
10.  Justin Wilson        Dreyer & Reinbold    + 56.8025s
11.  Danica Patrick       Andretti             + 57.3418s
12.  JR Hildebrand        Panther            + 1m02.9700s
13.  Sebastian Saavedra   Conquest               + 2 laps
14.  Ana Beatriz          Dreyer & Reinbold      + 2 laps
15.  James Jakes          Coyne                  + 3 laps
16.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi                + 4 laps
17.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi                + 4 laps
18.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske                 + 5 laps
19.  EJ Viso              KV                     + 6 laps
20.  Helio Castroneves    Penske                + 15 laps

Retirements:

     Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti                58 laps
     Charlie Kimball      Ganassi                 38 laps
     Mike Conway          Andretti                  1 lap
     Marco Andretti       Andretti                 0 laps
     Sebastien Bourdais   Coyne                       DNS

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