IndyCar race set to run on Monday

Despite the organisers' best efforts to at least complete half a race distance today, with conditions not improving and darkness close, the teams have now been sent back to the paddock and informed that there will be no further track activity today.

Rain had started falling an hour before the start, and got substantially worse early in the race, which had only managed two green flag laps in the first nine due to a series of incidents on the slippery track.

A two and a half hour red flag period followed before a second attempt to get the race underway was made. But this was abandoned after five laps behind the pace car during which it was clear that there was still too much standing water.

The start of the rescheduled race is now set to take place at 9.05am local time tomorrow.

Poleman Will Power (Penske) had held the lead throughout the handful of laps that were run, with carnage in his wake.

Fellow front-row starter Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Autosport) went straight on and into the tyres at the first chicane, while on the outside of the corner a brush between Ganassi's Dario Franchitti and Penske's Helio Castroneves left the latter in the wall, where he was collected by Simona de Silvestro, Danica Patrick and Tony Kanaan - with Patrick's Andretti car ending up underneath de Silvestro's HVM Dallara, and Kanaan (KV) suffering a minor hand injury.

At the restart, Ganassi's Scott Dixon spun down the order from second place, and Justin Wilson (Dreyer & Reinbold), James Hinchcliffe (Newman/Haas) and Sebastien Bourdais (Dale Coyne Racing) became entangled, though all four were able to continue without damage.

Graham Rahal briefly moved up to second for Ganassi only to also spin, though he only lot a few places and continued behind Power, Penske's Ryan Briscoe, Mike Conway (Andretti) and Takuma Sato (KV), and just ahead of Dario Franchitti.

Foyt driver Vitor Meira had got up to seventh, but as the rain worsened he crashed heavily at the end of the backstraight due to brake damage sustained in an earlier incident.

With Bourdais and Hunter-Reay also having further spins, and JR Hildebrand and Raphael Matos joining Meira in the Turn 11 run-off, it was clear that conditions had become impossible.

During the long red flag that followed, race control eventually decreed that all teams could resume work on their cars in the paddock, allowing the likes of Castroneves, Kanaan and even Meira to join the track again for the planned restart later in the afternoon, albeit all several laps down.

Although conditions were still too bad for a green flag, there was still a significant change in the order as Long Beach winner Conway's car stalled on track due to electrical problems and fell from third to 20th.

That means Power will be followed by Briscoe, Sato, Rahal and Franchitti when the race resumes tomorrow in the order in which the cars completed lap 14 of the planned 75.