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Iowa IndyCar: Helio Castroneves takes first win since 2014

Helio Castroneves ended a three-year IndyCar win drought with victory for Penske at Iowa Speedway

Castroneves took the lead from polesitting team-mate Will Power in traffic early on, with Power struggling to match his team-mate's pace.

Penske was then able to make use of cautions for crashes for Mikhail Aleshin (pictured below), Carlos Munoz and Conor Daly to make all of Castroneves' first three pitstops under yellow.

With just under 100 laps to go the red flag was brought out briefly due to light rain, and when the race restarted it was a case of who would pit first.

Ed Carpenter Racing elected to pit JR Hilderbrand from second, which allowed him to make use of the undercut and emerge ahead of Castroneves in the closing stages.

But traffic played a crucial role and allowed Castroneves on fresher tyres to retake the lead and ultimately secure victory.

That win leaves just eight points between Castroneves and Scott Dixon, who finished in eighth, in the drivers championship.

Ryan Hunter-Reay was third with an impressive drive from 15th on the grid, while Power finished fourth having been overtaken by the Andretti Autosport driver in the closing stages.

Graham Rahal was fifth having started from 10th, also making use of the earlier cautions to jump drivers in the pitstops.

Josef Newgarden came back from starting 16th to finish sixth, with fellow Penske driver Simon Pagenaud also making progress from a disappointing qualifying position as he came from 11th to seventh.

Tony Kanaan and James Hinchcliffe rounded out the top 10 behind Dixon.

RESULTS - 300 LAPS:

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1h55m11.2807s
2 J.R. Hildebrand Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 3.9647s
3 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 4.5845s
4 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 5.7403s
5 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 10.1811s
6 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 11.0500s
7 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 12.2562s
8 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 14.3653s
9 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 15.1184s
10 James Hinchcliffe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 15.8243s
11 Alexander Rossi Andretti Herta Dallara/Honda 1 Lap
12 Ed Carpenter Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1 Lap
13 Esteban Gutierrez Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1 Lap
14 Max Chilton Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 1 Lap
15 Charlie Kimball Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda 2 Laps
16 Takuma Sato Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 2 Laps
17 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 2 Laps
18 Ed Jones Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 3 Laps
19 Conor Daly AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Chevrolet Contact
20 Carlos Munoz AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Chevrolet Contact
21 Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda Contact

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS:

Pos Driver Points
1 Scott Dixon 403
2 Helio Castroneves 395
3 Simon Pagenaud 372
4 Will Power 350
5 Josef Newgarden 347
6 Graham Rahal 337
7 Takuma Sato 337
8 Tony Kanaan 295
9 Alexander Rossi 290
10 Max Chilton 268
11 Ed Jones 266
12 James Hinchcliffe 262
13 J.R. Hildebrand 246
14 Ryan Hunter-Reay 245
15 Marco Andretti 236
16 Mikhail Aleshin 221
17 Carlos Munoz 209
18 Charlie Kimball 188
19 Conor Daly 166
20 Ed Carpenter 142
21 Spencer Pigot 142
22 Sebastien Bourdais 136
23 Juan Pablo Montoya 93
24 Gabby Chaves 83
25 Oriol Servia 61
26 Esteban Gutierrez 57
27 Fernando Alonso 47
28 Sebastian Saavedra 33
29 Pippa Mann 32
30 Jay Howard 24
31 Zach Veach 23
32 Sage Karam 23
33 James Davison 21
34 Jack Harvey 17
35 Tristan Vautier 15
36 Buddy Lazier 14

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