Manning sorry to miss out on win

The Briton made his final pitstop just before a caution period and took over at the front when the remaining front runners pitted under the ensuing safety car.

Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe had been contesting victory but fell out of contention when Dixon spun warming his tyres and they collided.

Manning led from Ryan Hunter-Reay at the restart with nine laps to go, but the American dived down the inside at the first corner to take the lead.

"It's a shame (not to win)," said Manning. "Ryan got a good run on me, I nearly got him back into the Bus Stop (chicane) but I thought discretion was the better part of valor going in two-wide.

"He had a quick car and pulled away, but I was quick enough to hold my own (in second). It's a nice change to be in the (podium) press conference, it's been a while. But it's really nice to run competitively and be at the front.

"The competition out there is so deep throughout the field. Last year if you were a second off the pace you could be sixth of seventh, but year you're 20th. It's good for the state of the sport."

He is looking forward to the coming road course races and believes his AJ Foyt Enterprises team can expect more good results.

"We ran well at St. Petersburg and could have finished well there but we had a gearbox problem and we were obviously strong today.

"My guys are a small team but we've got the same resources as anybody out there. We've got the race sponsor in ABC that give us everything we need, the wind tunnel time, the shocks. We've got pretty much what everybody else has got."