Will Power returns to winning ways at Edmonton

The Penske driver held off intense late pressure from team-mate Helio Castroneves and points leader Dario Franchitti (Ganassi) to secure his fourth victory of the year.

Polesitter Takuma Sato had led the opening 19 laps under pressure from Power, Scott Dixon (who swapped places twice early on) and Franchitti.

When the KV driver locked up and slid slightly wide on lap 19, Power, Dixon and Franchitti all managed to pounce and demote him to fourth.

Sato lost another place to Penske's Ryan Briscoe during the opening pitstops, which happened under yellow after Mike Conway (Andretti) punted Newman/Haas' Oriol Servia into the tyres while the Spaniard was on an out-lap.

At the spectacular restart that followed, Sato managed to slice back through to second behind Power under braking for the Turn 5 hairpin, while just behind, his KV team-mate EJ Viso slid into Dixon in an incident that left the Venezuelan spun and stalled, forced Dixon to pit for long radiator repairs, and also delayed Franchitti.

Andretti Autosport's Ryan Hunter-Reay took advantage of the mess to move into third, at least until lap 39, when he collided with Sato at Turn 5, dumping the Japanese driver a lap down and earning Hunter-Reay a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact.

An out-of-pit-sequence Alex Tagliani (Sam Schmidt Motorsports) ran among the leaders mid-race, but once he pitted for the last time Penske had a one-two-three, with Power leading while Castroneves and Briscoe fought for second.

Running very long before his final stop allowed Franchitti to both recover the ground lost in the Viso/Dixon incident, and jump Briscoe for third. He then closed in to make it a three-way lead fight, as Castroneves made the most of having an extra set of brand new soft red tyres to really attack team-mate Power for first place.

Despite Castroneves' best efforts, Power was able to hang on and keep both his pursuers at bay, as the trio took the flag absolutely nose to tail.

Briscoe looked set to resist KV's Tony Kanaan for fourth until a surprise fuel shortage forced him to come in for a splash with just a lap to go, dropping the Australian to 10th.

Justin Wilson made it through from 15th on the grid to fifth for Dreyer & Reinbold, while Sebastien Bourdais had another relatively trouble-free run to take sixth for Dale Coyne Racing, his second straight top six finish.

Hunter-Reay fought back to seventh after his penalty, ahead of Andretti team-mates Conway and Danica Patrick.

Conway also had a drive-through for his clash with Servia, as the officials took a harder line on contact following the carnage of Toronto.

This started from the outset, with Tagliani penalised for a late first-lap dive at Turn 5 that saw him clip Graham Rahal and give the Ganassi car a puncture. Rahal then lost control at the next corner and spun into Dragon Racing's Paul Tracy, eliminating them both and also trapping Conquest's Sebastian Saavedra.

Results - 80 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team                    Time/Gap
 1.  Will Power           Penske             1h57m22.5177s
 2.  Helio Castroneves    Penske                 + 0.8089s
 3.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi                + 1.1735s
 4.  Tony Kanaan          KV                    + 11.1507s
 5.  Justin Wilson        Dreyer & Reinbold     + 11.7835s
 6.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dale Coyne            + 12.6681s
 7.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti              + 18.0259s
 8.  Mike Conway          Andretti              + 18.3563s
 9.  Danica Patrick       Andretti              + 21.0430s
10.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske                + 31.1578s
11.  JR Hildebrand        Panther               + 35.5404s
12.  Vitor Meira          Foyt                  + 37.5572s
13.  Ana Beatriz          Dreyer & Reinbold   + 1m07.2455s
14.  Marco Andretti       Andretti            + 1m10.2013s
15.  James Hinchcliffe    Newman/Haas         + 1m11.1179s
16.  Sebastian Saavedra   Conquest            + 1m15.7811s
17.  Alex Tagliani        Sam Schmidt         + 1m15.8866s
18.  James Jakes          Dale Coyne          + 1m16.1893s
19.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi                  + 1 lap
20.  EJ Viso              KV                       + 1 lap
21.  Takuma Sato          KV                       + 1 lap
22.  Oriol Servia         Newman/Haas             + 4 laps
23.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi                 + 6 laps

Retirements:

     Simona de Silvestro  HVM                      54 laps
     Graham Rahal         Ganassi                   0 laps
     Paul Tracy           Dragon                    0 laps