Will Power wins as Pesnke dominates at Sears Point
Will Power survived a late restart to lead a Penske clean sweep of the top three places in Sunday's IndyCar race at Sears Point
Power led virtually the entire race, only relinquishing the top spot briefly during the pitstops. At times his advantage over Helio Castroneves extended to several seconds, but the gap was eroded when Ho-Pin Tung triggered the first and only caution period by hitting the barriers with 10 laps remaining.
The restart came with seven laps to go, and Power was able to see off a final challenge from Castroneves to secure back-to-back wins at the northern California circuit.
Ryan Briscoe completed the 1-2-3 with third place, and admitted later that his priority during the final laps had been on keeping the pursuing Ganassi cars at bay than trying to mix it up with his team-mates.
He succeeded, leaving Dario Franchitti to settle for fourth ahead of Scott Dixon.
Giorgio Pantano was one of the stars of an afternoon that was largely bereft of overtaking, working his way up from 11th to sixth across the line for Dreyer & Reinbold, but the former GP2 champion was issued with a penalty for blocking Sebastien Bourdais on the final lap and relegated to 17th.
Bourdais consequently took sixth place ahead of James Hinchcliffe, with Graham Rahal, EJ Viso and Ryan Hunter-Reay completing the top 10.
Tung aside, the only other non-finisher was Tony Kanaan, who was forced to pull out on lap 38 after his KV Racing entry developed throttle problems.
Pos Driver Team Result/Gap
1. Will Power Penske 1h47m29.7619s
2. Helio Castroneves Penske 3.2420s
3. Ryan Briscoe Penske 6.4494s
4. Dario Franchitti Ganassi 7.6540s
5. Scott Dixon Ganassi 14.4755s
6. Sebastien Bourdais Dale Coyne 17.1257s
7. James Hinchcliffe Newman/Haas 17.2713s
8. Graham Rahal Ganassi 17.7900s
9. Ernesto Viso KV 21.6276s
10. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti 22.1731s
11. Oriol Servia Newman/Haas 22.9512s
12. Martin Plowman AFS/Sam Schmidt 24.2602s
13. Ana Beatriz Dreyer & Reinbold 29.7207s
14. Sebastian Saavedra Conquest 41.1146s
15. Simon Pagenaud Dreyer & Reinbold 41.7526s
16. Mike Conway Andretti 1m.2912s
17. Giorgio Pantano Dreyer & Reinbold 1m14.2922s
18. Takuma Sato KV + 1 lap
19. James Jakes (Dale Coyne) + 1 lap
20. Alex Tagliani Sam Schmidt + 1 lap
21. Danica Patrick Andretti + 1 lap
22. Vitor Meira Foyt + 1 lap
23. JR Hildebrand Panther + 1 lap
24. Marco Andretti Andretti + 1 lap
25. Ed Carpenter Sarah Fisher + 1 lap
Retirements
Charlie Kimball Ganassi 66 laps
Ho-Pin Tung Sam Schmidt Dragon 63 laps
Tony Kanaan KV 38 laps
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