Johnson beats Martin to Indy victory

The reigning champion started 16th and systematically moved up in the order to get himself up to third by the time the final pitstops arrived.

Juan Pablo Montoya had been dominant up front, leading the field for most of the distance, but the Colombian was penalised for speeding entering pit road and had to serve a drive-through penalty that dropped him down to 12th place.

That allowed Johnson to move up one place behind Martin, who had been second-best to the Ganassi driver since he lost the lead to him on the first restart as soon as lap five.

Making the most of the recently implemented double-file restart format, Johnson was able to pass Martin on the outside when the green flag waved for the last time with 23 laps remaining.

The 50-year-old remained in hot pursuit of his Hendrick team-mate and although he was able to stay in touch with him, he never got a chance to attempt a pass. Johnson also weaved on the two one-kilometre straights to try to prevent Martin from drafting him on the closing laps, while making the most of running in clean air around the four 90-degree turns.

In the end Johnson's victory, the 43rd for his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career marked also his third visit to Victory Lane at Indianapolis. The result also promotes him to second place in the drivers' standings, overtaking his team-mate Jeff Gordon.

"That was unbelievable," Johnson said. "I knew if I could stay alongside of [Martin] through [Turn] 1 in the short shoot I was going to come out with the lead off of Turn 2. I had a big power slide through [Turn] 1 and was doing everything I could to hang on to it and stayed next to him and then through [Turn] 2 got going. If he had got out in front I would have just chased him and we wouldn't have had anything for him."

Martin was a happy second despite possibly losing out on a fifth win of the year. His result allowed him to move even more further the top twelve in the standings up to ninth place and he is now more than a hundred points clear of 13th place in the championship with six races left before the Chase starts.

"He was better than I was off of [Turn] 4 and I was better than he was off of [Turn] 2, so I knew I had to make it happen off of two but wadding it up wasn't a great idea either," said Martin about his battle with Johnson in the closing laps. "Both of us are driving well for all we are worth and I couldn't get him."

Points leader Tony Stewart completed a solid day finishing third, overtaking Greg Biffle on the final stretch of the race after Biffle had to get into fuel-saving mode. The Roush Fenway driver pitted a few laps before the leaders and despite a final long caution period he still had to conserve fuel in the end. His result allowed him to move back inside the top-twelve in the points after being 13th before this weekend.

Brian Vickers rounded out the top five after running consistently in the top-five all day, while Kevin Harvick finally scored his first top ten in the last sixteen races by finishing sixth. Kasey Kahne, David Reutimann all ran solid races to finish seventh and eighth, while Jeff Gordon made a great recovery from 22nd on the grid to finish ninth ahead of a similarly charging Matt Kenseth.

Juan Pablo Montoya was a disappointed 11th in the end, passing rookie Joey Logano in the closing laps after a tight battle with the 19-year-old rookie.

Kyle Busch was the biggest loser of the day in the standings with yet another bad race. On lap 59 a front tyre on his car blew up, sending him against the barrier. His team-mate Denny Hamlin also had a troubled day with transmission dramas causing a lengthy visit to the garage, which transpired as a 34th place in the end.

Pos  Driver             Car        Laps
 1.  Jimmie Johnson     Chevrolet  160
 2.  Mark Martin        Chevrolet  160
 3.  Tony Stewart       Chevrolet  160
 4.  Greg Biffle        Ford       160
 5.  Brian Vickers      Toyota     160
 6.  Kevin Harvick      Chevrolet  160
 7.  Kasey Kahne        Dodge      160
 8.  David Reutimann    Toyota     160
 9.  Jeff Gordon        Chevrolet  160
10.  Matt Kenseth       Ford       160
11.  Juan Montoya       Chevrolet  160
12.  Joey Logano        Toyota     160
13.  Reed Sorenson      Dodge      160
14.  Ryan Newman        Chevrolet  160
15.  Carl Edwards       Ford       160
16.  David Stremme      Dodge      160
17.  Martin Truex Jr    Chevrolet  160
18.  Clint Bowyer       Chevrolet  160
19.  Casey Mears        Chevrolet  160
20.  AJ Allmendinger    Dodge      160
21.  Jamie McMurray     Ford       160
22.  Marcos Ambrose     Toyota     160
23.  Bobby Labonte      Ford       160
24.  David Ragan        Ford       160
25.  Jeff Burton        Chevrolet  160
26.  Bill Elliott       Ford       160
27.  Kurt Busch         Dodge      160
28.  Robby Gordon       Toyota     160
29.  Paul Menard        Ford       158
30.  David Gilliland    Chevrolet  158
31.  Scott Speed        Toyota     157
32.  John Andretti      Chevrolet  156
33.  Terry Labonte      Toyota     154
34.  Denny Hamlin       Toyota     144
35.  Michael Waltrip    Toyota     139
36.  Dale Earnhardt Jr  Chevrolet  127
37.  Sam Hornish Jr     Dodge      118
38.  Kyle Busch         Toyota     112
39.  Regan Smith        Chevrolet  108
40.  Elliott Sadler     Dodge      45
41.  Mike Skinner       Toyota     35
42.  Dave Blaney        Toyota     23
43.  Joe Nemechek       Toyota     21