Toronto no surprise – Power wins, Duno last

Indy Car News

By Gary Becker
Sports Car Illustrated

It may have had the typical IndyCar road race bookends with Will Power winning and Milka Duno placing last, but the books in-between at the Honda Indy at Toronto were full of interesting stories.

The race started with Justin Wilson taking the lead and continuing to prove he is one of the best road racers in the series. The first lap had Wilson in first followed by Helio Castroneves and Dario Franchitti. Will Power Penske Racing IndyCar

It didn’t take long for the fireworks to begin as Dan Wheldon was forced to pit after contact EJ Viso dropping Wheldon to last. Wheldon returned to the race and would soldier on to finish a respectable tenth place.

IndyCar’s most famous moving chicane, Milka Duno, once again proved she has absolutely no business driving an IndyCar when she was only able to stay on the lead lap for 10 circuits. Nearly causing several incidents among the leaders, Duno was black flagged and spent the rest of the race doing was she does best, standing around and looking good.

Lap 17 brought out the first of many full course yellows when KV Racing Technology teammates Takuma Sato and Mario Moraes collided. Moraes was attempting to overtake Sato and simply pushed Sato into the outside wall. Believe it or not, this was the nineteenth incident this year between KV Racing teammates.

This full course yellow allowed all the teams the pit except for Paul Tracey and Vito Meira who both decided to gamble and stay on course. When the green flag reappeared on lap 12 it was Tracey and Meira in the lead. Both drivers would benefit from a series of incidents that were to follow.

First on lap 27 Castroneves ran into Meira as Meira braked early for a turn. The contact caused front end damage on Castroneves’ car which ended up in the turn three tire barrier. Fortunately, Castroneves was unharmed.

Second, on lap 32 Alex Lloyd was involved in a minor one car crash in turn three when something broke in his car. This was quickly followed by a third yellow when Mario Romancini and Moraes got together. The yellows helped both Tracey and Meira stretch out their fuel mileage. Dario Franchitti Target Racing

When the green flag finally appeared again on lap 35 Tracey and Meira had pitted, Moraes was slammed with a drive thru penalty and Franchitti was in the lead with Power and Wilson following.

On Lap 52 the leaders began to pit a second time with Wilson winning the battle of the pit crews and taking the lead followed by Power and Franchitti. This pit stop insured the leaders had enough fuel to finish.

Ryan Briscoe’s day was ruined as Penske racing suffered its second incident of the day when Briscoe’s ill handling car was hit from behind by Graham Rahal. Briscoe would return but was no longer in contention. Rahal appeared to have survived the contact unscathed.

The fireworks started again on lap 65 when Alex Tagliani got into EJ Viso who then got into Raphael Matos knocking Viso and Matos out. This was followed by a short green flag period that saw Power pass Wilson on the restart. Shortly after Power grabbed the lead the battle for fourth place got nasty when Ryan Hunter-Reay and Scott Dixon made contact as Hunter-Reay attempted to pass underneath Dixon going into turn three. A combination of Dixon not giving enough room and Hunter-Reay needing more room then should have been necessary led to Dixon being pushed into the outside wall damaging the front right suspension on the Target car.

At the same time Wilson ruined his day when he suffered a bout of over steering causing him to spin and fall to rear of the lead lap. The one time race leader would finish seventh.

When green flag racing restarted the top three were Power, Franchitti and Hunter-Reay.

With about 12 laps to go Tagliani and Tomas Scheckter got together and crashed. This was not the first time these two have bumped into each other on the race track. This particular on track incident led to an off track verbal confrontation which involved the liberal use of words some may find offensive.

The green flew for the final time on lap 76 with Power leading followed by Franchitti and Hunter-Reay. The last several laps of the race were refreshingly without incident as Power was able to keep Fanchitti at bay.

The final top five were Power, Franchitti, Hunter-Reay, Tony Kanaan and Rahal.

Honda Indy Toronto