Power wins Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma

Indy Car News

Power wins Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma

One year ago, Team Penske’s Will Power watched the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma from his hospital bed in nearby Petaluma, just beginning the long recovery process from injuries – including a fractured back – that had abruptly ended his season in a multi-car crash during practice at Infineon Raceway.

Flash forward to 2010, and Power swept all before him in his return to the hilly road course just north of San Francisco. Starting from the pole, Power led all but two of the 75 laps in Sunday’s IZOD IndyCar Series race for his fifth victory of the season, winning the Mario Andretti Trophy as the best road-course racer in 2010 and increasing his lead in the overall drivers’ championship standings to 59 points over third-finishing Dario Franchitti.

Power led from the start, surrendering the lead to Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon only during the final exchange of pit stops, and successfully held off a last, furious attack from the second-running Dixon after a late-race caution set up a final, six-lap sprint to the finish.

For the 13th consecutive race weekend in 2010, all 25 IZOD IndyCar Series drivers completed this weekend’s event without a single failure for the Honda Indy V-8 engine, as drivers and teams logged a total of 8,214 trouble-free miles around the hilly 2.3-mile Infineon road course. Scott Dixon

Power dictated the pace for much of the 75-lap race, pulling out as much as a six-second lead at several points between the day’s four caution flags, while behind him the Target Chip Ganassi duo of Franchitti and Dixon mixed it up with Power’s Penske teammates Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe for the remaining top five positions.

FAZZT Race Team’s Alex Tagliani also figured prominently in the early laps before fading with handling issues, while Justin Wilson and the Andretti Autosport duo of Tony Kanaan and Ryan Hunter-Reay all moved up late in the race. But no one had the speed to match Power. Contact involving Panther Racing’s Dan Wheldon and rookie Bertrand Baguette at the green flag set Wheldon upside-down on the front straight, but he escaped the dramatic accident without injury.

This weekend’s race concludes the road-racing portion of the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series championship. The series concludes with its final four events on 1.5-mile ovals, starting with next weekend’s PEAK Indy 300 at Chicagoland Speedway near Joliet, IL, on Saturday, August 28.