IndyCar: Will Power Takes Long Beach and Chevy Is Undefeated in 2012

The 2012 Long Beach Grand Prix  had a little something for everyone. You had Will Power overcoming starting in 12^th place to win in a dramatic finish just ahead of his former teammate Simon Pagenaud, who finished a close second—to be be exact 0.8675 seconds in the 85-lap race.

For Power it was his second straight after winning in Alabama and it is now onto Brazil, where has been dominate. It also was the third win in a row for Team Penske and the Chevrolet engine that has made a very successful return to the IndyCar Series.   

There were plenty of accidents and penalties that cost Helio Castroneves and Ryan Hunter-Reay any chance of challenging. Both was penalized, Hunter-Reay for 30 seconds after spinning Takuma Sato out of third with one lap remaining. Like Hunter-Reay, Castroneves was penalized 30 seconds for setting off the Lap 85 melee.

Lost in all of this madness was a fine race run by James Hinchcliffe, who did a good job of driving the 85 laps around the challenging Long Beach race course, staying out of trouble and putting himself in contention to make it to the podium.

Next up, they head to Brazil for the April 29 race—the Sao Paulo Indy 300—yet another street race.

Here is how everyone finished at Long Beach:

Race Results
POS	DRIVER	CAR	MANUFACTURER	LAPS		START	LED	PTS
1	Will Power	12	Chevrolet	85		12	15	50
2	Simon Pagenaud	77	Honda	85		4	26	42
3	James Hinchcliffe	27	Chevrolet	85		16	0	35
4	Tony Kanaan	11	Chevrolet	85		19	0	32
5	JR Hildebrand	4	Chevrolet	85		20	0	30
6	Ryan Hunter-Reay	28	Chevrolet	85		13	4	28
7	Ryan Briscoe	2	Chevrolet	85		11	5	27
8	Takuma Sato	15	Honda	84		6	16	24
9	Rubens Barrichello	8	Chevrolet	84		22	0	22
10	Justin Wilson	18	Honda	84		3	15	20
11	James Jakes	19	Honda	84		14	0	19
12	E.J. Viso	5	Chevrolet	84		15	0	18
13	Helio Castroneves	3	Chevrolet	84		18	0	17
14	Ed Carpenter	20	Chevrolet	83		24	0	16
15	Dario Franchitti	10	Honda	82		1	4	15
16	Oriol Servia	22	Lotus	82		23	0	14
17	Sebastien Bourdais	7	Lotus	82		25	0	13
18	Charlie Kimball	83	Honda	80		9	0	12
19	Katherine Legge	6	Lotus	80		26	0	12
20	Simona De Silvestro	78	Lotus	74		17	0	12
21	Alex Tagliani	98	Lotus	46		10	0	12
22	Mike Conway	14	Honda	41		7	0	12
23	Scott Dixon	9	Honda	27		5	0	12
24	Graham Rahal	38	Honda	23		8	0	12
25	Marco Andretti	26	Chevrolet	22		21	0	10
26	Josef Newgarden	67	Honda	0		2	0	10