Scott Dixon Cruises to Third Career Win at Mid-Ohio

It was a weekend of firsts for Scott Dixon. He snagged his first pole of the season yesterday and grabbed his first win of the season today.

It was Dixon's 26th career Izod IndyCar Series win and his third career win in just five starts at Mid-Ohio. The other results were a third and a fifth. He tied Emerson Fittipaldi as the career wins leader at Mid-Ohio with three wins.

Dixon led a race high 50 of the 85 laps.

Teammate Dario Franchitti extended his Championship lead over Will Power by a 68 point margin with his second place finish.  Power had a disappointing day with a 14th place finish in the no. 12 Verizon Wireless Honda.  The rivalry  will continue though as Franchitti blamed Power for trying to spin him out on the first lap by hitting him twice.

Ryan Hunter-Reay finished off a strong weekend by placing third on the podium.  The highest finishing American has turned his season around the past month.

KV Racing had a strong day as well with teammates Takuma Sato and Tony Kanaan placing fourth and fifth.  Kanaan moved up 11 spots from his 16th place starting position and Sato grabbed his best career finish in IndyCar competition. The other driver in the KV stable, E.J. Viso, came home 15th. 

The driver with the most disappointing day was rookie James Hinchcliffe.  Hinch led 26 laps but finished a disappointing 20th.  He came from a first lap incident to come through the field and lead.  He looked to have a podium finish in his sights, but on a late restart, the Canadian lost control of his No. 06 Sprott Honda in the keyhole and moved to the back.  He never could regain his form from there.

The team with the most disappointing day though was Team Penske.  None of the three drivers finished in the top 10.  Besides Indy this year, that hasn't happened since Richmond in 2009.  Not only did Power lose a lot of points, Ryan Briscoe looked to have a top five finish, but got caught up in an incident and finished a disappointing 16th.

Danica Patrick had yet another disappointing day at Mid-Ohio.  She finished 21st for the second straight year.  She has only one top 10 finish in five career Mid-Ohio starts.

The next race on the Izod IndyCar Series schedule is next Sunday at New Hampshire.  The race is at 3:30 on ABC.

FINISING ORDER:

1. 9 Scott Dixon

2. 10 Dario Franchitti

3. 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay

4. 5 Takuma Sato

5. 82 Tony Kanaan

6. 77 Alex Tagliani

7. 26 Marco Andretti

8. 2 Oriol Servia

9. 19 Sebastien Bourdais

10. 14 Vitor Meira

11. 83 Charlie Kimball (R)

12. 78 Simona de Silvestro

13. 22 Simon Pagenaud (R)

14. 12 Will Power

15. 59 E.J. Viso

16. 6 Ryan Briscoe

17. 24 Ana Beatriz

18. 17 Martin Plowman (R)

19. 3 Helio Castroneves

20. 06 James Hinchcliffe (R)

21. 7 Danica Patrick

22. 67 Ed Carpenter

23. 18 James Jakes (R)

24. 38 Graham Rahal

25. 4 J.R. Hildebrand (R)

26. 27 Mike Conway

27. 34 Sebastian Saveedra