Will Power Sweeps Baltimore

Will Power has now swept the last two Izod IndyCar Series weekends.  He won the pole and the race last weekend in Sonoma and did the same this weekend in Baltimore.

Power picked up his sixth win of the season and 15th of his career.  It was also Power's ninth career win from the pole.

Baltimore was also the 19th consecutive road race Power has led.

Power dominated almost the whole race and said it was the most exhausting race he has run this season.

Power also trimmed the points deficit he's behind Dario Franchitti in down to five points heading into the next race in Japan.

He finished over 11 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Oriol Servia, who used a great pit call to pit under yellow with a little over 30 laps to go and came close to being Power's main challenger at the end.

Rounding out the podium was Brazilian Tony Kanaan, who gained 24 positions from the start to land in the top three.  Kanaan, like Servia, pitted under that caution and gained positions on all the drivers who didn't pit.

It was a long day for Kanaan as he got airborne over Helio Castroneves' car in a wreck this morning in the warm-up session.  Kanaan's brakes failed and he ran over the right rear wheel on Castroneves and sent him airborne into the turn one tire barrier. 

Both drivers escaped injury but had to revert to their back-up cars and start in the rear of the field.

Points leader Dario Franchitti finished fourth in the No. 10 Kellogg's Honda.  He was never really a threat to win today.  He ran in the top four all day, but could never muster a good enough run to catch the top two.

Rounding out the top five was Franchitti's teammate Scott Dixon.  Dixon had an interesting day in that he tried to short-pit on lap 12, but got caught up in the big incident in turn three on lap 38.  Dixon got a flat tire because of that and was forced to pit.  He, like Servia and Kanaan, was a benefactor of that pit stop.

The driver that had the worst luck today was Graham Rahal.  He was the only one in the field that had a shot at beating Will Power.

Rahal was second all day and was close to passing Power numerous times, but was the biggest loser due to not pitting under that yellow from the wreck in turn three.

The top 10 stayed out on track while 11th-18th all pitted under that yellow.  Power, Rahal, and Franchitti tried to gain as much time on the restart and ensuing laps on Oriol Servia because they had to pit still.

Rahal pitted with 18 laps to go, but he didn't get a big enough gap between himself and those who did pit.  He came out 13th place while Dario and Power got enough of a gap to come out up front.

Rahal ended up 10th today.  It was his sixth top 10 this season.

The incident that caused all this controversy was Ryan Briscoe spinning out Ryan Hunter-Reay in turn three on a restart.

Briscoe faked high on Hunter-Reay on the straight and quickly ducked to Hunter-Reay's inside heading into the turn.  Briscoe looked to move up a big on Hunter-Reay and sent him spinning.  It caused a 12 car jam-up as drivers slowed to a stop to avoid contact.

While cars were stopped, drivers that were in the back passed all those cars and gained a ton of positions.  It caused a lengthy yellow due to race control deeming that it was unfair for all those cars to pass the ones stopped, and they decided to go back to the order prior to that jam up.

Briscoe was penalized for a drive-through penalty on the restart for the incident.

While under yellow Marco Andretti lost an oil line and dropped oil all over the track.

With the oil the yellow flag stayed out and the cars 11th and back decided to pit, and the rest is history.

A couple of incidents for KV Racing happened in the last two laps.

Takuma Sato was running sixth with two laps to go, but spun in turn three.  The spin caused him to lose power and he ended up a lap down and finished 18th.

Sato's teammate E.J. Viso also spun with two laps to go while running 12th, but he regained power and finished 15th.

Overall the weekend in Baltimore was a success.  The track was bumpy, but the drivers adjusted well.  The huge crowds all weekend was the biggest success though, and the drivers, teams and officials now have info to make next year even better.

FINISHING ORDER:

1. 12 Will Power

2. 2 Oriol Servia

3. 82 Tony Kanaan

4. 10 Dario Franchitti

5. 9 Scott Dixon

6. 77 Alex Tagliani

7. 7 Danica Patrick

8. 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay

9. 14 Vitor Meira

10. 38 Graham Rahal

11. 17 Martin Plowman (R)

12. 78 Simona de Silvestro (R)

13. 34 Sebastian Saveedra (R)

14. 6 Ryan Briscoe

15. 59 E.J. Viso

16. 24 Ana Beatriz (R)

17. 3 Helio Castroneves

18. 5 Takuma Sato

19. 4 J.R. Hildebrand (R)

20. 67 Ed Carpenter

21. 83 Charlie Kimball (R)

22. 07 Tomas Scheckter

23. 27 Mike Conway

24. 06 James Hinchcliffe (R)

25. 26 Marco Andretti

26. 22 Giorgio Pantano (R)

27. 18 James Jakes (R)

28. 19 Sebastien Bourdais