Power snares another win in Toronto

By Jul 17, 2016, 5:01 PM EDT
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TORONTO – Will Power and Verizon Team Penske made a key strategic call prior to a crash at the Honda Indy Toronto, which positioned them to take the lead and ultimately the win in the 11th race of the Verizon IndyCar Series season.

Power pitted on Lap 57 for his final stop in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet and mere moments later, Iowa winner and defending race champion Josef Newgarden crashed out in Turn 5 on Lap 58, in a frustrating moment to end a challenging weekend.

That brought out the race’s fourth full course caution and ultimately hosed erstwhile dominant driver Scott Dixon, who had led 56 laps in the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, and six others just behind him who needed to make their final stop.

Once they did, they cycled back to 13th place on back. The other six drivers caught out were Simon Pagenaud, Juan Pablo Montoya, Charlie Kimball, Luca Filippi, Graham Rahal and Alexander Rossi.

“Tim and Will made a great call. We were a lap away,” Dixon’s strategist and Ganassi managing director Mike Hull told NBCSN’s Kevin Lee.

The aforementioned Tim Cindric, Penske Racing president and Power’s strategist said: “We’ve been on the other side of it before! What we saw there was we saw traffic, we cut our losses!”

Power restarted second behind Tony Kanaan before Kanaan pitted on Lap 76 from the lead, and once the No. 10 NTT Data Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet resumed on course in fourth place, he set sail for the podium runners.

Power led Helio Castroneves and James Hinchcliffe, with the latter in major fuel save mode in search of securing a hometown podium finish.

On a one-lap green flag dash to the flag, Power held them both off following a two-car separate incident with Jack Hawksworth and Juan Pablo Montoya in Turn 5.

Hawksworth later told NBC Sports he’d been hit by Pagenaud, although there was no clear evidence to support that claim.

Dixon, meanwhile, spent the remainder of the race trying to rebound from the stop under yellow and made it back to eighth. He left without commenting after a lost day where he got caught on the wrong side of a yellow flag.

Results are below:

TORONTO – Results Sunday of the Honda Indy Toronto Verizon IndyCar Series event on the 1.786-mile Exhibition Place circuit, with order of finish, starting position in parentheses, driver, aero kit-engine, laps completed and reason out (if any):

1. (4) Will Power, Chevrolet, 85, Running
2. (2) Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, 85, Running
3. (6) James Hinchcliffe, Honda, 85, Running
4. (12) Tony Kanaan, Chevrolet, 85, Running
5. (20) Takuma Sato, Honda, 85, Running
6. (10) Mikhail Aleshin, Honda, 85, Running
7. (5) Sebastien Bourdais, Chevrolet, 85, Running
8. (1) Scott Dixon, Chevrolet, 85, Running
9. (3) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 85, Running
10. (22) Marco Andretti, Honda, 85, Running
11. (17) Charlie Kimball, Chevrolet, 85, Running
12. (18) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 85, Running
13. (16) Graham Rahal, Honda, 85, Running
14. (11) Luca Filippi, Honda, 85, Running
15. (7) Conor Daly, Honda, 85, Running
16. (19) Alexander Rossi, Honda, 85, Running
17. (15) Carlos Munoz, Honda, 85, Running
18. (14) Max Chilton, Chevrolet, 85, Running
19. (21) Spencer Pigot, Chevrolet, 85, Running
20. (9) Juan Pablo Montoya, Chevrolet, 84, Running
21. (13) Jack Hawksworth, Honda, 80, Contact
22. (8) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 57, Contact

Race Statistics
Winners average speed: 88.739
Time of Race: 1:42:38.6925
Margin of victory: 1.5275 seconds
Cautions: 5 cautions for 16 laps
Lead changes: 6 among 6 drivers

Lap Leaders:
Dixon 1-26
Pagenaud 27
Bourdais 28
Daly 29
Dixon 30-59
Kanaan 60-75
Power 76-85

Verizon IndyCar Series point standings: Pagenaud 432, Power 385, Castroneves 358, Dixon 349, Newgarden 344, Kanaan 339, Rossi 300, Hinchcliffe 299, Kimball 294, Munoz 293.

Texas starting lineup: Felix Rosenqvist back on pole; Scott Dixon qualifies second

By Apr 1, 2023, 4:00 PM EDT
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FORT WORTH, Texas — For the second consecutive year, Felix Rosenqvist will lead the NTT IndyCar Series starting lineup to the green flag at Texas Motor Speedway.

The Arrow McLaren driver is hoping the third time will be the charm at the 1.5-mile oval, where he has run extremely well but has only a career-best 12th in five starts.

“We’ve always been good here, but this is a whole different confidence level compared to last year,” Rosenqvist told NBC Sports’ Marty Snider. “Let’s try to wrap it up (Sunday).”

In 2020, Rosenqvist was competing for a podium when he crashed with 10 laps remaining at Texas.

QUALIFYING RESULTS: Click here for speeds from Saturday’s time trials

INDYCAR AT TEXAS: Schedule, start times, how to watch on NBC, Peacock

Last year, he started first on an oval for the first time in his career but finished 21st because of a broken halfshaft.

“It’s definitely one of my favorite tracks, and naturally, I’ve always been OK here,” Rosenqvist said. “It was the first oval that made sense to me. Every year I’m building on that. But looking at the results, they don’t represent the speed I normally have.

“I don’t want to jinx anything, but I hope tomorrow is going to go a bit better and some luck our way would be nice. It’s been feeling super good. Arrow McLaren has been mega every session, so just keep it rolling.”

Arrow McLaren qualified all three of its Chevrolets in the top five, building on a second for Pato O’Ward and fourth for Alexander Rossi in the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

The March 5 season opener was a disappointing start for Rosenqvist who was squeezed into the wall by Scott Dixon on the first lap.

Dixon, a five-time winner at Texas, will start second Sunday, followed by Rossi and Josef Newgarden. O’Ward will start fifth alongside Takuma Sato, who will start on the outside of the third row in his Chip Ganassi Racing debut.

During nearly four hours of practice and qualifying (including a special high-line session), Saturday’s lone incident involved Conor Daly.

The Ed Carpenter Racing driver spun three times but stayed off the wall and in the frontstretch grass. Aside from a front wing change and new tires, there was no damage to his No. 20 Dallara-Chevrolet during the incident midway through the 30-minute session in which drivers were limited to the high line.

“I hadn’t really had a moment before, but it snapped really aggressively,” Daly told NBC Sports after final practice. “Not ideal, but I do know my way around correcting a spin it seems like. I drove NASCAR last weekend and that seemed to help a little bit. I drove in the dirt a lot in USAC Midgets and seemed to be able to save something but not ideal or what we wanted to have happen.”

Daly will start 25th of 28 cars alongside teammate Rinus VeeKay in Row 13. Carpenter qualified 18th.

“Our three of our cars were clearly looking for something. Mechanical grip is for sure what we need. Qualifying we actually expected to be a lot better, but we found an issue there. We’ll see what happens. This race can change a lot. I’m confident in the team to hopefully figure some things out for tomorrow.”

Here’s the IndyCar starting lineup for Sunday’s PPG 375 at Texas Motor Speedway (qualifying position, car number in parentheses, driver, engine and speed):

ROW 1

1. (6) Felix Rosenqvist, Dallara-Chevy, 220.264 mph
2. (9) Scott Dixon, Dallara-Honda, 219.972

ROW 2

3. (7) Alexander Rossi, Dallara-Chevy, 219.960
4. (2) Josef Newgarden, Dallara-Chevy, 219.801

ROW 3

5. (5) Pato O’Ward, Dallara-Chevy, 219.619
6. (11) Takuma Sato, Dallara-Honda, 219.508

ROW 4

7. (10) Alex Palou, Dallara-Honda, 219.480
8. (12) Will Power, Dallara-Chevy, 219.355

ROW 5

9. (18) David Malukas, Dallara-Honda, 219.256
10. (26) Colton Herta, Dallara-Honda, 219.184

ROW 6

11. (28) Romain Grosjean, Dallara-Honda, 219.165
12. (29) Devlin DeFrancesco, Dallara-Honda, 219.146

ROW 7 

13. (55) Benjamin Pedersen, Dallara-Chevy, 219.100
14. (14) Santino Ferrucci, Dallara-Chevy, 218.892

ROW 8

15. (3) Scott McLaughlin, Dallara-Chevy, 218.765
16. (8) Marcus Ericsson, Dallara-Honda, 218.698

ROW 9

17. (77) Callum Ilott, Dallara-Chevy, 218.427
18. (33) Ed Carpenter, Dallara-Chevy, 218.375

ROW 10

19. (78) Agustin Canapino, Dallara-Chevy, 218.367
20. (27) Kyle Kirkwood, Dallara-Honda, 218.227

ROW 11

21. (06) Helio Castroneves, Dallara-Honda, 218.196
22. (60) Simon Pagenaud, Dallara-Honda, 218.103

ROW 12

23. (51) Sting Ray Robb, Dallara-Honda, 217.676
24. (15) Graham Rahal, Dallara-Honda, 217.611

ROW 13

25. (20) Conor Daly, Dallara-Chevy, 217.457
26. (21) Rinus VeeKay, Dallara-Chevy, 216.880

ROW 14

27. (45) Christian Lundgaard, Dallara-Honda, 216.210
28. (30) Jack Harvey, Dallara-Honda, 216.103