Power Overcomes Penalty to Win IndyCar Long Beach Grand Prix

Power Overcomes Penalty to Win IndyCar Long Beach Grand Prix
Will Power came from twelfth on the starting grid to win the IndyCar Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Will Power came from twelfth on the starting grid to win the IndyCar Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach
4/15/2012
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img class="size-full wp-image-1789075" title="4928WillPower12StPete12WEB" src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/4928WillPower12StPete12WEB.jpg" alt="Will Power came from twelfth on the starting grid to win the IndyCar Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Will Power came from twelfth on the starting grid to win the IndyCar Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach" width="750" height="441"/></a>
Will Power came from twelfth on the starting grid to win the IndyCar Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Will Power came from twelfth on the starting grid to win the IndyCar Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

Will Power came from twelfth on the starting grid to win the IndyCar Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, giving both Penske and Chevrolet power with three poles and three wins in three races.
    
Power and all other Chevy-powered cars were penalized ten grid spots for engine issues, but it didn’t slow the speedy Aussie, who took the championship points lead.

“After last week you can never say never, but I thought it would be very tough to win the race,” Power told NBC Sports. “Once again good strategy: ran hard when we had to. At the end there we had to save so much fuel to get there, but so happy for the Verizon guys and the Chevy guys—it just worked out. We got a penalty and we overcame it.

“I’ve been trying to win this race for four years and now I’ve done it. That was one of my best wins, I reckon; I love this.”

Power drove fast while still saving fuel; he finished just ahead of Schmidt/Hamilton driver Simon Pagenaud who finished only .89675 seconds behind.

“We actually used some fuel to get around people,” Power explained. “Then Tim [Cindric, race engineer] was telling me you’ve got to save fuel and just did everything I could to be as quick as I could while saving fuel and that was the result.”

Pagenaud took second ahead of James Hinchcliffe, who inherited the position from Andretti Autosport teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay, who was penalized 30 seconds for spinning then third-placed Takuma Sato on the last lap. The RLL driver would have had the best IndyCar finish of his career; he ended up eighth.

Had Sato finished behind Pagenaud, Honda would have had two teams on the podium. Instead, Chevrolet got eight in the top ten. The highest-placed Lotus-powered driver was Dreyer & Reinbold’s Oriol Servia in 16th.

Izod IndyCar Series Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

 

#

Driver

Team

Motor

Laps

Status

1

12

Will Power

Penske Racing

Chevy

85

Running

2

4

Simon Pagenaud

Schmidt/Hamilton

Honda

85

Running

3

16

James Hinchcliffe

Andretti Autosport

Chevy

85

Running

4

19

Tony Kanaan

KV Racing

Chevy

85

Running

5

20

JR Hildebrand

Panther Racing

Chevy

85

Running

6

13

Ryan Hunter-Reay

Andretti Autosport

Chevy

85

Running

7

11

Ryan Briscoe

Penske Racing

Chevy

85

Running

8

6

Takuma Sato

Rahal Letterman Lanigan

Honda

84

Running

9

22

Rubens Barrichello

KV Racing

Chevy

84

Running

10

3

Justin Wilson

Dale Coyne Racing

Honda

84

Running

11

14

James Jakes

Dale Coyne Racing

Honda

84

Running

12

15

EJ Viso

KV Racing

Chevy

84

Running

13

18

Helio Castroneves

Penske Racing

Chevy

84

Running

14

24

Ed Carpenter

Ed Carpenter Racing

Chevy

83

Running

15

1

Dario Franchitti

Target Ganassi

Honda

82

Running

16

23

Oriol Servia

Dreier & Reinbold

Lotus

82

Running

17

25

Sebastien Bourdais

Lotus-Dragon Racing

Lotus

82

Running

18

9

Charlie Kimball

Novo Nordisk Ganassi

Honda

80

Running

19

26

Katherine Legge

Lotus-Dragon Racing

Lotus

80

Running

20

17

Simona de Silvestro

Lotus-Dragon Racing

Lotus

74

Mechanical

21

10

Alex Tagliani

Bryan Herta Autosport

Lotus

46

Mechanical

22

7

Mike Conway

A.J. Foyt Enterprises

Honda

41

Mechanical

23

5

Scott Dixon

Target Ganassi

Honda

27

Mechanical

24

8

Graham Rahal

Service Central Ganassi

Honda

23

Contact

25

21

Marco Andretti

Andretti Autosport

Chevy

22

Contact

26

2

Josef Newgarden

Sarah Fisher Hartman

Honda

0

Contact