Power Wins IndyCar Event On A Wild Night In Texas

Column By: JOHN DOUGLAS / RPW – FORT WORTH, TX – Will Power took the win Saturday Night in a highly unpredictable, caution marred event at Texas Motor Speedway. Power’s early season struggles may be turning around as he avoided the carnage that took well over half the field out of competition. The newly reconfigured track surface gave concern to most of the field before the green flag, as many complained about turns one and two.

Charlie Kimball, off the heels of his first pole in the Verizon IndyCar Series, led the first 15 laps of the night. As he did so Tristian Vautier the substitute at Dale Coyne Racing for Sebasiten Bourdais, became the first driver to test the waters of the outside groove in turns one and two. Passing at least 5 cars on the outside, Vautier found himself running side by side with Kimball for the lead for nearly 12 laps in a row.

The first round of pit stops went wrong for James Hinchcliffe, Helio Castroneves and 2017 Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato. Hinchcliffe looped his No. 5 Schmidt-Peterson Honda collecting Castroneves and Sato. All three were somehow able to continue. Although all three did take the next green flag, it was Helio Castroneves who brought out the caution flag on lap 92 after blowing a right front in turns one and two, slamming the wall and ending his race.

During the caution flag pit stops it became clear there was an issue with the Firestone rubber supplied to teams as Josef Newgarden’s right front tire was heavily blistered at the end of his run. Multiple teams showed the signs of blistering which IndyCar responded to by making the decision after the race’s half-way point to throw a competition caution every 30 laps.

Though the racing had been close and action-packed, it seemed inevitable things would take a turn for the worse as the aggression began to reach powder keg levels. On lap 152 the powder keg blew as entering turn three, Tony Kanaan’s No. 10 Chip Ganassi Honda moved up on both

Hinchcliffe and Vautier causing a massive wreck with at least 6 cars involved. Ed Carpenter, Ed Jones, Carlos Munoz and J.R. Hildebrand were also involved.

After the incident Chip Ganassi defended his driver saying that Hinchcliffe should have backed out being the car in the middle of three wide. After seeing the replay of the wreck, Hinchcliffe responded on-air to Ganassi’s opinion saying, “That’s adorable.”

After a lengthy red flag period for clean up, the remainder of the field too the green flag with Will Power in control. Only nine cars remained on the lead lap and after quick repairs to his damaged machine earlier in the event, Sato began to make the high lane his home passing cars at will to move into third place.

As the caution flew for the first 30 lap competition yellow, Newgarden attempted a bit of trickery as his team pitted just as the yellow was waved. What could have turned out to be a race winning move instead found Newgarden starting near the back of the pack as his Penske team was informed that they would still need to make a mandatory pit stop during the caution period.

As the field approached 20 laps to go the final competition yellow flew, setting up a dash to the checkered flag between 8 cars remaining on the lead lap. Power led the field to the green flag and immediately felt pressure from Scott Dixon and Sato.

As the whole field began to form up as if they were running a 220mph pace lap, the excitement began to build toward an epic race finish that we have come to expect out of IndyCar at the 1.5 mile tracks. Unfortunately for everyone that wasn’t meant to be as Sato lost control of his Andretti Auto Sport Honda in the quad-oval grass, slamming into Dixon, Connor Daly and Max Chilton.

The race ended under yellow with Will Power taking home his first Verizon IndyCar Series win of 2017 with Tony Kanaan, Simon Pagenaud, Graham Rahal and Gabby Chavez completing the top five.

The Verizon IndyCar Series head to Road America for it’s next event at the Kohler Grand Prix from June 23-25.