Will Power controlled proceedings in the opening IndyCar race at Mid-Ohio this weekend to score his first victory of the 2020 season.
Power took the chequered flag over seven seconds clear of Penske team mate Josef Newgarden and was never seriously threatened after starting the race from pole position. Rain threatened in the final laps, but didn’t fall until Power was back in victory lane.Newgarden moved up from third on the grid, passing Ryan Hunter-Reay at the start, to take second position. Running a similar strategy to his team mate, he was never able to get close enough to threaten the 2014 champion in a race which ran under green flag conditions from start to finish.
Alexander Rossi ran a long first stint to rise from sixth on the grid to claim third place at the finish, holding Graham Rahal behind despite deteriorating tyres. The pair crossed the line separated by just two-tenths of a second.
Hunter-Reay took the chequered flag in fifth. He fell from second to fourth at the start, losing out to Newgarden and Conor Daly, but quickly re-passed the latter on lap four.
A lively start to the race also saw Rossi scrapping with Felix Rosenqvist, who came in sixth ahead of Jack Harvey. Rinus Veekay performed a superb pass on Colton Herta to secure eighth place.
The top 10 was completed by Scott Dixon, who looked on course for bigger thanks after a rapid start to the race from a lowly 17th on the grid. He made his way up to 11th place by lap 10, thanks in part to a bold, two-for-one move on Veekey and Marco Andretti, but struggled to make further progress as most drivers converged onto similar two-stop strategies.
Dixon nonetheless maintains a healthy lead in the championship ahead of tomorrow’s second race at the road circuit, after which the series has just three more rounds left to run in its disrupted 2020 schedule.
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Race result
| Position | Driver |
| 1 | Will Power |
| 2 | Josef Newgarden |
| 3 | Alexander Rossi |
| 4 | Graham Rahal |
| 5 | Ryan Hunter-Reay |
| 6 | Felix Rosenqvist |
| 7 | Jack Harvey |
| 8 | Rinus VeeKay |
| 9 | Colton Herta |
| 10 | Scott Dixon |
| 11 | Pato O’Ward |
| 12 | Alex Palou |
| 13 | Conor Daly |
| 14 | Santino Ferrucci |
| 15 | Marcus Ericsson |
| 16 | Max Chilton |
| 17 | Takuma Sato |
| 18 | Simon Pagenaud |
| 19 | Oliver Askew |
| 20 | Zach Veach |
| 21 | Charlie Kimball |
| 22 | Dalton Kellett |
| 23 | Marco Andretti |
pastaman (@)
15th September 2020, 13:27
Good thing race results are being spoiled for all these comments and traffic