Kanaan snares 2nd IRL win of season
Tony Kanaan took advantage of teammate Dan Wheldon’s misfortune to move into the lead, then ran away from the field Sunday to win the Argent Mortgage Indy Grand Prix in Sonoma, Calif.
Kanaan beat Buddy Rice by 1.182 seconds – about eight car-lengths – for his second IRL IndyCar win of the season, completing a sweep for Andretti Green Racing on Sunday. Owner Michael Andretti’s son, Marco, won the Menards Infiniti Pro Series earlier in the day.
It was Wheldon’s broken fuel pump that allowed Kanaan to take the lead on the 53rd of 80 laps at Infineon Raceway.
“I have had bad days and he capitalized a lot on them,” Kanaan said of Wheldon, the IndyCar points leader.
Kanaan averaged 91.040 mph around Infineon’s 12-turn, 2.26-mile track in the first IRL race held on a road course.
“I think we raced pretty smart. I know I’m going to have to win every race the rest of this year to win the championship,” Kanhe said.
Red Bull Cheever Racing teammates Alex Barron and Patrick Carpentier finished third and fourth, 1.854 seconds and 2.664 seconds, respectively, behind Kanaan.
A 19th-lap crash took out the two fastest qualifiers as Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe were attempting to pass rookie Danica Patrick.
Patrick was the last of six cars that remained on course as the rest of the pack pitted on lap 17, after Ed Carpenter spun and stalled. Briscoe slammed into the side of Patrick and she gathered up Castroneves.
“I don’t know what the heck he was thinking. He just decided to pass everybody in one corner and he ended up taking everybody out,” Castroneves said.
Briscoe, who won his first career pole on Saturday, called it “a pretty big mess.”
Castroneves’ teammate Sam Hornish Jr. went out in the first lap with a broken gearbox. He returned to the race 25 laps down.
That dropped Hornish from second to third in the points standings while Kanaan moved to second behind Wheldon.
Champ Car
Oriol Servia was handed his first Champ Car victory when series officials ordered rookie Timo Glock to let him pass on the final lap of the Montreal Molson Indy race.
Glock, whose best previous finish in nine races this season was sixth, found himself in the lead late in the 79-lap race and tried desperately to hold onto the top spot, twice blocking Servia’s Newman/Haas Racing Lola as the two nearly bumped.
He was warned by Champ Car officials following the first block, but did it again in the same spot on lap 76 when Servia got alongside and appeared set to take the lead.
At that point, the German was told to give the top spot to Servia and he finally did, pulling over just long enough to let the Spaniard pass midway through the final lap.
Servia beat Glock to the finish line by exactly 1 second to earn his first win in 95 Champ Car races.
Touring cars
Alex Zanardi won his first race since losing both legs in an accident in Germany in 2001. Zanardi captured the seventh race of the world touring cars championships in Oschersleben, Germany, in his BMW 320i.
The former Formula One driver and two-time CART champion was injured during a collision in a CART race.