Helio Castroneves score his first victory of the season at Grand Prix of Alabama in Barber Motorsports Park keeping Team Penske’s victory streak alive, due to a genious two-stop strategy guided by his Team Manager Tim Cindric.
The 90-lap race featured only two full-course cautions and was dominated by fuel conservation strategies. Although Marco Andretti was leading 58 laps after Takuma Sato's throttle broken cable caused the first caution early in the race, but was forced to pit 9 laps from the end for fuel as no other caution eventually did not take place. A late-race caution for the stalled Dallara-Honda of Simona de Silvestro set up a two-lap shootout between Castroneves and Dixon, without any impact to Brazilian's victory.
Castroneves who stopped in front of the crowd in order to climb circuit's safety fence as part of Helio's traditional victorious celebrations, quoted in victory lane:
"Team Penske did a hell of a job. So far, we'll keep going and working together. Will [Power] was definitely the car to beat. But again, this place was about strategy. We learned a lot from Brazil and St. Pete and executed it today.
The biggest challenge [was passing] because the turbulence here was so difficult. You keep trying but don't want to make a mistake, either. It was one of those things of what to do. I knew that I had to save fuel and I knew being smart would pay off. Finally, for the first time... Drivers, they don't normally think. This is the first time I did it!"
Target Chip Ganassi's drivers Scot Dixon and Dario Franchitti were 2nd and 3rd respectively while Will Power who was victorious in the 2 previous races and was ambitious to continue his winning streak after being the pole sitter fo the race was 4rth. Marco Andretti was 5th due to a false pit-stop strategy and lack of enough fuel conservation while he was leading the race.
That was the first 2010 IZOD Indycar win for Helio since 2009 Bombardier Learjet 550 at Texas Motor Speedway, and he jumped from sixth to second in the points standings, trailing teammate Will Power by 32 points.
Dixon’s Target Chip Gansssi Racing teammate Dario Franchitti came home third, while pole-sitter Power, who was going for his third consecutive victory, finished fourth after leading 12 laps.
