Australian Ryan Briscoe credited his pole position with a victory at Firestone 550K on the fast and furious 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway oval, during a heated night when sparks and tempers flared. Although Briscoe has started from the pole, he had to overtook Danica Patrick on Lap 193 and held off the Andretti Autosport driver over the remaining 35 laps to win the race proving that Team Pesnke's drivers are still on a championship momentum.
Marco Andretti finished third for the second consecutive race and Target Chip Ganassi Racing driver Scott Dixon, who was also the 2008 race winner, finished fourth. His teammate and two-year consecutive winner of the Indianapolis 500 Dario Franchitti was back to fifth.
Franchitti, though, moved to the lead of the IZOD IndyCar Series championship standings by three points over Will Power, who finished 14th because of a late splash for fuel. Dixon is 11 points back.
Briscoe was the only driver out of the Team Penske triumvirate not to post a victory this season. So the greeting from "The Captain" who won for the sixth time at Texas, was especially gratifying. After the race he commented:
"Racing for this team, there’s no better feeling than pulling into Victory Circle and getting compliments from Roger. He’s such an amazing person and I want to keep winning races for this team... We always come here with confidence that we have good cars and the stats show that. This is a huge win. Not only for winning, but to get this championship rolling for the No. 6 car. It’s been a really difficult start to the season for this team. It’s so competitive this year. It’s not easy to run consistently in the top 3 or 5. Danica got by us and I didn’t want to make any aggressive moves and block. I gained some momentum on the next lap, used the push-to-pass and was able to pass her out of Turn 4 and into Turn 1. She gave us a real run for our money tonight. It was fun racing side-by-side with her."
Patrick, running the No. 7 Team GoDaddy.com car, second to Briscoe between Laps 170 and 189, took the lead as the top half of the field cycled through the final round of pit stops. It was Patrick's first leading laps of the season and posted her best finish since winning at Twin Ring Motegi in April 2008. It also was her first top 5 of the season, and her first since Richmond late last June.
"It was a good weekend last weekend in Indy and it was a good weekend here in Texas. Sometimes the little victories that I have throughout the season are not necessarily obvious on the track. Maybe they’re in other aspects of what I’m doing, winning little victories here and there to get everything in line to perform from top to bottom on race day. I’ve been working hard all season. It’s just really nice to have a result to show how hard I’ve been working and how hard the team has been working as well."
Her Andretti Autosport teammate Tony Kanaan, who charged from 33rd to 11th at Indianapolis, advanced from his 13th starting position to finish sixth in the Team 7-Eleven car. Ryan Hunter-Reay, the fourth Andretti Autosport car, also was a big gainer – 17 positions to seventh in the No. 37 IZOD entry. Alex Lloyd, who surprised quite a few with a fourth place at Indianapolis in the No. 19 Boy Scouts of America car for Dale Coyne Racing, had another strong race in finishing eighth. He started sixth, fell to 21st after a pit stop miscue and then sliced through the field.
Ryan Hunter Reay whose IZOD sponsorship is about to expire and underwent surgery May 31 to repair ligament damage in his left thumb suffered in the Indy 500 commented:
"I think we had to work harder than anybody else tonight to get what we got. We went from the back to the middle to the back to the middle to the back to the top seven. Once again, we raced well in a pack. We’re good in traffic, but the speed we had on our own just wasn’t enough. This No. 37 IZOD team is extremely resilient. he guys dig deep, I dig deep; we are a great team."
Dan Wheldon, the Indy 500 runner-up, was ninth in the No. 4 National Guard Panther Racing car, and Vitor Meira finished 10th after starting 19th in the No. 14 ABC Supply car for A.J. Foyt Racing.
Castroneves, who started fifth in the No. 3 Team Penske car, exited on Lap 129 when he attempted to overtake the No. 32 KV Racing Technology car driven by Mario Moraes on the frontstretch. Wheels touched and the cars spun, with Bertrand Baguette in the No. 36 Conquest Racing RACB car having nowhere to go but between the spinning cars. He didn't fare so well.
Castroneves was without radio communication with his spotter and the pit stand.
After the race he had to apologise to Moraes: "I couldn’t hear my spotter say anyone was on the outside. Then I got hit and started spinning. I thought I was by myself. We have to get ready for Iowa now."
Simona De Silvestro in her third oval race suffered a minor burn on her right hand when the No. 78 Team Stargate Worlds/HVM Racing car made contact with the SAFER Barrier exiting Turn 2 on Lap 99.
"The car was pretty loose for a couple of laps. It was pretty hard coming out of Turn 2. I was able to catch it a couple of times but this time it got away from me and I hit the wall. The car caught on fire and it wasn’t really extinguishing. I feel bad for the guys because the car was pretty good, just a little loose. Now I know what a loose car is."
