Penske's Castroneves maintained his lead in the series standings at Toronto
Helio Castroneves, No. 3 Hitachi Dallara/Chevrolet, finished in second place position on Indy Race 2 on the streets of Toronto.
Photo by: Covy Moore
Castroneves started the weekend’s second race in Toronto from the third spot on the grid based on his strong performance in Saturday morning’s qualifying session.
The race began with the series’ first-ever standing start and Castroneves executed the start to perfection as he advanced to the second position on the first lap.The veteran driver held the second position for most of the race but he led Laps 24 and 25 and also dropped a few positions for a handful of laps as the field cycled through pit stops.
During a late-race restart, Castroneves put pressure on race leader Scott Dixon and successfully held off hard-charging Sebastien Bourdais to secure the second-place finish.
With the finish, Castroneves earned his 12th top-10 result in 13 races this season. It also marked his fifth podium finish of the season.
Castroneves maintained his lead in the IZOD IndyCar Series standings with Sunday’s result. He’s now 29 points ahead of Dixon, who moved into second place in the standings with the race win.
Castroneves is the only driver in the series to complete all 1,753 laps of competition in 2013.
Helio Castroneves on Sunday’s runner-up result… "Great day for us, another great day. Certainly coming over here, the Hitachi guys did a helluva job preparing the car. Man, I think it's probably one of the fastest cars I've had since the early days in CART. I was really on rails. I was really comfortable.”
On the standing start Sunday... “The standing start was awesome. I enjoyed it very much. I had an awesome start. That's probably why I like it. I heard the fans enjoyed it. There's a big thumbs up for the series to try that. I'm glad we're going to keep improving other things, details, that's going to make it better.”
Will Power - No. 12 Verizon Dallara/Chevrolet
Power qualified fifth for Sunday’s race. It marked his sixth consecutive top-five start on the Exhibition Place street circuit.
The three-time defending series Road Course champ successfully negotiated the maiden standing start in the IZOD IndyCar Series and he made his way to the third position over the opening laps of the race.
Saturday marked the fifth consecutive race that Power has led laps at Toronto as he led two laps while stretching his fuel window farther than the other race leaders. Power and Castroneves were the only other drivers, besides Dixon, to lead laps on Sunday.
Power ran strong inside the top three for most of the 85-lap race.
Power was fighting for position among the leaders on a race restart with two laps remaining when his car made contact with the wall in Turn 2, relegating him to an 18th-place finish. It marked the second consecutive day that Power saw a top-five finish slip away due to late-race contact.
With the result Power remains 10th in the series standings as he trails ninth-place driver Justin Wilson by 23 points.
On another difficult day in Toronto... "It was a disappointing end for the Verizon team. We worked so hard all day and had a good run throughout most of the race. Then for it to come to an end like it did on the last restart is such a heart breaker. We will just look ahead and work for a better result at Mid-Ohio."
Penske Team
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