Will Power claimed his third IndyCar victory of the year with a consummate performance in the Grand Prix of Portland.
The Penske driver led home championship leader Alex Palou, who extended his advantage in the last round before the trio of oval races which will conclude the season.
Power immediately passed pole-winner Santino Ferrucci as the race began, the pair making slight contact at the inside of turn two. Ferruci’s Foyt team has a technical relationship with Penske, and he confirmed afterwards he had told Power how he intended to play the start.
“I told Will where I was going to go and I’d try, if I got the jump and I could get in front of him, I would, and I would kind of string him along and pull him down into turn one,” Ferrucci explained. “He was going to go up the inside and just block and give me into two. I don’t think he expected me to brake as early as I did and I definitely didn’t mean to either.”
From there on Power was never seriously challenged over the 110-lap contest. He took the chequered flag almost 10 seconds ahead of Palou, who gave chase after passing Ferrucci on lap eight.
Josef Newgarden, 13 seconds behind, ensured two Penske drivers stood on the podium. Colton Herta was fortunate to take fourth, another 13 seconds back, after being penalised for restarting his engine in the pits.
IndyCar drivers are forbidden from using their hybrid systems to restart their engines in the pit lane. Herta did so after his engine cut out during his final pit stop, but race control’s unusual response to the new violation was to tell him to let the lapped Pietro Fittipaldi repass him.
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Herta narrowly beat Marcus Armstrong to the line, the pair separated by less than a second. Marcus Ericsson rose from 10th on the grid to finish sixth.
Scott Mclaughlin’s hopes of cutting into Palou’s lead in the championship were dashed after a poor qualifying session left him 20th on the grid. He limited the damage by salvaging seventh place in a race which featured just a single caution period early on.
Ferrucci gradually slipped backwards from his first start at the sharp end and finished almost 45 seconds adrift in eighth place. Graham Rahal and Kyle Kirkwood completed the top 10.
Scott Dixon fumed at Kirkwood over his role in the incident which led to the Ganassi driver’s first-lap retirement. Kirkwood dived past Dixon at turn seven, leaving the Ganassi driver to take to the grass….
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