Will Power battled back from a lap down today to win the Pocono Raceway for the second straight year.
The driver of the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet held off teammate Josef Newgarden by 0.5268 of a second to pick up his third win of the Verizon Indy Car Series season.
It is also Power’s 32nd career Indy car win, breaking a three-way tie with retired greats Dario Franchitti and Paul Tracy for ninth place on the all-time list.
Power was running in sixth place when he made an unscheduled green-flag pit stop on Lap 66 to replace a front wing assembly. It put the 2014 series champion a lap down, but Power worked his way back onto the lead lap just past the halfway point of the 200-lap race on the 2.5-mile, three-turn oval.
He led for the first time on Lap 154 benefited from a lightning-quick pit stop on Lap 177 that brought him back on track ahead of the other front-runners. When leader Marco Andretti had to stop for fuel 10 laps from the finish, Power regained first place and held off the charges of Newgarden and Alexander Rossi over the final 10 laps.
By finishing second in the No. 2 Fitzgerald Glider Kits Chevrolet, Newgarden retained the championship lead with three races remaining in the 17-race season. Newgarden holds an unofficial 18-point lead over Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, who finished sixth today in the No. 9 NTT Data Honda.
Helio Castroneves is third in points, 22 behind Newgarden, after finishing seventh in the race in the No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet.
Reigning Verizon IndyCar Series champion Simon Pagenaud finished fourth in the race and holds down fourth in the season standings, 26 points behind Newgarden. With the win, Power moved into fifth in the championship, 42 points out of the lead.
The Verizon IndyCar Series is in action on Saturday, Aug. 26 with the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Valvoline at Gateway Motorsports Park.
source: indycar.com