Hunter-Reay breaks Penske domination at Alabama track

Ryan Hunter-Reay recorded a thrilling victory in the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama to break a Penske domination of the Barber Motorsports Park circuit.

The reigning IZOD IndyCar series champion Hunter-Reay prevailed after taking the lead inside the last 15 laps of the 90 lap race in round two of the Championship.

Helio Castroneves had held the lead and was on track to give Penske a fourth consecutive win at the circuit before Hunter-Reay swooped.

Hunter-Reay (Andretti Autosports) had .6363s to spare to beat Chip Ganassi stalwart Scott Dixon with Castroneves finishing third ahead of Charlie Kimball in a thoroughly entertaining race.

Penske driver Will Power was in the mix however could only manage fifth at a track where he has won the last two IndyCar races and was the only runner in the field to adopt a two-pit stop strategy.

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After a precarious start to the defence of his title when he was 18th at St Petersburg, Hunter-Reay regained his winning form to score his first victory since the Baltimore race last year.

“”I was driving my tail off trying to stay in front of Dixon,” Hunter-Reay said.

“Will (Power) did a good job staying in front of me on blacks, not sure how he did it.”

The outcome had a dramatic effect on the Championship standings with Hunter-Reay rocketing from 13th to be third in the points behind Castroneves and Dixon.

It was the fourth consecutive time that Dixon has finished runner-up at the Barber circuit.

James Hinchcliffe’s fortunes turned full circle after winning the opening round at St Petersburg, when he broke a wheel on his Andretti Dallara after an incident with Oriol Servia and Graham Rahal on a frantic opening lap.

Result

1	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Dallara-Chevy
2	Scott Dixon	Ganassi Dallara-Honda	+ 0.6363s
3	Helio Castroneves	Penske Dallara-Chevy	+ 17.6821s
4	Charlie Kimball	Ganassi Dallara-Honda	+ 20.6166s
5	Will Power	Penske Dallara-Chevy	+ 26.6469s
6	Simon Pagenaud	Schmidt Dallara-Honda	+ 27.2995s
7	Marco Andretti	Andretti Dallara-Chevy	+ 27.7175s
8	Justin Wilson	Coyne Dallara-Honda	+ 30.5504s
9	Josef Newgarden	Fisher Dallara-Honda	+ 41.1029s
10	Tristan Vautier	Schmidt Dallara-Honda	+ 50.6449s
11	Alex Tagliani	Herta Dallara-Honda	+ 58.0458s
12	EJ Viso	Andretti Dallara-Chevy	+ 1m01.4334s
13	Tony Kanaan	KV Dallara-Chevy	+ 1m01.6834s
14	Takuma Sato	Foyt Dallara-Honda	+ 1m03.1151s
15	Oriol Servia	Panther/DRR Dallara-Chevy	+ 1m03.1495s
16	Sebastien Bourdais	Dragon Dallara-Chevy	+ 1m07.6880s
17	JR Hildebrand	Panther Dallara-Chevy	+ 1m09.7447s
18	Simona de Silvestro	KV Dallara-Chevy	+ 1m09.9130s
19	AJ Allmendinger	Penske Dallara-Chevy	+ 1m11.0558s
20	Sebastian Saavedra	Dragon Dallara-Chevy	+ 1m14.0385s
21	Graham Rahal	Rahal Dallara-Honda	+ 1m14.0385s
22	Ed Carpenter	Carpenter Dallara-Chevy	+ 1 lap
23	James Jakes	Rahal Dallara-Honda	+ 4 laps
24	Ana Beatriz	Coyne Dallara-Honda	65 laps
25	Dario Franchitti	Ganassi Dallara-Honda	42 laps
26	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Dallara-Chevy	3 laps

Points after 2 of 19 rounds

1	Hélio Castroneves	79
2	Scott Dixon	70
3	Ryan Hunter-Reay	66
4	Marco Andretti	61
5	James Hinchcliffe	56
6	Charlie Kimball	51
7	Tony Kanaan	49
8	Will Power	47
9	Justin Wilson	46
10	Ernesto Viso	44
11	Simona de Silvestro	40
12	Takuma Sato	40
13	Alex Tagliani	39
14	Simon Pagenaud	34
15	Sébastien Bourdais	33
16	Josef Newgarden	29
17	Tristan Vautier	29
18	Oriol Servià	29
19	Graham Rahal	26
20	Ed Carpenter	24
21	J.R. Hildebrand	24
22	James Jakes	22
23	Sebastian Saavedra	20
24	Ana Beatriz	14
25	A.J. Allmendinger	11
26	Dario Franchitti	10