Dixon wins as Power regains points lead

Scott Dixon pulled a dramatic last to first victory as the race for the Verizon IndyCar Series took a dramatic twist at the Mid-Ohio sports car course.

Dixon’s Chip Ganassi crew pulled a canny reverse strategy to give him a shot at victory after starting last in the 22-car field.

In the end Dixon pulled out a comfortable buffer to beat polesitter Sebastien Bourdais (KVSH Racing) with James Hinchcliffe (Andretti Autosport) finishing third.

Ganassi team managing director Mike Hull became the architect of a most unlikely win by pulling a masterstroke on a caution just short of midway through the 90-lap affair by avoiding a pit stop.

As the race went green on lap 42, Dixon was able to drive away at the front on a light fuel load.

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A later pit stop saw Dixon still hold the upper hand and he was ultimately able to defy the odds and coast over the final lap as his fuel warning light illuminated.

Fearing the Target Chevrolet was down to its final drops, the Kiwi was told to shut his machine down shortly after the chequered flag or face a long walk back to the pits.

“Our race was going so poor from the start. We tried to switch strategies a couple of times and then we got lucky with that caution,” Dixon said.

“Our fuel number was extremely close but we still had the speed.”

In a dramatic twist to the top of the championship standings Will Power (Team Penske) wrested back to the points lead by finishing sixth.

His team-mate Helio Castroneves had a disastrous race after encountering an engine mapping problem from the start, he finished four laps down in 19th place, the last of the classified finishers.

As a result Power turned a 13-point deficit to Castroneves going into the race to a four point lead.

A gutted Castroneves said: “Man that sucks. I actually noticed the problem when they said ‘gentlemen start your engines’.

“It was something on the mapping … one little number that probably didn’t go where it was supposed to.”

The 2013 Mid-Ohio winner Charlie Kimball (Ganassi) was seventh one place ahead of his team-mate Ryan Briscoe.

The series takes a week off before resuming at Wisconsin from August 15-17 ahead of the final two rounds at Sonoma and Fontana.

Meanwhile England’s Jack Harvey completed a clean sweep of the double-header Indy Lights races at Mid-Ohio.

Harvey beat Zach Veach with Gabby Chaves finishing third to maintain his lead in the championship.

It was a horror end to a difficult weekend for Matthew Brabham who suffered a cut tyre just after the start before he spun into Luiz Razia which resulted in a non-finish.

Brabham had earlier suffered a crash in practice before gearbox issues saw him lose a spot in the opening heat to finish fifth.

See below for full results

1	Scott Dixon	Dallara/Chevrolet	90	1:52:45.2043a
2	Sébastien Bourdais	Dallara/Chevrolet	90	5.3864
3	James Hinchcliffe	Dallara/Honda	90	7.3335
4	Carlos Muñoz	Dallara/Honda	90	9.3551
5	Graham Rahal	Dallara/Honda	90	11.8508
6	Will Power	Dallara/Chevrolet	90	15.9769
7	Charlie Kimball	Dallara/Chevrolet	90	16.8533
8	Ryan Briscoe	Dallara/Chevrolet	90	17.5020
9	Simon Pagenaud	Dallara/Honda	90	18.6160
10	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Dallara/Honda	90	20.0766
11	Juan Pablo Montoya	Dallara/Chevrolet	90	21.7366
12	Josef Newgarden	Dallara/Honda	90	22.0987
13	Mike Conway	Dallara/Chevrolet	90	23.8352
14	Mikhail Aleshin	Dallara/Honda	90	29.8060
15	Justin Wilson	Dallara/Honda	90	44.6415
16	Jack Hawksworth	Dallara/Honda	90	58.7211
17	Carlos Huertas	Dallara/Honda	90	1:02.5847
18	Takuma Sato	Dallara/Honda	89	1 Lap
19	Hélio Castroneves	Dallara/Chevrolet	86	4 Laps
20	Sebastian Saavedra	Dallara/Chevrolet	24	Mechanical
21	Tony Kanaan	Dallara/Chevrolet	0	Contact
22	Marco Andretti	Dallara/Honda	0	Contact

Full championship points

1 Will Power 548 2 Hélio Castroneves 544 3 Ryan Hunter-Reay 485 4 Simon Pagenaud 484 5 Juan Pablo Montoya 447 6 Scott Dixon 440 7 Carlos Muñoz 416 8 Sébastien Bourdais 400 9 Tony Kanaan 389 10 Marco Andretti 383 11 Ryan Briscoe 368 12 James Hinchcliffe 366 13 Charlie Kimball 343 14 Justin Wilson 326 15 Mikhail Aleshin 314 16 Josef Newgarden 307 17 Jack Hawksworth 301 18 Graham Rahal 296 19 Carlos Huertas 278 20 Takuma Sato 246 21 Sebastian Saavedra 239 22 Mike Conway 235 23 Ed Carpenter 168 24 Oriol Servià 88 25 Kurt Busch 80 26 J.R. Hildebrand 66 27 Sage Karam 57 28 Luca Filippi 46 29 James Davison 34 30 Jacques Villeneuve 29 31 Alex Tagliani 28 32 Townsend Bell 22 33 Pippa Mann 21 34 Martin Plowman 18 35 Buddy Lazier 11 36 Franck Montagny 8