Will Power takes fourth win in six races at Pocono
Will Power won the ABC Supply 500 at Pocono Raceway on Monday, for his fourth IndyCar win in the past six races. This was huge in the championship for Power, as points leader Simon Pagenaud crashed out in the late stages of the race.
The race had initially been scheduled for Sunday, but was postponed until Monday due to weather.
The initial start on Sunday was a "no start," with the cars out of formation. Instead, the green finally flew on Lap 2, and Josef Newgarden quickly got by pole-sitter Mikhail Aleshin for the top spot.
However, the field was soon slowed as Takuma Sato spun out in Turn 3 on Lap 2. He had been running in third place.
A battle ensued between Aleshin and Newgarden when the race restarted on Lap 9, with Aleshin ultimately ending up up front.
However, defending race winner Ryan Hunter-Reay had slowly been working his way up through the field and, not long after the first round of stops, the Andretti Autosport driver made his way into the top spot. Hunter-Reay had started in last place thanks to a crash in opening practice, which had kept him out of qualifying.
The second caution of the race flew for a scary incident on pit road, in which Alexander Rossi's car ran over the top of Helio Castroneves' machine after contact with Charlie Kimball.
Fortunately, nobody was injured in the incident. When the race resumed, the battle between Hunter-Reay and Aleshin resumed up front and continued for most of the race.
Around Lap 135, things began to turn in Hunter-Reay's favor. He and Aleshin had been drafting off of each other to save fuel throughout the race but, following the fourth round of stops, they caught lapped traffic, and so Hunter-Reay broke away from Aleshin and used the draft of the lapped traffic to save fuel. Meanwhile, Aleshin began to drop back in the order.
Yet a new face emerged up front after the fifth round of stops, with Will Power taking the top spot with less than 50 laps to go.
The third caution of the race then flew for points leader Simon Pagenaud after his car bottomed out in Turn 1 and collected the wall.
This was huge in the points, as Power - second in the points - led the field back to the green with just 36 laps to go. Hunter-Reay soon took the lead from him, but then lost power and fell a lap down.
The fourth caution of the race flew with 25 laps to go for debris, bringing everyone into the pits for their final stop. Power led the race off pit road with Sebastien Bourdais in second, after the KVSH Racing driver opted not to take tires.
Bourdais dropped back on the restart, however, and Power held off Aleshin for the win while Hunter-Reay rallied his way back up through the field to finish third.
Unofficial race results:
