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INDYCAR: Briscoe Tames the Streets of St. Pete
Penske Racing gets their 30th IndyCar Series win on Sunday as Ryan Briscoe speeds to the win at St. Pete, followed by Ryan Hunter-Reay.
IZOD IndyCar Series  |  Posted April 05, 2009   St. Petersburg, FL
Briscoe delivered on his pre-season promise, but St. Petersburg was all about the underdog today. Heroic drives from Ryan Hunter-Reay (2nd) and Justin Wilson (3rd) have the early points battle turned upside down. (LAT)
Ryan Briscoe held off Ryan Hunter-Reay to give Team Penske its 30th IndyCar Series victory in the season-opening Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. "This place has been bad to me, so this is so sweet," said Briscoe, who in previous starts finished 14th and 23rd.

Briscoe, driving the No. 6 entry, started fourth on the 22-car grid and overtook Justin Wilson in Turn 1 just after a Lap 86 restart. He withstood two more full-course cautions in the final 14 laps and won by 0.4619 of a second.

“At the end there, we had some restarts and I was able to get Justin Wilson down on the inside. Team Penske gave me a great car today. Roger Penske calls my strategy, and it was just absolutely perfect today. This is our first race of the season, and it’s such a great feeling to kick it off with a race win. The conditions were tough – it was very tricky on restarts. The tires would get very cold, and it would be very slippery. It was a challenge to keep it between the white lines and off the wall. I had some strong challenges from behind, but my car was very strong today, and I was able to hold them off.”

Hunter-Reay, who completed a deal four days earlier with Vision Racing to drive the No. 21 car, gave the fifth-year team its best finish. “It was a good, clean race for us. Late in the race, I was thinking long term with points. You couldn’t step a foot off line without jeopardizing your car, so I kept it line for the team. It’s been a long week for everyone on the team and everyone who worked on getting the car here deserves the credit.”

Justin Wilson, starting second in the No. 19 Sonny's Bar-B-Q car, gave Dale Coyne Racing its best IndyCar Series finish at third. “It’s been a fantastic weekend. The Sonny’s Bar-B-Q car has been working fantastic. On that restart, I got out-dragged on the front straight. There’s not much you can do. You can’t block. It’s just one of those things. I was just disappointed because you can’t do any more.”

Dario Franchitti, the 2007 IndyCar Series champion who was making his IndyCar Series points-paying race debut with Target Chip Ganassi Racing, finished fourth. “The Air Wick car was pretty quick, especially at the end, but we lost track position. Some of the other guys maybe caught a lucky break there and jumped us in the pits. But all through the day we made it a little better. The one thing it wasn’t doing well was using tires. You could see that at the start when Justin (Wilson) and I were fighting and Justin was able to pull away further and further. That last stint was good for us because we had a chance to cool them down again. We’ve got a little bit of work to do, but it was definitely a good start.” (About the start of the race): “I went out this morning and practiced where I needed to brake in order to get into the corner without locking the wheels, and then everyone just stood on the brakes and I saw a gap o pen up so I went for it. The biggest problem we had all day is anytime someone would go on your inside or you would go on someone’s inside, if you went off line, you were just done. The track was so dirty it was probably the worst marbles I’ve ever seen. And that was why you saw a lot of people go slightly off line and then crash in the next corner.”
Just five days into his tenure at Vision Racing, Ryan Hunter-Reay grabbed the team's best finish to date. (LAT)

Tony Kanaan recorded his 67th top-five finish - most in series history - in the No. 11 Team 7-Eleven car. “It was a tough race, flat out from lap one to the last lap. I feel sorry for Graham (Rahal), but he got chopped up. He had to stop in the middle of the corner, but I wasn't expecting him to do that. It cost us a few spots. The beauty is, it's so competitive right now that it's so much fun. I am dead tired. My arms are cramping because we had to push the whole way. I've got to thank my guys, the whole 7-Eleven team on the pit stops and the strategy. It's a shame, on the start, Dario (Franchitti) dive-bombed everybody and Graham (Rahal) tried to avoid him, and he came to a stop. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't avoid him, and unfortunately I ended up breaking my front wing and I had to come in. It was a fun race. I cam e all the way from the back to finish fifth." (About the alternate tires): "They're definitely a lot of fun. There is a little bit of a difference. I know Firestone is going to make a bigger one. It just makes it more exciting for sure. It brings extra excitement for the fans and a lot of work for us.”

The top five finishers represented five different teams.

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