INDYCAR: Conway Scores Shock Long Beach Win

IndyCar

INDYCAR: Conway Scores Shock Long Beach Win

Mike Conway has always had the talent to win, but bad luck usually got the better of him. Sunday in Long Beach, he shook the monkey off his back to score a huge win for Andretti Autosport.

Marshall Pruett | Posted April 17, 2011 Long Beach, CA

Mike Conway put an exclamation point on the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach by passing and motoring away from Ryan Briscoe to take a decisive win on Sunday. (Marshall Pruett)

Mike Conway's day at Long Beach went from good to bad in an instant when he locked up and slid long into his pit box, moving him to the back of the pack, but the determined Englishman didn't give up at the track where passing is notoriously hard.

The third-year IZOD IndyCar Series driver put his head down and went on a passing spree, moving himself to the top 10, and after a messy restart on Lap 66 saw cars spinning and crashing throughout the field, Conway positioned himself to pounce on the leaders when the race resumed.

The Lap 70 restart saw Conway pass Dario Franchitti for third, and with his teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay, who would finish 23rd, surrendering second place after encountering a gear selector issue on the same lap, Conway found himself just one spot away from the leader, Ryan Briscoe.

Briscoe appeared to be struggling in the final stanza, and Conway made quick work of him, slicing past under braking.

Conway crossed the line 6.3 seconds ahead of Briscoe to cruise to a surprise win for he and the Andretti Autosport team.

"What a great result!" said Conway. "It looked a bit difficult here earlier this weekend, but this morning I knew the car would be fast. It was really tough to overtake here, but they just told me to hang in there. The team did a great job; good strategy. I can't thank the guys at Andretti Autosport enough, as well as everyone at Window World Cares and DHL, for putting their faith in me."

Conway, who suffered a season-ending crash at Indy last year, celebrates his achievement. (LAT)

Team owner Michael Andretti had nothing but praise for the newest member of his team.

"Mike just didn't give up. After the hiccup in the pits, you'd think the race was over for him. But he just hung in there, made some beautiful passes and did what it takes to be a winner. From the moment he came here, he showed signs of brilliance. He's been a great addition to the Andretti Autosport team."

Briscoe, who was taken out in the first two races, was thankful to get to the finish, and after leading from Lap 32 to 55 and Lap 61 to 71, though he might have a victory in hand.

"It feels so good," he said. "For a minute I thought we were going to get the win. [It's a] huge confidence boost for me and the team. Congrats to [Conway] on his first win."

A gamble by Roger Penske to start Briscoe on Firestone Blacks while the majority of the field chose Reds nearly paid off, as the Aussie had fresh Reds for the final two stints.

After a busy day of racing and a track filled with marbles, Briscoe said he was unable to halt Conway's progress due to having built up so much debris on his tires after running off-line.

"It took me six or seven laps to get my tires cleaned, and I think Conway stayed on the racing line on that last restart [and avoided the marbles]," Briscoe confirmed.

Dario Franchitti, who finished third and benefited from the Lap 66 crash-fest, was honest in his assessment of how the race went for the No. 10 Target car.

"We'll take it as it's a points scoring day, but we've got to improve our straightline speed," said the 2009 winner of the Long Beach race who moved into the points lead with his podium performance. "I don’t think I did a very good job of telling my engineer what I needed from the car."

Long Beach marked Franchitti's third consecutive podium appearance from the three rounds run in 2011.

The Lap 66 restart featured Briscoe leading Hunter-Reay, Power, Servia and Conway, but Castroneves, in a similar situation to the crash he triggered at St. Petersburg, struck a car from behind under braking.

This time, it was his teammate who was on the receiving end as Power spun and stalled his Team Penske car.

The Aussie, who led the first 27 laps from pole, fell to 15th after waiting to be restarted but clawed his way back to 10th at the finish of the 85-lap race.

Afterwards, the normally jovial 30-year-old was unimpressed with being hit by his teammate.

"It's pretty blatant," said Power of being hit by Castroneves. "But I got back to 10th. That's racing and that's double-file restarts."

A dejected Castroneves was quick to take ownership of the incident.

"It was a huge mistake," said the three-time Indy 500 winner. "I really don't understand. I wasn't even trying to pass will. I apologized to the team. It wasn't a smart thing. It was not on purpose. This was a very tough one."

Castroneves finished on the lead lap in 12th.

James Hinchcliffe took fourth after hovering around the top 10 all day and like so many drivers on Sunday, jumped up the running order on Lap 66.

"Holy crap!" said the Canadian rookie. "A top 5...oh yeah! We had a really comfortable and really consistent car."

Click Here or on the image below to view INDYCAR: Sunday Long Beach 2011.

Alex Tagliani claimed fifth for Sam Schmidt Motorsports, earning the team's best finish since it returned to the IndyCar Series as a full-time entrant.

"I think we had a better car than fifth, but not a winning car," said the French-Canadian. "We were struggling a bit with the balance on the blacks. The reds were going down pretty quickly for us - too quickly I would say. But, the team did a good job, the Bowers & Wilkins car all day, ran flawlessly other than one refueling problem. We were top-five all weekend, so I think that's what we deserved."

Hinchcliffe's teammate, Oriol Servia, was running fourth into Turn 1 when Castroneves triggered Power's spin, and was forced to turn hard right and spin his car to return to the action. He'd finish sixth after running in the lead pack all day.

"We had a strong performance the whole weekend and the team keeps moving forward," said the Spaniard. "But I do have a bit of a bad taste in my mouth because this was probably the best race car I have ever had in a race and a podium was within reach. I felt in control the whole race; I felt that my car was better than anybody around me.

"On the restart Helio was a little too optimistic and got into Power and just didn’t leave me anywhere to go because I was on the outside. I had to do a little bit of a circus maneuver to get back on track and that obviously cost us the podium there but we finished sixth and it could have been a lot worse."

On the same lap as Servia's rodeo move, Scott Dixon suffered a bent right front suspension after striking debris, while Charlie Kimball, Takuma Sato and Sebastian Saavedra went off at Turn 8. Saavedra continued immediately after spinning his car around in the escape area, while Sato was stuck in the tire barriers, and Kimball resumed after being pulled back from Sato. Graham Rahal broke his front wing as he was clipped by a spinning Sato, while Saavedra and Kimball appeared to be little more than collateral damage in the Japanese driver's mistake.

Dixon headed to the pits for repairs and finished 18th. Sato finished 21st, Kimball fell to 24th after encountering trouble earlier in the race, while Rahal recovered to finish 13th, one spot ahead of Saavedra.

Danica Patrick delivered a measured performance on Sunday, steering clear of a number of accidents in her Go Daddy-sponsored Andretti Autosport Indy car to finish seventh.

"I think we had a pretty solid day," said IndyCar's most popular driver. "We didn't make any mistakes and raced clean. We made some passes out on the track, the guys did a good job in the pits, and a few on-track incidents worked in our favor. We came away with a pretty good day. I think this is a start of a good thing."

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