Assistant Editor
(NOTE: this is a 'reprint' of the IndyCar story that I wrote for the sports section of the Benicia Herald. The story ran in the Benicia Herald August 28, 2012. Most of the motorsports stories run in the Sports section of the paper, and do not get posted on the Herald's web site.)
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| Ryan Briscoe in Victory Lane after winning the GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. Photo by Keri Luiz. |
Ryan Briscoe, driver of the No. 2 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet, won the GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma race Sunday at the raceway at Sonoma. Briscoe’s teammate – Will Power, driver of the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet – had dominated the first half of the race and placed second.
Briscoe’s previous high Sonoma finishes were second in 2008 and 2009, and third in 2011. This was also the first win for Briscoe since Texas in 2010. “It’s great to get the win,” he said in the post-race press conference. “You get into a slump, you know, you think, ‘Man, am I ever going to win again?’ So this is definitely lifting, a confidence builder.”
Briscoe started the race from the second position while Power had started from the pole. Power had looked to dominate the race again, and perhaps win for a third time in a row, when he started on the pole and led most of the first 65 laps.
At lap three, Takuma Sato, driver of the No. 15 Panasonic Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda, had to pull off the course with a mechanical issue. His car remained parked behind the K-Wall of the esses of turn 8.
The race had run caution-free for 64 laps, and it was looking like the Izod IndyCar Series was going to have an unprecedented three races in a row of solid green-flag laps. But at lap 64, a wreck between Josef Newgarden – driver of the No. 67 Angie’s List Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing Honda – and Sebastien Bourdais – driver of the No. 7 TrueCar Dragon Racing Cheverolet – put Newgarden into the tire wall between turns 8 and 9. This caused the first full-course caution of the day. Newgarden injured his left index finger during the accident and will be re-evaluated when he returns to Indianapolis.
