  September 19, 2010 |
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IndyCar Series
Round 16: Motegi |
Castroneves Dominates at Twin Ring Motegi |
Qualifying >> |
Enjoying a late-season surge, Helio Castroneves started from the pole and led a race-high 153 laps en route to victory Sunday at the Honda-owned Twin Ring Motegi Circuit, his second-consecutive IZOD IndyCar Series triumph.
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Helio Castroneves(Team Penske) |
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Dario Franchitti（Target Chip Ganassi |
The win was the third of the season for Castroneves, following his victory two weeks ago at Kentucky
Speedway, and an April victory at Alabama’s Barber Motorsports Park. Castroneves controlled the race
almost from start to finish, giving up the lead only to teammate Ryan Briscoe and, briefly, to an out-ofsequence
running Raphael Matos. The win moves Castroneves to third in championship points, but was
not enough to put him back in title contention, with just one race remaining in the 2010 IZOD IndyCar
Series schedule.
Championship rivals Dario Franchitti and Will Power finished second and third, respectively, setting up a
showdown for the title in two weeks time at the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Power
leads Franchitti by just 12 points and the two are the sole remaining title contenders.
All 25 drivers and teams completed the race weekend in Japan without a single failure of the Honda Indy
V-8 engine. This weekend, drivers logged a total of 10,634 trouble-free miles around the unique, eggshaped
1.5-mile oval located north of Tokyo.
Briscoe finished fourth to give an equally dominant Team Penske three of the top four finishing positions,
while Danica Patrick was fast all day to round out the top five for Andretti Autosport, with teammates Tony
Kanaan and Ryan Hunter-Reay finishing seventh and ninth, respectively.
Takuma Sato led home a three-driver Japanese contingent with a 12th-place finish for KV Racing.
Graham Rahal made a late-race surge to finish eighth for Newman Haas Racing while Alex Tagliani
climbed to 13th at the finish – after starting 23rd – for the Canadian FAZZT Race Team.
The IZOD IndyCar Series now takes a week off before its 17th and final race of 2010, the Café do Brasil
Indy 300, Oct. 2 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida.
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Will Power(Team Penske) |
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Takuma Sato(KV Racing Technology) |
Helio Castroneves (#3 Team Penske Honda) started 1st, finished 1st, his 3rd win of 2010, 25th career
open-wheel victory and 2nd win at Twin Ring Motegi:
“That’s what it’s all about, perfect execution by
Team Penske. The team did a great job preparing the car, and the car was fantastic and the pit stops
were perfect. My car was ‘on rails’ today. I could drive it anywhere I wanted, just like [his previous Motegi
win] 2006.”
Dario Franchitti (#10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) started 4th, finished 2nd, trails Will Power
by 12 points going into the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway:
“We were looking pretty
good there for awhile. I thought we would gain [more championship points] on Will [Power] until that final
pit stop. Helio [Castroneves] was in a class by himself today, but we did our absolute best. We’re ready
to do it again at Miami in two weeks.”
Roger Griffiths (Technical Director, Honda Performance Development) on tonight’s race:
"The
Japanese fans appreciate their racing, and they saw a good one today. There was plenty of side-by-side
action which resulted in numerous passes for position. The championship race tightened even further by
virtue of Dario’s finish ahead of Will, and now we go into the season finale with matters very much in
doubt. Congratulations to Helio and Team Penske for a second straight victory, and to our associates at
HPD and Ilmor for another perfect weekend of reliability.
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IndyCar Series
Round 16: Motegi
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| 1 |
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Helio Castroneves(Team Penske) |
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| 2 |
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Dario Franchitti（Target Chip Ganassi） |
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| 3 |
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Will Power(Team Penske) |
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| 4 |
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Ryan Briscoe(Team Penske) |
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| 5 |
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Danica Patrick(Andretti Autosport) |
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| 6 |
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Scott Dixon(Target Chip Ganassi) |
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| 7 |
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Tony Kanaan(Andretti Autosport) |
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| 8 |
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Graham Rahal(Newman Hass Racing) |
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| 9 |
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Ryan Hunter-Reay(Andretti Autosport) |
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| 10 |
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Dan Wheldon(Panther Racing) |
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| 11 |
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Marco Andretti(Andretti Autosport) |
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| 12 |
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Takuma Sato-R(KV Racing Technology) |
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| 13 |
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Alex Tagliani(FAZZT Race Team) |
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| 14 |
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Hideki Mutoh(Newman Haas Racing) |
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| 15 |
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E.J. Viso(KV Racing Technology) |
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| 16 |
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Justin Wilson(Dreyer & Reinbold Racing) |
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| 17 |
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Vitor Meira(A.J. Foyt Racing) |
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| 18 |
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Raphael Matos(De Ferran Dragon Racing) |
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| 19 |
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Milka Duno(Dale Coyne Racing) |
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| 20 |
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Roger Yasukawa(Conquest Racing) |
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| 21 |
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Alex Lloyd-R(Dale Coyne Racing) |
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| 22 |
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Paul Tracy(Dreyer & Reinbold Racing) |
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| 23 |
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Simona de Silvestro-R(HVM Racing) |
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| 24 |
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Mario Moraes(KV Racing Technology) |
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| 25 |
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Bertrand Baguette-R(Conquest Racing) |
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Helio Castroneves(Team Penske) & Dario Franchitti（Target Chip Ganassi & Will Power(Team Penske) |
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Related Links
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