France’s Simon Pagenaud on Sunday triumphed in the second race of IndyCar’s Houston Grand Prix weekend double-header by finishing more than seven seconds ahead of Schmidt Peterson teammate Mikhail Aleshin.
Britain’s Jack Hawksworth, who like Russia’s Aleshin is an IndyCar rookie, finished a season-high third ahead of Charlie Kimball in fourth, with Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais overcoming a broken front wing to round out the top five.
Pagenaud had earned his first career IndyCar pole for Saturday’s first race of the weekend set, but was relegated to a 16th-place finish after struggling with brake issues resulting from a brush with another vehicle on the rain-soaked track.
Aleshin’s race on Saturday ended on lap 33, but both drivers more than made up for those disappointments with their one-two finish on Sunday on the 2.63km, 10-turn temporary circuit.
“Awesome race,” said Pagenaud, who earned his second triumph of the season after outpacing his teammate by 7.2622 seconds.
Brazil’s Helio Castroneves lost a chance to trim Team Penske teammate Will Power’s championship points advantage in his brush with Bourdais, which came as Castroneves was chasing Pagenaud who had overtaken him for the lead.
Castroneves started from pole and led 47 laps of the 90-lap race to pick up two bonus points.
“I had no idea that he was there,” Castroneves said about making contact with Bourdais. “When I’m attacking I can’t have eyes in the back of my head.”
Power, who made contact with a tire barrier on the white-flag lap to fall from running third to finish 11th, takes a 39-point lead into the next race on Monday next week, which is the same margin he held coming into last weekend.
In Saturday’s race, IndyCar rookie Carlos Huertas led a Colombian sweep of the podium ahead of Juan Pablo Montoya and Carlos Munoz.
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