Indy Car: Tony Kanaan Wins Indy Japan 300

Kanaan's teammate, Dario Franchitti, advanced four positions to finish third, while Scott Dixon was fourth and Sam Hornish Jr. fifth.

Photo courtesy: IndyCar.com

MOTEGI, Japan - By Dave Lewandowski

indycar.com

A succession of drivers inherited the point late in the Indy Japan 300 because of fuel stops.

Tony Kanaan, who relinquished the lead to Sam Hornish Jr. only nine laps from the checkers, was confident of being the final leader.

Kanaan was right, of course, and edged Target Chip Ganassi Racing's Dan Wheldon by 0.4828 of a second to give Andretti Green Racing its initial victory of the season and first on a 1.5-mile oval since the 2005 IndyCar Series season.

Kanaan's teammate, Dario Franchitti, advanced four positions to finish third, while Scott Dixon was fourth and Sam Hornish Jr. fifth.

What turned into a fuel mileage race played into the Honda powerplant of the No. 11 Team 7-Eleven car and Kanaan's pit crew.

He was content to stay within reach of the various leaders after a Lap 135 caution for contact between the No. 26 NYSE car of Marco Andretti and the frontstretch inside retaining wall, conserving fuel in the process.

When Wheldon's No. 10 Honda-powered Dallara rumbled down pit lane on Lap 186 for a splash of ethanol, Kanaan moved to the lead and pushed hard to build a cushion (pacing Hornish by 7.9364 seconds on Lap 189).

A stop of less than 4 seconds on Lap 191 kept Kanaan in front of Wheldon, and he moved to the front for good on Lap 196 as Dixon was the final car to duck in for fuel.

"It was a race that I had to be very patient," said Kanaan, who led 26 laps and posted his eighth IndyCar Series victory. "I think when we started, the car wasn't that good and I knew the track was going to get better towards the end of the race. So I just waited. A couple opportunities I had to pass Dan, and I knew that I had to stop later than him because my car had better fuel mileage.

"When he (made) the last stop, I was almost convinced that I could pit and come out still in front of him. So that's what we did. The team did a great job."

Wheldon led a field-high 126 laps, and assumed the championship points lead after three of 17 rounds.

But his race strategy was hampered by losing communications with his team early on. After his final green flag stop, Wheldon exited in fifth place and didn't have enough to catch Kanaan.

"I think I have to say when you consider the pace of our car, I think even Tony would agree it was probably the best out there," Wheldon said. "It was just a little bit unfortunate we lost radio communication pretty early on. We were being very conservative with the time that we had to pit. Perhaps some improvements we could have made with the car over the duration of the race. I think that was basically what really hindered us. Not so much the fact that we didn't have the radio, but just the time that we had to pit because of that."

Kanaan was aware of his former teammate's situation, and naturally used it to his advantage.

"He had less fuel than me because on the previous stop he short-fueled," said Kanaan, who was running second when Wheldon pitted on Lap 130. "He put less fuel in his car to try to go ahead of me.

"I was saving for the last 10 laps of the race. At that point, I was just controlling him and trying to put a little bit of pressure so he would run out of fuel sooner. It paid off because when he pulled in to refuel, I pushed really hard for the extra two laps that I had, and that's how I got him."

Scott Sharp finished a season-high sixth and pole sitter Helio Castroneves seventh. Tomas Scheckter posted his third consecutive top-10 finish (ninth), followed by Buddy Rice and Danica Patrick.

Separate crashes involving Andretti and Kosuke Matsuura brought out caution flags. Both were uninjured.

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