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Briscoe Flawless At Mid-Ohio

LEXINGTON, Ohio – Ryan Briscoe hasn’t had the best of luck during the 2008 IndyCar Series season, but Sunday at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course the young Australian driver was the star of the show.

When the 85-lap race around the 2.258-mile road course ended, Briscoe had a commanding seven second lead over teammate Helio Castroneves. The winner averaged 94.873 miles per hour for the 2 hour and 1 minute race – the 12th IndyCar Series event of the season.

An hour prior to the race, a powerful rainstorm soaked the facility but the rain ended prior to the race time. With the track wet, officials declared a wet start and all cars donned rain tires.

The rain didn’t dampen the spirits of a large crowd that was still entering the track long after the race was underway.

One lap into the race, teams started bringing their cars in for slick tires. The Penske team didn’t bring Briscoe in until the 23rd lap.

Driving for Team Penske, Briscoe started on the outside of the front row, fell back at the outset but powered his way to the front 39 laps into the race and pulled away to substantive leads before taking the checkered flag in the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio.

For Briscoe, it marked his second victory of the 2008 season. Team Penske won for the seventh time at Mid-Ohio and the team now has three 1-2 finishes at the track.

“It was an interesting race,” the winner said. “We fell back when we stayed on wet tires too long. I thought to myself, ‘If we win this (race), it will be awesome.’

“With Roger Penske calling my strategy, I know we can get to the front. My experience with Penske Racing in racing sports cars was that you can get into situations where you fall back in the pack, but with Roger (Penske) calling the shots, he finds ways to pit at the right time and get you up front. Once we got there, we had the pace to run fast and pull away.”

Castroneves finished a strong second for the fifth time in 2008. He also has 10 top-five finishes. “At the beginning of the race, the track was wet and dry, and it was difficult to pass,” he stated. “We tried everything we could to keep up with the guys. Until the middle of the race, we had gotten stuck behind guys that were on different strategies. There wasn’t much I could do unless I tried something stupid but with the championship and Scott (Dixon) behind me, I knew better than to try anything.”

Third place went to Scott Dixon, the series point leader. He, too, has 10 top-five finishes. “It wasn’t too bad of a race,” the Indianapolis 500 winner said. “The car worked well on wet tires. It was hard to decide when to switch to dry tires, so we followed Helio’s (Castroneves) strategy. There was a lot going on all day but it was a good day for points.”

Fourth place went to Will Power, his career-best result, and fifth to Oriol Servia, who tied his career-best finish.

Sixth through tenth places were taken by Vitor Meira, Tony Kanaan, Darren Manning, Hideki Mutoh and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Castroneves led the first five circuits before yielding to Meira, who changed from wet to dry tires on the first lap. Meira led 20 laps before yielding first to Manning, who also stopped on lap one, and then to Justin Wilson, who changed tires early and took the lead for 11 go-arounds.

Wilson’s time at the front ended abruptly on lap 43 when he tangled with Mario Dominguez. Wilson did a half spin and Dan Wheldon, Marco Andretti and A. J. Foyt IV also got involved. All but Andretti returned to action but they were no longer in contention for a top spot.

Wilson ended up 11th.

When Briscoe took over, he led 43 of the final 46 laps.

Five full-course caution periods slowed the race for 19 laps. In the other notable incident, Hunter-Reay collided with Enrique Bernoldi.

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