Rahal Runs Second for Honda in Saturday's Dual in Detroit

• Battles Will Power for victory in another close IndyCar finish
• Strong runs for Wilson, Hinchcliffe
• Rookies Hawksworth, Munoz and Huertas impress

In his best performance of 2014, third-generation racer Graham Rahal fought eventual race winner Will Power for the final 20 laps of Saturday's opening race of the "Dual in Detroit" Verizon IndyCar Series doubleheader weekend, making a last-lap effort that came up just 33 hundredths of a second short at the checkers. 

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan team, headed by Graham's father, Bobby Rahal, made the right calls throughout the 70-lap contest, keeping its driver at or near the front of the field in a race that featured nearly a half-dozen different pit strategies among the 22 contestants. When the green flag waved for the final time on Lap 60, Rahal was in third place, behind Power and Ryan Briscoe. After dispatching Briscoe on Lap 62, Rahal closed down on Power and made several runs at the leader, but came up short in his efforts to snatch the victory.

Just behind the leaders, Justin Wilson combined excellent Honda fuel mileage with equally clever pit calls from his Dale Coyne Racing team to finish fourth, his best result of 2014. James Hinchcliffe ran in the lead group for the first half of the race, but the timing of the race's four cautions dropped him to an unrepresentative sixth. Rookie Jack Hawksworth also starred, running second to early leader Helio Castroneves until a broken brake disc dropped him off the lead lap; while fellow rookies Carlos Munoz and Carlos Huertas finished seventh and eighth, respectively – the third top-10 result for Munoz this year and a career-best for Huertas.

Video News Releases from this weekend's action in Detroit are being posted on a newly created "Honda Racing/HPD Trackside" YouTube channel produced by the Carolinas Production Group. CPG will be providing video highlights packages following Honda Racing/HPD events during 2014. The video packages can be found at: youtube.com/hondaracingtrackside.

Saturday's 70-lap contest was the first of two Verizon IndyCar Series races this weekend. The second half of the Dual in Detroit starts at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, with live television coverage again on ABC.

Verizon IndyCar Series Drivers' Championship (after 6 of 18 rounds):

Fn.	St.	Driver	Team	Engine - Chassis	Laps	Average Speed/Notes
1.	16.	Will Power	Team Penske	Chevrolet Dallara	70	90.138 mph avg.; led 21 laps
2.	9.	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	Honda Dallara	70	+0.3308 seconds; led 10 laps
3.	8.	Tony Kanaan	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	Chevrolet Dallara	70
4.	19.	Justin Wilson	Dale Coyne Racing	Honda Dallara	70
5.	1.	Helio Castroneves	Team Penske	Chevrolet Dallara	70	Led 30 laps
6.	2.	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	Honda Dallara	70
7.	11.	Carlos Munoz-R	Andretti Autosport	Honda Dallara	70
8.	12.	Carlos Huertas-R	Dale Coyne Racing	Honda Dallara	70
9.	20.	Charlie Kimball	Chip Ganassi Racing	Chevrolet Dallara	70
10.	18.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	Honda Dallara	70
Other Honda-powered Results:
16.	21.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	Honda Dallara	69	Did not finish – crash
17.	22.	Mikhail Aleshin-R	Schmidt Peterson	Honda Dallara	68	Did not finish – crash
18.	15.	Takuma Sato	A.J. Foyt Racing	Honda Dallara	66	Running
19.	3.	Jack Hawksworth-R	Bryan Herta Autosport	Honda Dallara	65	Did not finish – crash
20.	14.	Josef Newgarden	Sarah Fisher Hartman	Honda Dallara	36	Did not finish – crash
22.	17.	Simon Pagenaud	Schmidt Peterson Hamilton	Honda Dallara	4	Did not finish – crash

1. Ryan Hunter-Reay	288 points (2 wins)	6. Carlos Munoz-R	186 points
2. Will Power	285 (2 wins)	7. Juan Pablo Montoya	170
3. Helio Castroneves	254	8. Sebastien Bourdais	160
4. Simon Pagenaud	219 (1 win)	9. Justin Wilson	155
5. Marco Andretti	213	10. Scott Dixon	152

 

Manufacturers' Championship:

1. Chevrolet	779 (3 wins)
2. Honda	677 (3 wins)

 

Graham Rahal (#15 National Guard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda) started 9th, finished 2nd, best result of 2014: "I thought I was going to finally get the monkey off my back [and win] today. I knew I had a car that was as quick as [Will Power]. I knew I had one opportunity and that was on the restart.  He blocked me, which I would have done too, so I don't blame him. I said after Indy that this team was made up of champions and that it was going to come in time. We are going to win. I can promise you that. I was focused on the task at hand and I knew I was one of the few guys who could drive by a lot of people today. So when I saw myself in 13th place after a bad run on the reds [alternate tires], I thought, 'This isn't over. I can still pass these guys.' And sure enough we went to the front. This is where our season started, right here, today."

Justin Wilson (#19 Boy Scouts of America Dale Coyne Racing Honda) started 19th, finished 4th: "To be totally honest, I had no idea what was going on [in terms of strategy] out there today! I was just driving as fast as I could and pitting when I was told, and it all worked out really well for us. All thanks to Mike [Cannon, engineer] and the team, they did a great job with both the strategy and the pit stops. The track was getting seriously fast late in the race, so I think tomorrow may be another crazy race. It's Detroit; anything can happen!"

Mark Crawford (IndyCar Project Leader, Honda Performance Development) on today's race: "It was close. We managed to move a bunch of cars to the front of the field today with some clever pit strategy and excellent Honda fuel mileage, but fell just short of victory.  It was good to see Graham Rahal turn things around today after a tough start to the season, and we saw timely, strong performances from Justin Wilson and James Hinchcliffe, and that also was encouraging. Now we get to do it all again tomorrow, we just have to finish one position higher!"

For a photo from today's race, go to: http://broadcast.sportssystems.com/hosting/display.cfm?key=101717

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