Long Beach - Race results

Britain's Mike Conway staged a stunning victory at Long Beach by fighting back from early setbacks to find unbeatable pace following a final safety car for a collision between two Penske cars.

Andrew Lewin_1

18 Apr 2011

Mike Conway ran the first 28 of 85 laps on the streets of Long Beach in a comfortable third place, but problems overshooting his pit box during the first round of stops dumped him down to 19th position and seemed to have ended any chance he had of a good result here, on a track notoriously resistant to overtaking.

But an accident at a double file restart on lap 67 saw Helio Castroneves accidentally spin his team mate Will Power into the tyres at turn 1 and also remove Scott Dixon from consideration, leaving Conway back up to sixth for the next attempt to go green. A wobble from Alex Tagliani allowed him through up to fourth, and then two astonishingly assured overtaking moves on Dario Franchitti and Ryan Briscoe, coupled with a gearbox failure for Ryan Hunter-Reay, saw Conway suddenly surge into the lead and off into the distance all the way to the chequered flag, to take his first ever IZOD IndyCar win.

Dario Franchitti spent much of the race stuck back in 7th place but also benefited from the Penske fall-out to take third place and put him back on top of the IndyCar championship points standings.

Race results

1. #27 Mike Conway 85 laps 85 laps
2. #6 Ryan Briscoe 85 laps + 6.3203s
3. #10 Dario Franchitti 85 laps + 6.7163s
4. #06 James Hinchcliffe 85 laps + 9.1705s
5. #77 Alex Tagliani 85 laps + 16.0177s
6. #2 Oriol Servia 85 laps + 16.8966s
7. #7 Danica Patrick 85 laps + 17.5016s
8. #82 Tony Kanaan 85 laps + 18.9655s
9. #14 Vitor Meira 85 laps + 19.4723s
10. #12 Will Power 85 laps + 19.8909s
11. #17 Raphael Matos 85 laps + 20.4660s
12. #3 Helio Castroneves 85 laps + 20.7784s
13. #38 Graham Rahal 85 laps + 21.3464s
14. #34 Sebastian Saavedra 85 laps + 23.1137s
15. #18 James Jakes 85 laps + 24.5926s
16. #8 Paul Tracy 85 laps + 63.7578s
17. #4 JR Hildebrand 85 laps + 70.9001s
18. #9 Scott Dixon 84 laps + 1 laps 23.4515s
19. #24 Ana Beatriz 83 laps + 2 laps 45.4151s
20. #78 Simona de Silvestro 82 laps + 3 laps 29.0387s
21. #5 Takuma Sato 81 laps + 4 laps 41.9446s
22. #22 Justin Wilson 78 laps + 7 laps
23. #28 Ryan Hunter-Reay 72 laps + 13 laps Mechanical
24. #83 Charlie Kimball 66 laps + 19 laps Mechanical
25. #59 EJ Viso 59 laps + 26 laps Contact
26. #26 Marco Andretti 37 laps + 48 laps Mechanical
27. #19 Sebastien Bourdais 27 laps + 58 laps Contact