Glory Days: Strategy Wins It For Wheldon

RICHMOND, Va. — Dan Wheldon and team owner Michael Andretti had a sly look on their faces after winning Saturday night’s IRL SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond Int’l Raceway.
They knew they stole the victory without having the fastest race car.
Wheldon’s victory proved that the fastest car doesn’t always win the race, but smart race strategy can prevail.
Wheldon had been running near the back of the pack for most of the race, but a fuel-mileage gamble helped him to his second Indy Racing League victory of the season.
When a series of late caution periods allowed him to stay on the track and out of the pits, Wheldon took the lead and held on during a one-lap shootout
“Every time you get into an Andretti Green car, you realize it will be relatively strong,” Wheldon said. “I agree I didn’t have the quickest car today, but I could run a lot of laps on the Firestones and the car kept getting better and better and better. The car really stuck well. When you qualify 20th and are able to win, it’s a lot of help from the team.”
Wheldon went 121 laps on his final set of tires and tank of fuel He even had enough methanol in the tank to do a few donuts on the frontstretch to celebrate his victory.
“Awesome job by Andretti Green Racing,” Wheldon said. “I went a long time on that last set of tires and they still stuck. They did a very good job for me with strategy. We pulled it off today. I have to give Tony Cotman credit (team manager) a great job today with strategy in the pits.”
Originally, the order of finish had Wheldon finishing 0.2038 second ahead of the Dallara/Toyota of pole- sitter Hello Castroneves, with Vitor Meira third in a G Force-Honda, followed by Wheldon’s teammates Tony Kanaan and Bryan Herta.
However, the yellow lights did not turn off on the final lap, so after the race was over, IRL vice president of operations Brian Barnhart disallowed any passes on the final laps, which meant Meira finished second and Castroneves third. Herta was moved back to fourth and Kanaan is listed as fifth.

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