DETROIT (Saturday, May 31, 2014) – Will Power overtook race leader Ryan Briscoe on a Lap 60 restart and then held off Graham Rahal over a 10-lap sprint to win Chevrolet Indy Dual in Detroit presented by Quicken Loans Dual 1.
“(Rahal) was really pushing me at the end and it was a great victory for Roger, the (crew) guys and Verizon,” said Power, who started 16th in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske car and tied Tommy Milton for 18th all time with his 23rd Indy car victory.
Rahal, driving the No. 15 National Guard car for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, started a season-best ninth and recorded his best finish since placing second at Long Beach in April 2013. Rahal closed to within .3308 of a second behind the race winner, but had to settle for a runner-up finish.
“We’ve been fighting awfully hard to just finish where we have been finishing and so to finally get a result like this it means more than words,” said Rahal, who was the first to retire from the Indianapolis 500 six days earlier. “As we look forward to (Dual 2 on June 1), I think we can do one better and we really learned a lot today and a lot that is going to help us.”
Tony Kanaan finished third — his 66th career podium and best street/road course finish since Baltimore in 2011 – to post his best finish of the season, as did Justin Wilson in fourth. Verizon P1 Award winner Helio Castroneves, who led a field-high 30 laps, finished fifth.
Qualifications for Race 2 — split into two groups of 12 minutes of track time each – are at 10 a.m. (ET) June 1 and will set the starting lineup for the 70-lap race at 3:30 p.m. (ET) on ABC.
Both races on the 2.36-mile, 13-turn street circuit carry full points. Power moved to within three points of front-runner and Indianapolis 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay, who finished 16th, in the championship standings.
