Thanks to a daring offbeat strategy, Will Power (Penske) returned to victory in the Detroit Grand Prix ahead of Alex Rossi (Andretti).
The Australian veteran scored his first success of the season, the fourth for Team Penske after those of his teammates Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden at the start of the championship.
By delaying the use of soft tyres, the rapid degradation of which was very penalizing, until the last stint, Power isolated himself in the lead to contain the onslaught of Alexander Rossi in the final laps, the first to have opted for a strategy to three stops.
Behind these two protagonists, Scott Dixon (Ganassi) delivered a solid race to precede poleman Newgarden, the McLaren of Pato O’Ward and his teammate Alex Palou.
Starting well in second position, Simon Pagenaud (MSR) tried two stops but lost too much time to preserve his fuel consumption in an event devoid of any yellow flag and he finished seventh ahead of Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson (Ganassi) .
As for Romain Grosjean (Andretti), injured in practice, he could not do better than seventeenth without ever being deceived.
In the provisional classification, Power takes the lead with 255 points for 252 at Ericsson, 243 at O’Ward and 241 at Palou. Next round in IndyCar in two weeks at Road America.
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