Tony Kanaan took advantage of teammate Dan Wheldon’s misfortune to move into the lead, then ran away from the field Sunday to win the Argent Mortgage Indy Grand Prix in Sonoma, Calif.
Kanaan beat Buddy Rice by 1.182 seconds – about 8 car-lengths – for his second IRL IndyCar win of the season.
It was Wheldon’s broken fuel pump that allowed Kanaan to take the lead on the 53rd of 80 laps at Infineon Raceway.
“I have had bad days and he capitalized a lot on them,” Kanaan said of Wheldon, the IndyCar points leader.
Kanaan averaged 91.040 mph around Infineon’s 12-turn, 2.26-mile track in the first IRL race held on a road course.
Red Bull Cheever Racing teammates Alex Barron and Patrick Carpentier finished third and fourth, 1.854 seconds and 2.664 seconds, respectively, behind Kanaan.
A 19th-lap crash took out the two fastest qualifiers as Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe were attempting to pass rookie Danica Patrick, who was 20th.
Patrick was the last of six cars that remained on course as the rest of the pack pitted on lap 17, after Ed Carpenter spun and stalled. Briscoe slammed into the side of Patrick and she gathered up Castroneves.
Champ: Oriol Servia was handed his first Champ Car victory when series officials ordered rookie Timo Glock to let him pass on the final lap of the Montreal Molson Indy race.
Glock, whose best previous finish in nine races this season was sixth, found himself in the lead late in the 79-lap race, and tried desperately to hold onto the top spot, twice blocking Servia’s Newman/Haas Racing Lola as the two nearly bumped.
He was warned by Champ Car officials after the first of those blocks on the final turn of lap 69, but did it again in the same spot on lap 76 when Servia got alongside and appeared set to take the lead.
At that point, the former Formula One driver from Germany was told to give the top spot to Servia and he finally did, pulling over just long enough to let the Spaniard pass midway through the final lap on the 2.709-mile, 15-turn Notre Dame Island road circuit in Montreal.
Servia beat Glock to the finish line by exactly one second – about 10 car-lengths – to earn his first win in 95 Champ Car races.
RuSport’s Justin Wilson finished third, followed by reigning series champion and points leader Sebastien Bourdais.
* Local favorite Antoine Bessette won the season-ending Toyota Atlantic Series race at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, while Charles Zwolsman put the finishing touches to his championship year with an uneventful sixth-place run.
Bessette, a rookie from St. Bruno, Quebec, lost the lead to series runner-up Tonis Kasemets at the start, but regained the top spot on the fourth of 25 laps. He beat the tenacious Kasemets by 0.555 of a second – about 6 car-lengths – to earn his second victory of the season.
Katherine Legge, the only woman racing in the series, finished fourth, trailing fellow rookie David Martinez of Mexico.
The Englishwoman, who won three races, wound up the season in a points tie with Bessette but was awarded third place for having more wins.
AMA road racing: Mat Mladin tied an AMA superbike record when he won his 10th race of the season at Virginia International Raceway in Alton. In superstock, Aaron Yates won for the fourth consecutive time in a race cut short because of a crash involving Jordan Motorsports’ Jason Pridmore and Lion Racing’s Jacob Holden. Superbikeplanet.com reported Holden was talking with medics when they transported him by ambulance. Roger Lee Hayden nipped brother Tommy to win the supersport event.
Touring: Alex Zanardi won his first race since losing both legs in an accident in Germany in 2001.
Zanardi, who walks and drives with the help of two prostheses, captured the seventh race of the world touring cars championships in Oschersleben, Germany.
