Penske driver and reigning IndyCar champion Simon Pagenaud took a controlled victory at the Phoenix International Raceway, his first win at an oval track.
The French driver took advantage of a caution to take the lead, staying out a lap longer than rivals at the second round of stops.
That decision put him a lap ahead of the field when the caution came out for Takuma Sato’s crash, which gave him a free pitstop.
He stormed to the win at the first oval race of the 2017 season, taking over the top spot in the standings – making the most of erstwhile title leader Sébastien Bourdais' troubles early on.
The start featured high drama, with Mikhail Aleshin losing control and sliding up track into the barrier. Ryan Hunter-Reay managed to emerge relatively unscathed.
However, Bourdais collided with Aleshin’s car and hit the barrier, with several other cars – including Graham Rahal, Max Chilton and Marco Andretti – also getting involved.
It meant the first 22 of 250 laps were run under caution to sort the incident out, with polesitter Hélio Castroneves leading the way on the restart before losing ground in the first round of stops.
Will Power emerged ahead, with Pagenaud up to third, and he moved to the lead at the next pitstop phase and holding on to take victory ahead of Power and the returning JR Hildebrand.
Castroneves was fourth, with Ganassi’s Scott Dixon fifth, ahead of team-mate Tony Kanaan. Ed Carpenter and Charlie Kimball were next up.
Josef Newgarden lost ground late on after contact with Hunter-Reay and finished ninth, ahead of Carlos Muñoz.
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