IndyCar: Bourdais in command at The Milwaukee Mile

Sebastien Bourdais (KVSH Racing) is the winner of the ABC Supply Wisconsin 250 race at the historic Milwaukee Mile oval circuit. After 250 laps over the 1.015-mile oval, the Frenchman achieved his 34th career IndyCar victory and fifth win on an oval.  Helio Castroneves (Team Penske) ranked in second place while in the third spot was  Graham Rahal (RLL Racing). This was Bourdais’ second win this year and he is now 6th in the drivers’ standings.

Bourdais was dominating the second half of the race, leading 118 laps and managed to build a large enough gap between him and the others for a comfortable last pit. After his last restart in Lap 232, Bourdais remained in the lead and cruised to victory with a 2.2366 second advantage over Helio Castroneves.

“On these ovals, you can go from hero to zero and back to hero again. I guess that’s my story. It’s so much about momentumwhen you can feel one with the car and today the guys gave me an awesome car. It felt pretty good off the truck and I thought, ‘This could be a pretty good weekend.’ And then we messed up qualifying. Never did I think we could come up through the field and pass everybody. It’s just unbelievable. It’s what these places do to you. When the car is right, it’s so, so special,” said Bourdais, who qualified 11th.

Championship leader Juan Pablo Montoya (Team Penske) finished fourth ahead of Josef Newgarden (CFH Racing), who started from pole and led three times for 109 laps. For the second consecutive race, the retirement of Will Power (Team Penske) provided Montoya an opportunity to increase his championship points lead.

Power’s #1 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet was collected in a Lap 131 incident off a restart when Ryan Briscoe (Schmidt Peterson Motorsports) spun in Turn 4. Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing), who was making his 250th Indy car start, overtook Power for second in the standings with a seventh-place finish at Milwaukee Mile.

Montoya is first in the championship standings with 439 points. He is  followed by Scott Dixon (385), Graham Rahal (370), Helio Castroneves (370), Will Power (369), Sebastien Bourdais (343), Marco Andreti (332), Tony Kanaan (314)…

The next race is Iowa Corn 300 at Iowa Speedway on July 18.