Harvick wins; Kenseth in crash
Polesitter Kevin Harvick passed Martin Truex Jr. with two laps remaining and went on to win the KC Masterpiece 400 Saturday night at Kansas Speedway.
It was Harvick’s second victory in a row and Cup Series-best fifth of the season. It’s the sixth time Harvick and Truex have finished 1-2.
“I think this weekend shows really how good the race team is,” Harvick said. “Everything didn’t go exactly smooth and everybody just kept a good demeanor about things and kept calm and kept working through things.
“The same thing tonight. Everybody just kept working through trying to make the car better and we were able to wind up in Victory Lane. Those are the days that you just grind it out.”
Joey Logano finished third, Kyle Larson fourth and Denny Hamlin fifth. Harvick led 79 of the 400 laps on the 11⁄2-mile track in Kansas City.
Shortly after a restart with 15 laps to go, rookie William Byron triggered a multi-car crash as he slid into Clint Bowyer, caught fire and collected six other cars — Matt Kenseth, Ty Dillon, Jamie McMurray, Ryan Newman and Chris Buescher — and sent several into the infield grass.
The race was red-flagged with 14 laps to go as cars were towed off the track and debris was cleared. It lasted 13 minutes 13 seconds.
Kenseth, the 2003 champion from Cambridge, finished 36th in his first race of the year.
“I don’t have any idea what happened with the wreck. I just saw everybody wrecking and the track was kind of blocked, so I tried to get down towards the grass. This grass is not the new friendly grass with the rain and all it just kind of dug in and then I just hit the car in front of me.”
Coming into the weekend, Kenseth said he had no expectations for his first race since rejoining his original team, Roush Fenway Racing, on a part-time basis. Kenseth had been without a ride after being released by Joe Gibbs Racing at the end of last season.
“I expected us to be a little more competitive than that, so it was a really tough weekend all around,” said Kenseth, who spend much of his debut in the No. 6 Ford a lap or more behind. “We obviously have some work to do. The good news is it’s got to get better.”
IndyCar: Will Power’s timing was impeccable.
He picked the perfect strategy with his red tires. He pressed the push-topass button at precisely the right moment. He gave Roger Penske his 200th series win at Penske’s place – Indianapolis.
Power overcame a late caution period that shrunk his lead, barely won the race off pit lane on the final stop and even drove through some light rain to pull away from Scott Dixon by 2.2443 seconds for his second straight IndyCar Grand Prix victory.
“It’s been a slow start for us, so it’s fantastic to get the win,” the first threetime race winner said. “It’s amazing to be a part of that history with Penske Racing because it’s such a deep history.”
It might be just what the Australian needed. He came into the weekend with only one top-five finish all season, a second at Long Beach. The only other top-10 he had this season was in the season opener at St. Petersburg.
But Power won the pole Friday and dominated again on Indy’s 2.439-mile, 14-turn road course. He led a race-high 56 laps including the last 34 after taking advantage of his tire choice to quickly close the gap with race leader Robert Wickens on the front straightaway before making a smooth move to beat the rookie into the first turn on Lap 51.
“He was on blacks and I was on reds, so I returned the favor and really caught him,” Power said. “Once I got past him it was pretty straight forward because we were much faster.”
Power has won three of the last four road-course events at Indy – all from the pole.
Wickens, a Canadian who drives for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, finished third more than 8.1 seconds off the pace.
Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves finished sixth in his season debut.
Formula One: Lewis Hamilton ended Sebastian Vettel’s dominant run in Formula One qualifying by setting a track record and wining pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.
Hamilton had a lap of 1 minute 16.173 seconds at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, only four hundredths of a second ahead of Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.