Harvick continues dominant season
Kevin Harvick surged past Martin Truex Jr. with one lap to go to win Saturday night at Kansas Speedway, his fifth win in what has turned out to be a dominant start to the season.
Harvick qualified on the pole and ran near the front all night, escaping the trouble caused by a couple of late-race cautions. He was fifth after a restart with 10 laps to go, but rode four fresh tires to second place, then swung past Truex at the start-finish line to take the lead.
Harvick held on the rest of the way to win for the third time at Kansas.
Truex wound up second after winning both races at the track last season. Joey Logano was third, Kyle Larson rallied from a late crash to finish fourth, and Denny Hamlin was fifth.
The race was free of wrecks until the last 30 laps, when Alex Bowman and Daniel Suarez got into each other. But things really shook up a few laps later, when Harvick passed Larson on the restart to assume control, and the No. 42 car began bumping with Ryan Blaney down the front stretch.
Those two got together, sending Blaney into the wall and Larson into the pits.
“I’m definitely to blame on that,” said Blaney, who won the first stage before Larson had charged to the front to capture the second. “Just trying to side-drift too hard.”
The race had barely returned to green when William Byron triggered a heavy wreck in front of the main grandstand. Local favorites Clint Bowyer and Jamie McMurray were among a half-dozen cars involved.
“That one hurt really bad, but I’m fine,” Byron said. “We took two tires and just couldn’t get it turned on the bottom. We were trying to kind of push some things there and it didn’t work out.”
The red flag set up one last sprint to the finish.
Truex used some pit strategy to restart in the lead, and quickly built a buffer. But the No. 4 car swept past Logano and Hamlin on the outside to put Truex in his sights, then closed down the lead until finally overtaking the reigning series champion with a lap to go.
IndyCar
Will Power’s timing was impeccable.
He picked the perfect strategy with his red tires. He pressed the push-to-pass 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 three-time 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. “That was the first time where I felt like a true rookie in that final stint because I’ve never had to save fuel before,” Wickens said. “The amount we had to save was something I didn’t think was even possible.”
Power and Dixon didn’t have any problems, of course.
Dixon, the New Zealander with Chip Ganassi Racing, methodically maneuvered through the field after starting 18th. He managed to get into the top three but never really got close enough to challenge Power.
Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves finished sixth in his season debut.
F1
Lewis Hamilton set a track record to take pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Hamilton clocked 1 minute, 16.173 seconds at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Valtteri Bottas will start second after finishing less than a tenth of a second behind his Mercedes teammate.
Sebastian Vettel was third with Ferrari, ahead of teammate Kimi Raikkonen.
Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were fifth and sixth, respectively.