 Rice was a narrow winner |
Buddy Rice edged out arch-rival and pole-sitter Tony Kanaan to win the Michigan Indy 400. Rice won by 0.0796 of a second to give him his third IRL victory of the season and he is second to Kanaan in the points standings.
Kanaan led most of the way before Rice overtook him with about 10 laps to go in the 200-lap race.
Kanaan's Andretti Green teammate, Dan Wheldon, finished third, 3.63 seconds behind the winner.
Kanaan claimed a failed strategy with his Andretti Green Racing team may have cost him the race.
He said he was advised to stop fighting Rice when he first attempted to pass him.
But Rice believed he earned the victory.
"I have no idea what was said in their pits or what their strategy was," Rice said.
"You could tell he was on more or less the same thought process as me.
"I could watch him back up a little bit at times. I think we have all run together long enough you can see what somebody else is doing when they start to save fuel.
"I have no idea if they told him to move over. Obviously, they felt they had the car that could beat us, so they wanted to run behind us."
During the race two crew members were hit by cars, and one - a member of Tomas Scheckter's pit crew - suffered an injured right leg.
MMIX
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