Houston IndyCar: Will Power wins, Dario Franchitti in big crash

The Scot was running behind Takuma Sato when the Japanese driver got out of shape.

Franchitti hit the back of Sato's Foyt car and was launched into the air and along the fence, causing tremendous damage to the Ganassi car and sending several large pieces of debris in the direction of a nearby grandstand.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that several fans were checked by medical personnel, but there has been no indication of any serious injuries.

Franchitti remained in the wreckage until the medical team could extract him, however IndyCar has confirmed that he is conscious and alert. He was taken directly to a nearby hospital for further evaluation.

Penske driver Power moved into the lead by jumping Franchitti's team-mate Scott Dixon on a restart early in the race, and despite Dixon's best efforts, Power retained his advantage right to the end.

Dixon's second place was still a significant result in the context of the championship, not least because pre-race leader Helio Castroneves again had a disastrous afternoon.

The Brazilian was handed pole position after qualifying was washed out, meaning that the grid was determined by the entrant points prior to the weekend. But in the opening laps, he caught too much of one of the bumps and damaged his gearbox.

Dixon, running behind him, spent several laps being covered in oil before the Penske car finally lost power and came to a stop with a broken gearbox casing.

The team dragged Castroneves' car back to the pits and managed to get it fixed and sent him back out, 28 laps down, in the hope of salvaging a few points.

James Hinchcliffe bounced back from a disappointing Saturday race to finish third, the Canadian posting similar times to the leaders in the final stint, with Justin Wilson and Sebastien Bourdais rounding out the top five.

The race was interrupted eight times by caution periods, most coming from spins or single-car accidents.

The most notable exception occurred when Simona de Silesvtro, who finished second on Saturday, overestimated her chances of successfully overtaking Graham Rahal and Tristan Vautier in one move, and ended up putting both into the wall.

The KV driver was issued a drive-through for causing the accident, and Josef Newgarden attracted a similar penalty later for turning Marco Andretti around.

Results - 90 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team/Engine           Time/Gap
 1.  Will Power           Penske/Chevy     1h52m28.9525s
 2.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi/Honda         +0.8286s
 3.  James Hinchcliffe    Andretti/Chevy        +4.3629s
 4.  Justin Wilson        Coyne/Honda           +5.0234s
 5.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dragon/Chevy          +8.0120s
 6.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt/Honda        +11.0712s
 7.  Oriol Servia         Panther/Chevy        +14.0815s
 8.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi/Honda        +15.1566s
 9.  Mike Conway          Coyne/Honda          +15.5568s
10.  Simona de Silvestro  KV/Chevy             +31.3618s
11.  Tristan Vautier      Schmidt/Honda        +32.9460s
12.  Sebastian Saavedra   Dragon/Chevy         +38.3799s
13.  Josef Newgarden      Fisher/Honda       +1m19.5633s
14.  Takuma Sato          Foyt/Honda              +1 lap*
15.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi/Honda           +1 lap*
16.  EJ Viso              Andretti/Chevy          +1 lap*
17.  James Jakes          Rahal/Honda             +1 lap
18.  Graham Rahal         Rahal/Honda            +2 laps
19.  Luca Filippi         Herta/Honda            +2 laps
20.  Marco Andretti       Andretti/Chevy         +2 laps
21.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti/Chevy         +3 laps

* Not running at finish

Retirements:

     Ed Carpenter         Carpenter/Chevy        61 laps
     Helio Castroneves    Penske/Chevy           53 laps**
     Tony Kanaan          KV/Chevy               32 laps

** Running again at finish