DETROIT -- A rainbow greeted the podium finishers of the Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix -- an appropriate sign of (hopefully) brighter races on the challenging street circuit in upcoming years to complement the fan-friendly event.
Race winner Scott Dixon, who held on to finish 1.9628 seconds ahead of Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Dario Franchitti, also was joined on the stage by Simon Pagenaud as Honda swept the top three in Chevy's home race.
A week earlier, it was Franchitti leading Dixon across the start-finish line at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to win his third Indianapolis 500.
Click it: Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix box score
Dixon, the pole sitter, led all 60 laps in the race shortened from 90 laps because of a two-hour red flag for crews to repair three sections of patched asphalt on the 14-turn course. Dixon earned his 28th Indy car victory, passing Johnny Rutherford for 11th on the all-time list. Rick Mears (29) is next up.
"I am super happy for the team – a 1-2 finish for the Target boys for the second week in a row," Dixon said. "Hats off to the fans who stuck around through something that was totally unexpected. If I could have gotten my gloves off I’d have chewed my nails for sure on those final laps.
"I’d like to give a lot of credit to everyone at INDYCAR and the Detroit staff for getting the track back in shape so we could race. The final 15-lap shootout was exciting for me, so I sure hope the fans liked it. It is great to be back in Detroit and I hope we are here for many years to come – great fans, volunteers and staff. In the end, it was a good week for everyone."
Franchitti, who started 14th, claimed his 28th runner-up finish.
"I thought in the first couple of laps (after the resumption) I had a chance, but he was too quick," Franchitti said of Dixon. "And with our car breaking the front wing early on, the more the run went on the more understeer it got. But that’s not to take anything away from the job Dixie did, and a 1-2 for Team Target after his brilliant qualifying and my abysmal one, we’ll take it."
IZOD IndyCar Series points leader Will Power finished fourth and Oriol Servia advanced 12 positions relative to his starting spot to finish fifth. Dixon supplanted Helio Castroneves and James Hinchcliffe in second in the championship standings, closing to 26 of Power with the Firestone 550 at Texas Motor Speedway on tap on June 9 (NBC Sports Network at 8 p.m. ET).
"We wanted to win this for Roger (team owner Penske) and Chevrolet, and unfortunately we weren’t able to go the distance," said Power, who had won the previous three road/street course events. "There is plenty to learn from today to come back better next week. We are still leading the championship and I’m looking forward to getting back on the ovals.”
The red flag was displayed at 4:53 p.m. (ET) -- about 68 minutes after the start of the race -- as INDYCAR Race Director Beaux Barfield called the cars onto pit lane following the first full-course yellow flag of the race on Lap 40 when James Hinchcliffe's No. 27 GoDaddy.com car struck a chunk of asphalt the size of a wallet that sent him into the tire barrier in Turn 7. Almost simultaneously, the No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing car of Takuma Sato slid into the Turn 12 wall.
"In Turn 12, I clipped a very high curb and that made a huge kickback in the steering wheel and it slipped from my grip and that was the end of the race," Sato said. "It’s not the way we wanted to finish. It was a difficult weekend but hopefully we come back strong at Texas.”