Ultimately, Carlos Munoz played it perfectly and was rewarded with his first career win in the Verizon IndyCar Series. Munoz went a few laps longer than teammate Marco Andretti before switching to wet tires, which allowed him to gap Andretti on a track that was still dry in certain stops. Munoz completed his stop for wet tires just before the skies opened and dropped buckets of water on the track. "My AndrettiTV/Cinsay team did a great job in the strategy, and I think I also did a great job with the slick tires when the track was still a little bit wet. Really nice – my first victory in IndyCar," said the Andretti Autosport driver, who brought Honda its second win of 2015.
Andretti, for his part, also played the strategy well to lead a large portion of the before finishing second. Simon Pagenaud also capitalized on the jumbled strategy to finish third. Polesitter Will Power came back to finish fourth after his strategy failed to play out, while Scott Dixon completed the top five.
Racing began on a wet track from an earlier rain storm, and Takuma immediately used his wet weather experience to jump from fourth to first by the end of lap one. Behind him, Rodolfo Gonzalez, in his second career start, spun and stalled up against the inside wall exiting turn two, bringing out a full course caution.
Racing only briefly resumed on lap five before a Stefano Colletti dive-bomb up the inside forced James Jakes into Tony Kanaan. Both spun into the turn one tire barrier, with Graham Rahal colliding with Kanaan in the aftermath. Rahal dropped out on the spot with right-front damage, while Jakes and Kanaan were able to rejoin, though Kanaan was several laps off the pace. Though frustrated, Rahal was gracious afterward. "It's unfortunate because the car was pretty good in the wet. When Kanaan hit the tire wall he just bounced right out in front of me and there was no where I could go. That's just the way these things go," he explained.
Though the race was still young, a noticeable dry line had formed. Marco Andretti was the first to switch to slick tires, doing so under the caution. A handful of laps later, several others did the same, including Carlos Munoz.
A lap 12 restart saw Sato begin streaking away from the field. However, with the track nearly completely dry, drivers began circulating onto pit road for slicks. The stops were interrupted on lap 15, though, when Charlie Kimball, one of the early gamblers on slicks, hit a puddle exiting turn two which pitched his car sideways and into the outside wall. Despite the hard impact, Kimball emerge unhurt.
All the leaders pitted for slick tires under caution, but exited behind the drivers who already stopped. The flip-flopped order saw Andretti assume the lead ahead of Luca Filippi, Jack Hawksworth, Conor Daly, Stefano Coletti, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Josef Newgarden. Sato, who won the battle off pit road, was forced to restart eighth.
Andretti held the lead on a lap 20 restart. Behind him, Sato was trying to move back up, but made contact with Newgarden, breaking own front wing and puncturing Newgarden's left-rear tire in the process. Debris from Sato's car brought out another caution on lap 20.
Racing only stayed green for two laps after a lap 24 restart as Rodolfo Gonzalez bounced off the wall and scattered more debris on the track.
Similarly, racing only stayed green for another two laps after a lap 29 restart when Gabby Chaves cut a tire and caused a traffic jam that spread yet more debris on the surface.
A lap 33 restart nearly saw another caution when Ryan Hunter-Reay rear-ended Conor Daly. However, Daly quickly dove into the pits to fix the damage, allowing the race to run green.
Andretti managed to hold the lead through the chaos, but slipped to fifth when his car briefly lost power. He quickly regrouped though and stayed with the front pack.
As another rain storm loomed, several drivers darted for the pits for rain tires, except Andretti, Munoz, and Pagenaud. Despite the impending weather and eventual small rain drops, the track remained dry enough for those three to gap the field before pitting.
Andretti stayed out until he needed to pit for fuel and emerged in second, with Munoz going farther because of originally changed to slicks later than Andretti, meaning he had a few more laps of fuel onboard. When Munoz emerged from his pit stop on lap 41, he held a lead of more than 20 seconds on Andretti, the difference being Munoz's pace on the slicks while Andretti and others were on wets.
It was not until Munoz rejoined that the skies truly opened up, blanketing the track with heavy rain. With lightening threatening, a final caution flew on lap 46, with the red flag flying one lap later. Under the brief caution, Luca Filippi, running ninth at the time, aquaplaned into the turn one tire barrier, but managed to keep his position as the red flag had flown only moments before his accident.
With conditions worsening, INDYCAR officials declared the race official, giving Munoz his first career Verizon IndyCar Series win. "We knew this race was going to be crazy," Munoz added after the race. My engineer (Garrett Mothersead) did a great job with the weather – he’s a geeky guy about the weather – and it all paid off. I ended up having more fuel than Marco so we had more laps in the end. I thank God for this opportunity, the race was awesome."
Though he missed out on the win, Andretti drove an equally strategic race and actually debated with his father about when to pit. He explained the motivation behind it post-race. "We were running eighth and we had a bunch of strong guys in the front so it seemed like a no-brainer (to pit for slicks) as long as I could keep it off the fence, which we were able to do," he detailed. "At the end I really didn't want to come in (on Lap 40 pit) but we needed to get some fuel, and I knew whoever stayed out would beat me. It was good for an Andretti Autosport 1-2."
Pagenaud credited his team for staying on top of the weather as much as they could. "It was very dicey. We never knew when the rain was going to come," said the Penske driver. "We could only look at the radar, but on the race track it wasn't raining when they called me in so we had a few communications exchanges. We stayed out a bit longer and then made the call at the perfect time to jump to third and then get a first podium with Team Penske."
Power explained that, as a front runner in the early laps, he couldn't take the same gambles as others, which ultimately put him at a disadvantage. "As one of the front-running cars we didn't want to give up the track position to put on primary or 'red' Firestone tires once the track began to dry," Power discussed. "After other teams started to do that we had to do it too. That's what put us back in the pack a bit, but we were able to work our way back through the field for a top-five finish. The rain actually helped us because we were about to pit in a couple of laps. But I'm proud of my Verizon Chevy guys. They worked their tails off today."
Sunday's race #2 of the Chevrolet Dual in Detroit rolls off at 3:30 p.m. EST.
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