Watkins Glen: Matos wins Race 1

The drivers of the Indy Lights series had a rough start in Race 1 at Watkins Glen this morning, with multiple incidents at the start and very short periods of green flag racing. This left the crews scrambling to get the cars ready for Race 2, schuduled to take place only a couple hours later. Eventually, Raphael Matos was able to hold off Richard Antinucci and Jeff Simmons to take the win. Dillon Battistini still leads the points standings by a very small margin.

Within the first seven laps James Davison, Bobby Wilson, JR Hildebrand and Franck Perera were out of the race, giving the points standings quite a shake-up. Perera crashed from the pole on Lap 2 after making light contact with Jonny Reid. At the same time, Bobby Wilson found himself in trouble in Turn 7, forcing him to retire. JR Hildebrand spun on his own and retired from the race as well.

A restart came on Lap 7, but on Lap 8 points leader Dillon Battistini crashed into the Turn 11 barrier from 12th position. After a few laps of clean up, the restart came on Lap 12 and everyone got away cleanly. Pablo Donoso, Logan Gomez, Arie Luyendyk Jr. and Daniel Harrington battled closely for positions 5 - 8 for lap after lap. On Lap 21, Mitch Cunningham, Jonny Reid and Andrew Prendeville passed Sean Guthrie, who fell from 10th position to 13th. Matos continued to lead Antinucci by three seconds.

Because of the early cautions, the race became a timed event. However, the drivers were able to complete 28 of 29 scheduled laps. Matos continued to put distance between himself and second place Antinucci in the closing laps as he cruised to victory after staying out of trouble.

Battistini leads Antinucci by a single point in the standings going into the second race. Stay tuned!


Complete Results of Race 1 :

1 Raphael Matos (27)
2 Richard Antinucci (7)
3 Jeff Simmons (2)
4 Ana Beatriz (20)
5 Pablo Donoso (22)
6 Logan Gomez (23)
7 Arie Luyendyk Jr. (26)
8 Daniel Herrington (6)
9 Cyndie Allemann (18)
10 Jonny Reid (9)
11 Andrew Prendeville (5)
12 Mitch Cunningham (33)
13 Sean Guthrie (4)
14 Brent Sherman (16)
15 Mark Olson (8)
16 Matt Lee (54)
17 Dillon Battistini (15)
19 JR Hildebrand (25)
20 Bobby Wilson (17)
21 James Davison (11)

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