Briscoe bags IndyCar opener

Australia's Ryan Briscoe won the Grand Prix of St.Petersburg, the opening race of the 2009 IndyCar Series.

Aussie holds off challenge to win IndyCar season opener

Australia's Ryan Briscoe won the Grand Prix of St.Petersburg, the opening race of the 2009 IndyCar Series, by holding off the challenge of Ryan Hunter-Reay on Sunday. Penske driver Briscoe overtook England's Justin Wilson to lead 14 laps from the end after one of many re-starts during the race littered with crashes. Hunter-Reay came flying home on new tyres and went beyond Wilson to challenge the Australian for the lead. Yet another re-start to the race bunched the field up and gave Hunter-Reay the chance to overtake Briscoe, but the leader managed to hold on to take the chequered flag. Briscoe came home in a time of 2hr 12min and 26.8387sec, winning by just 0.4619seconds as he bounced back from crashing out of the event on his last two starts.

Finally

"Finally," said Briscoe. "This place has been bad to me. "It feels so good to finally get to the end of this race. And it's great to start off the year like this." Wilson, making his debut with Dale Coyne Racing, dominated large parts of the race but could not quite make it all the way to the end but was satisfied with third. "I couldn't quite get the re-start there at the end," he said. "But it was a good day, a good way to get started with this team." Scotland's Dario Franchitti was returning to IndyCar after spending part of last year in the NASCAR stock car racing series, and the former Indianapolis 500 winner bagged fourth place. Brazilian Tony Kanaan was fifth, while pole sitter Graham Rahal came home in seventh after the pair had been involved in a first-turn collision. Rahal won in Texas on his IndyCar debut last year and on became the youngest driver to capture an IndyCar pole, but the incident forced him to undergo repairs in the pits and ruined his chances of winning. IndyCar Grand Prix of St. Petersburg: 1. Ryan Briscoe (AUS) 100 laps in 2hr 12min 26.8387sec
2. Ryan Hunter-Reay (USA) at 0.4619sec
3. Justin Wilson (GBR) 100 laps completed
4. Dario Franchitti (GBR) 100
5. Tony Kanaan (BRA) 100
6. Will Power (AUS) 100
7. Graham Rahal (USA) 100
8. Darren Manning (GBR) 100
9. Vitor Meira (BRA) 100
10. Alex Tagliani (CAN) 99
Standings: 1. Ryan Briscoe 50
2. Ryan Hunter-Reay 40
3. Justin Wilson 37
4. Dario Franchitti 32
5. Tony Kanaan 30