Scott Dixon won the pole position by posting the fastest lap of qualifying. He led the first 28 laps before making a pit stop, giving the lead to teammate Dan Wheldon. Dixon reclaimed the lead after Wheldon made a stop ten laps later. Andretti, who adopted a fuel-saving strategy, made his final stop on lap 45 and took the lead six laps later as Dixon was hindered by a slow pit stop. Andretti led the final 30 laps and, with the assistance of a late caution, managed to conserve his fuel on his way to his first IndyCar victory. He had also became the youngest driver to win an American open-wheel car race, though his record was broken by Graham Rahal in 2008.
The final result gave Hélio Castroneves the first position in the Drivers' Championship once again, leading teammate Sam Hornish Jr. by one point. Wheldon, Dixon, and Meira remained third through fifth with one race left in the season.
After a last-place finish in the race at Michigan dropped Hornish Jr. to second in the championship, he managed to reclaim the championship lead by winning the preceding race at Kentucky.[5] Hornish Jr. and Castroneves agreed that Infineon Raceway was "challenging" for drivers because of its multiple elevation changes and aimed to finish well in order to stay in contention for the final race of the season at Chicagoland Speedway.[6] Wheldon and Dixon saw the upcoming race at Infineon as an opportunity to narrow Hornish Jr.'s points advantage over them, with Wheldon predicting that strategies to maintain fuel would lead to an unexpected winner.[2] Meira acknowledged that the race weekend was "make-or-break" for him and his team, but assured he would have a good result.[6]
Four practice sessions preceded the race on Sunday, two on Friday and two on Saturday. The first session lasted for 120 minutes, the second and third 65 minutes, and the fourth 30 minutes.[2] Under IndyCar's qualifying procedure, each participant was permitted to put down laps during the initial session; their times would determine the two groups which would be utilized in the next two sessions, which were split into 30 minutes each with a five-minute break. The driver with the fastest overall lap on Friday would then decide if the single-lap qualifying order shall proceed with the fastest driver first and the slowest driver last, or if the qualifying order shall be inverted.[9]
Conditions during Friday's practice sessions were dry and cloudy.[10] Castroneves was fastest in the first session on Friday morning with a time of 1:17.3686, two-tenths of a second quicker than Wheldon, who was next quickest. Dixon, Bryan Herta, and Dario Franchitti took positions third through fifth.[11] The session featured several stoppages for spins involving Wheldon, Scott Sharp, Ed Carpenter, Ryan Briscoe, Simmons, and Dixon, all of whom suffered little to no damage. Late in the session, Castroneves and Carpenter collided at the entrance of pit road.[10] In the second session on Friday afternoon, Dixon improved on Castroneves' time from the previous session and set the fastest lap of the day at 1:16.9073, thus giving him the option to choose whether to maintain or invert the qualifying order.[12] Castroneves, who was two-tenths of a second slower than Dixon, took second. Franchitti, Marco Andretti, and Herta rounded out the top five.[13]Jeff Bucknum, Meira, and Franchitti spun off-course in separate incidents without damaging their cars.[10] On Saturday morning, Castroneves continued showcasing his speed in the third session with a fastest time of 1:16.6075, beating Dixon by nearly two-tenths of a second; Kanaan, Wheldon, and Herta were third through fifth.[14] The session was stopped three times for non-contact spins involving Carpenter, Bucknum, and Meira.[15]
Qualifying was held on Saturday under partly cloudy conditions.[2] The session was separated into two rounds. In the first round, each driver would record a single timed lap around the circuit;[9] with Dixon opting to invert the qualifying order, Carpenter (the slowest driver of Friday's practice sessions) was the first driver to put down a lap.[12] The six fastest competitors of the first round would advance to the "Firestone Fast Six", a ten-minute group qualifying session which determined the first three rows of the starting grid.[9] Dixon clinched the sixth pole position of his IndyCar career and his first since 2003 with a timed lap of 1:17.0344.[16] After qualifying, Dixon said he was grateful to have won the pole position, but admitted he was slightly lucky.[15] He was joined on the grid's front row by Andretti, who was five-hundredths of a second slower in what was the best qualifying result of his career thus far.[17] The rest of the top-six starting positions were filled by Castroneves, Kanaan, Franchitti, and Wheldon.[18] Briscoe, the pole position winner of the previous race at Sonoma, was the fastest driver not to advance into the final session in seventh.[19] Meira and Herta took the next two positions,[20] while Hornish Jr. experienced oversteer and qualified tenth.[15] Patrick, Rice, Kosuke Matsuura, Simmons, Bucknum, Carpenter, and Sharp qualified in positions 11th through 17th.[19] Occupying the 18th and final starting position, Tomas Scheckter suffered an electrical issue during his warm-up lap and was disallowed from making another qualifying attempt.[15]
During the final practice session on Saturday evening, Dixon set the fastest time at 1:18.5573, two-tenths of a second quicker than Kanaan in second place. The top-five positions were rounded out by Castroneves, Herta, and Andretti.[21] The caution flag was flown twice during the session when Sharp and Briscoe spun in separate incidents. Briscoe, who spun in turn two, nearly collided with Andretti and sustained suspension damage.[15] Scheckter was substituted by Townsend Bell after complaining of shoulder discomfort, but was still cleared to race on Sunday.[19]
As the race began, Dixon utilized the pole position to his advantage and pulled away from the other competitors as Scheckter climbed from 18th to 14th. Dixon held a 1.9-second lead over Andretti on the fifth lap, which gradually widened to three seconds by lap 10.[23] The following lap, the first caution flag of the race was issued when Simmons ran into the right-rear of Bucknum's car, which spun out in turn 11.[25] Some drivers, including Wheldon and Hornish Jr., made pit stops for new tires and fuel during the caution. The top-nine leaders chose to stay on the track, and Dixon led the field back up to speed on the lap-14 restart, followed by Marco Andretti and Castroneves. That same lap, Matsuura bumped Briscoe off-track in the ninth turn, sending Briscoe back to the tenth position. Meanwhile, Scheckter entered pit road on lap 18 to replace a flat tire.[23]
Green-flag pit stops began on lap 24. Dixon made his stop five laps later along with Andretti, Kanaan, and Franchitti, allowing Wheldon to take the lead. Wheldon maintained the first position until he pitted on lap 39 (by which point most of the drivers had made their pit stops),[23] giving the lead back to teammate Dixon.[26][27] On lap 44, Rice spun out Matsuura in turn 11, necessitating the second caution. Andretti, Kanaan, and Wheldon chose to make pit stops under the caution, and Rice's team replaced his front wing which had been damaged after making contact with Matsuura. Dixon, employing a different strategy from that of the other leaders, remained on track and led on the lap-47 restart. The third caution was issued three laps later when debris was left on the track after Wheldon and Simmons collided in turn nine.[23]
Most of the leaders again made pit stops, with the exception of Andretti, who assumed the lead on the 51st lap.[26] Dixon's pit stop was elongated when an air jack malfunctioned, temporarily preventing his left-front tire changer from swapping his tire; he resultantly rejoined the track in 12th place.[28] As Andretti led at the lap-52 restart, Hornish Jr. spun in the second turn as he exited pit road, though the race remained under green-flag conditions. Andretti held a four-second lead by lap 65.[23] Two laps later, Meira spun Briscoe out in the seventh turn.[29] With Briscoe quickly continuing on, no caution was thrown. On the 71st lap, Franchitti overtook teammate Kanaan for second place and began closing the gap on Andretti.[23] Herta spun in the seventh turn on lap 73, bringing out the fourth (and final) caution of the race.[28]
The caution period greatly helped Andretti in his efforts to maintain his fuel.[27] He led at the restart on lap 75,[26] followed by Franchitti and Kanaan, and held the lead for the remaining five laps to earn his first career IndyCar win.[28] In doing so, Andretti became the youngest driver to win an American open-wheel car race at 19 years, 5 months, and 14 days old.[23][n 1] Franchitti again closed the gap from Andretti in the final green-flag stint, but ultimately finished in second place, 0.6557 seconds in arrears.[31] Meira made a daring pass on the final lap to take third place from Dixon and Castroneves, who finished fourth and fifth respectively.[29] Wheldon, Simmons, Patrick, Hornish Jr., and Herta finished sixth through tenth.[26] Kanaan fell to eleventh place, the last driver to finish on the lead lap, after refueling his car on lap 79.[28] Carpenter, Matsuura, Sharp, Rice, and Scheckter were the last of the classified finishers.[32] There were a total of four cautions and three lead changes among three different drivers throughout the course of the race. Dixon's total of 40 laps in the lead was the most of any competitor.[26]
Post-race
Andretti drove into victory lane to celebrate his win, which earned him $131,400.[26] He had also won the Rookie of the Year award, receiving an additional $50,000.[33] Andretti was jubilant and attributed his success to his pit crew, saying: "The guys were brilliant in the pits. They had a plan in the beginning. You know, everything worked. I couldn't be happier because we fulfilled all the goals that we set at the beginning of the year. Rookie of the Year at Indy, the series. We got our win. Definitely it's the best feeling all year for sure."[34] Marco Andretti was praised by his father Michael Andretti, who was proud of Marco for his performance throughout the weekend and admitted he did not want Franchitti to pass Marco.[35]Mario Andretti, Marco's grandfather, also celebrated the victory and agreed that Marco had a "perfect" weekend.[34]
Second-place finisher Franchitti felt that the final caution kept him from winning the race, but congratulated Andretti for what he considered a "deserved" victory.[31] Third-place finisher Meira was thrilled with his late passes on Dixon and Castroneves and lauded his team for his strong performance at the end of the race.[29] Dixon was left disappointed by his team's miscue during his last pit stop, fearing that it may have cost him the championship.[28] Castroneves, on the other hand, was content with finishing fifth. He admitted that he backed off when Meira and Dixon passed him and hoped he wouldn't regret doing so after the season finale at Chicagoland.[35] The final result gave Castroneves the lead in the Drivers' Championship with 441 points, one more than teammate Hornish Jr. in second. Wheldon remained third with 422 points, while teammate Dixon was fourth with 420 and Meira kept fifth with 383 as one race remained in the season.[36]
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Scott Dixon (Target Chip Ganassi Racing)
Tony Kanaan (Andretti Green Racing)
Marco Andretti (Andretti Green Racing)
Dario Franchitti (Andretti Green Racing)
