Detroit sets stage for finale

Tony Kanaan won and Danica Patrick had her best IndyCar finish.

DETROIT (AP) — Tony Kanaan was doubly lucky, Danica Patrick had her best finish and the IndyCar Series is headed for a wild finale after Sunday’s Detroit Indy Grand Prix.

Kanaan stayed on the track during a late series of pit stops and remained ahead of a last-lap melee to claim his series-best sixth victory of the season and 12th of his career.

The Brazilian, who has won three of the last four series races, kept his championship hopes alive heading into next Sunday’s series finale at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill.

The breaks

“It was a weird race,” Kanaan said. “The yellow came out at the right time, so it was good to stay in the front.”

The crash, which started when Buddy Rice ran out of fuel with seconds to go, collected series points leader Scott Dixon and Kanaan’s Andretti Green Racing teammate, Dario Franchitti.

AGR co-owner Michael Andretti told a TV crew he thought Dixon intentionally collected Franchitti, a charge the Scot dismissed.

“How would that be intentional?” Dixon said. “If I’d have kept going I would’ve picked up five points on the guy.

“I had no control of the car. It was spun out.”

Rice took responsibility for the crash after the race and Franchitti didn’t seem to think Dixon was trying to keep him from getting ahead.

“Some people think it was intentional,” the Indianapolis 500 champion said. “Scott has raced me clean all year and I have raced him cleanly.”

Mathematically alive

Despite the crash, which dropped Franchitti from fourth to sixth, he ended the day three points ahead of Dixon. Kanaan, 39 points behind his teammate, remains mathematically alive in the championship hunt.

Dixon, who won Aug. 26 at Sonoma, Calif., and had the points lead after a dominant Franchitti collided with Marco Andretti, was eighth. This is the second consecutive year and third time in series history that the points lead has changed hands with both two and one race left on the schedule.

Kanaan chose to stay on the track while most of the field pitted after a late-race caution and was in front when IndyCar officials declared the race would be a timed event. Officials set the time limit of the race at 2 hours, 10 minutes or 90 laps and informed crews at the race’s 2-hour mark that the timing rules were in place.

The race ended a lap short of the scheduled 90 and the final-lap crash came seconds before the scheduled end.