With most drivers choosing to pit early in the race – as part of a normal and logical 3-pit strategy – Castroneves, Marco Andretti and the two drivers from Ganassi decided to go for a fuel-saving strategy and pit only 2 times on Sunday. While this eventually worked for 3 of them, Andretti's gamble was not rewarded in the final stages of the race, as he had to pit late (risking to be out of fuel) and drop to 5th overall.
Until that time, he led the field ahead of Castroneves – which he passed soon after the yellow flag corresponding to Takuma Sato's incident on Lap 11, when he stalled his car on the track due to a throttle problem – but pushed too hard to detach himself from his followers. That eventually caused some great damage to his fuel-saving strategy, as he lost plenty of fuel and had to pit for a 3rd time later on.
He rejoined the field in 5th place, behind the leading 2-pit stop pack and also Will Power, who had the best 3-pit stop strategy from all Indy contenders at Barber. Castroneves managed to hold off Scott Dixon for the win in the late laps of the race (without losing too much fuel), while Power settled for 4th place, less than half of second behind Franchitti.
The Top 10 was completed by Penske's Ryan Briscoe, Dreyer's Justin Wilson, Andretti's Tony Kanaan, Dreyer's Mike Conway and Fazzt's Alex Tagliani. In the overall classification, Castroneves is now second to teammate Will Power, whom he trails by 32 points. Third overall is Dario Franchitti, with 42 points behind the Penske leader.
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