Auto Racing Capsules: Stewart wins first Cup points race as team owner

LONG POND, Pa. - All Tony Stewart could do the final laps at Pocono Raceway was use every trick available to stretch out his fuel and creep toward the finish line.

Like the gamble he made to leave Joe Gibbs Racing and start his own team, the fuel-mileage call was the right one. Stewart matched his win in the All-Star race with his first Cup points victory as a team owner Sunday, coming from the rear of the field in his backup car at Pocono.

"We're just thankful we could make it," Stewart said.

He crossed the line on fumes, even as his own Stewart-Haas Racing operation seems to have plenty of fuel.

"It's easy when you've got the tools in place," Stewart said. "When you've got a car like we had today, you know that you've got a shot at it. It's just going to be a long day and it's going to take a long time to get there."

Stewart needed time to reach the front of the 500-mile race because of a practice accident that forced him into his backup car and dropped him to the back of the pack.

"I'd hate to think I've got to screw up every week to win a race," Stewart said.

Crew chief Darian Grubb's late-race strategy worked and Stewart became the first owner/driver to win a points race since Ricky Rudd at Martinsville in 1998.

Stewart made his last pit stop with 41 laps to go and figured he could drive the rest of the way without another break. He took the lead in the No. 14 Chevrolet with 37 laps remaining and roared to a 6-second lead over Carl Edwards that gave him a crucial buffer down the stretch.

Edwards pushed Stewart and whittled the lead down to about 2 seconds with inside 10 laps remaining, and the two-time Cup champion unsure of how much gas he had left in the tank.

"I didn't know how close we really were," Stewart said.

With a lead in the points standings and a spot in the Chase for the championship all but assured, Stewart could afford to take a risk.

Edwards was second, followed by David Reutimann and Jeff Gordon. Stewart's SHR teammate Ryan Newman was fifth.

Edwards, still looking for his first win of 2009, was convinced Stewart would run out of fuel. He was also sure Stewart would need more time to become so dominant and lead the points standings like he is only 14 races into the season.

Edwards was wrong on both counts.

"The things that he set out to accomplish this year were huge. I personally didn't believe he could get it done," Edwards said. "I'm extremely impressed with that. I can only imagine how good that feels to get that done."

The first Cup points race with double-file restarts finished without any confusion. The drivers meeting lasted nearly 30 minutes as final questions were answered on the new restart rules that line up the 43-car field following a yellow.

"I'm sure they'll refine it and make it better, but I think it worked out pretty good," Reutimann said.

So has Stewart's decision to bolt JGR to buy a 50-percent stake in his own team.

He's destroyed all expectations in his first season as owner and driver. It was the first points victory since he left JGR at the end of last year after 10 successful seasons and snapped a 19-race points winless streak.

This was the first points victory for the team since their 2002 debut as Haas CNC Racing.

His second-place finish last week at Dover allowed him to become the first driver/owner to lead the points since Alan Kulwicki won the 1992 Cup championship, a span of 556 races.

Stewart stretched his lead over Gordon in the standings to 71 points.

"There will be a banner hanging in the shop that marks this day and time in history for the organization," Stewart said. "But you can't sit on it too long."

When rain washed out qualifying on Friday, Stewart automatically sat on the pole as the points leader. He called this season one big dream and hoped he didn't wake up and realize it was time to get ready to go to Daytona.

Stewart wrecked his car in practice Saturday, then took some of the fastest laps of the day in his backup. He joked that if he knew the backup would run that strong, he would have crashed the first one right away.

Edwards is still looking for his first victory of the season.

"I'll probably be happy later today, but man, to be that close to victory and not win, that was frustrating," he said. "The points are great though. I'll definitely take something good out of this."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a tough second week with crew chief Lance McGrew and was 27th. Jimmie Johnson ran out of fuel at the end and finished seventh.

"At the end, we were just playing the fuel game and I didn't play it hard enough," Johnson said.

Reutimann, long a journeyman driver, jumped into 11th place in the points standings. Mark Martin fell out of the top 12 with a 19th-place finish.

F1 leader Button wins Turkish GP for 6th victory

ISTANBUL - Brawn GP's Jenson Button won the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday for his sixth victory in seven Formula One races.

Button overtook pole sitter Sebastian Vettel on the first lap following a mistake by the Red Bull driver and held on for a 6.7-second win over Red Bull's Mark Webber.

Vettel, the first driver not to win from the pole in five races at Istanbul, finished third after opting for a three-stop strategy.

Button leads the standings with 61 points. Teammate Rubens Barrichello, who retired after starting third, has 35 points. Vettel has 29 and Webber 27.5.

"(It's) the first race where the car has been absolutely perfect," Button said. "This car is just outrageous. Before this, I really believed the Red Bulls were on our pace, but today we were a step ahead."

Button's fourth straight win - the best streak by a Briton in 17 years - makes him the fifth driver to achieve six victories in a season so quickly. The previous four - Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher - all went on to win the championship.

Nigel Mansell was the last British driver to win four straight wins in one season when he took the title in 1992. Button joined Mansell, Damon Hill, Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart and James Hunt as the only Britons to win six races in a season.

It's an unbelievable start for a driver who languished at the back of the grid the past four years and only found out that he would be racing two weeks before the start of this season when Brawn bought out Honda after the automaker's surprise pullout.

"Every race has been pretty emotional, all the old memories come flooding back," said Button, who spent last season at the back of the grid. "We thought it was going to be a tougher battle today."

Vettel touched the grass around turn 10 to veer wide, providing Button with an opening to pass.

"It was my mistake," Vettel said. "But I don't think it would have made a big difference today because Jenson was just too quick."

Vettel, the only other race winner this season, stayed right on the tail of Button up to the halfway point. But unable to overtake, the German dropped 23 seconds back after his second pit stop.

Vettel was mystified that his team stuck to its initial strategy.

"I am not happy but we should be satisfied," said Vettel, whose previous two career victories had come from the pole, although both were in rain-soaked conditions.

Webber overtook Vettel after his final stop in the closing stages and held his teammate off by 0.7 seconds for his second runner-up finish this season.

"We knew the podium was set, it was just a matter of whether it was me or Sebastian," Webber said. "(Jenson) was on another planet."

Jarno Trulli reversed Toyota's poor performances at Barcelona and Monaco to finish fourth. Nico Rosberg of Williams was fifth ahead of Ferrari's Felipe Massa, who had won in Istanbul the past three years.

BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica earned his first points of the season by finishing seventh. Toyota's Timo Glock took the final point in eighth.

Barrichello retired with 11 laps left after a frustrating day that started with about a dozen cars passing him as he rolled out of the start after his malfunctioning clutch kicked in the anti-stall system.

He dueled with Heikki Kovalainen, trying to pass on the inside of turn 10 but went spinning after touching cars with the McLaren driver. Barrichello dropped to 17th place and then collided into Force India's Adrian Sutil soon after to damage his front wing.

Lewis Hamilton, the defending F1 champion, finished 13th.

McLaren has now gone eight races without finishing in the top three.

Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso still hasn't been on the podium this season. The Renault driver finished 10th.

-- Paul Logothetis

Drivers meet with F1 teams over regulations

ISTANBUL - Formula One drivers held talks with the Formula One Teams Association on Sunday amid rising tension and uncertainty over the regulations for 2010.

Only Williams' Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima and Force India's Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil were absent from the meeting before the start of the Turkish Grand Prix won by Jenson Button. FOTA has suspended the two teams for lodging entries for next season's championship.

The other eight F1 teams lodged only conditional entries, contingent upon officials giving ground on a voluntary $60 million budget cap to be introduced next season. The FIA is set to list the 13 teams that will compete in the 2010 championship on Friday.

FIA president Max Mosley has so far rebuffed the teams' suggestions, which include signing a new governing accord that would keep teams in the sport through 2012.

Ferrari driver Felipe Massa called the entire standoff "ridiculous."

"It's a nightmare what's happening with this fight. We wanted to know as drivers and we wanted to give our opinion," the Brazilian said on Sunday. "If we do what Mr. Mosley wants we won't be on the top of motorsport."

Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso of Renault firmly backed his team's unwillingness to commit to the new rules, a position widely shared among F1's drivers.

"I prefer any other category to the new F1," the Spaniard said. "A similar model to (feeder series) GP2 or Formula Three is not interesting for any pilot, any sponsor, circuit or TV. In this case, it would be a totally senseless category."

The FIA said teams that sign up for the new cap will receive greater technical freedom than those who don't, which FOTA believes will create a two-tier system.

The eight teams yet to commit for 2010, including Ferrari, have threatened to pull out of the sport. There are at least 10 new teams waiting up to take their place.

BMW Sauber motor sports director Mario Theissen wasn't sure that a solution would come by Friday.

"It is worrying me that we haven't resolved the situation so far," Theissen said. "It is an important week but I also think it will take more than one week to resolve everything."

FOTA has said a breakaway series was on the table in a "worst case scenario."

"If Formula One is not possible because it's not Formula One any more, than we'll go to another championship," Massa said.

-- Paul Logothetis

Texas trio for Castroneves after 3rd caution

FORT WORTH - Helio times three.

Helio Castroneves won the Indianapolis 500 for the third time last month and added a third win at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday night to become the third person to win both races in the same year. And he has done it all in his No. 3 Team Penske car.

"Right now, No. 3 seems to be a great number for me. I like the number actually," Castroneves said. "It's one of those things that you've been so long with one car and one team, the number basically becomes your identity. So I'm happy with the No. 3."

And how about a little more winning trio effect?

It was during the third and final caution Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway that Castroneves took the lead for good from teammate Ryan Briscoe, who had built an advantage of more than 10 seconds during a continuos green-flag run of 140 laps before two late cautions.

That dominating lead evaporated when there was a yellow flag for debris on the 150th of 228 laps, though Briscoe said he "didn't see any" and Castroneves concurred while also defending IndyCar Series officials.

"I just trust those guys," Castroneves said. "You're in the lead, you don't want to see any yellow. Been in that situation as well. But there is nothing we can do. We have to trust safety."

Briscoe maintained his lead on that restart, but Castroneves got around Marco Andretti and had worked up to his teammate's tail before an unquestioned caution 15 laps later when A.J. Foyt IV crashed into the inside wall on the backstretch. That set up the final stop, and Castroneves' 16th IndyCar victory.

A 6-second stop on lap 175 got Castroneves out of the pit a half-second faster than Briscoe and Scott Dixon, and the 34-year-old Brazilian went on to win by 0.39 seconds.

"That last pit stop, I mean, those guys are incredible. They won the pit stop competition at Indianapolis because they deserve it," Castroneves said. "It was the No. 3 group, they gave this victory to me."

Team Penske has won four of the last six races at Texas, three by Castroneves and the other by former driver Sam Hornish Jr., the only three-time winner at the 1½-mile, high-banked oval before Castroneves.

Briscoe was the runner-up for the second consecutive week, but took over the season points lead from third-place finisher Scott Dixon, the Target Chip Ganassi Racing driver whose two victories this season sandwiched Castroneves' victory at Indy.

"Frustrating result. Probably one of the most frustrating I've experienced," Briscoe said. "When you're so close to winning it, it feels bitter. But, you know, it's good to be points leader."

Briscoe, in the No. 6 car that Hornish drove before the former IndyCar champion moved to NASCAR, is the only driver to complete all 1,038 laps this season.

Andretti finished fourth and pole sitter Dario Franchitti fifth. Danica Patrick was sixth, ending the Andretti-Green driver's series-best streak of consecutive top-five finishes at four.

"All weekend we had a strong car and then during the race, the steering became really heavy. It just wasn't the car we started with," Patrick said. "I wish we could have had a top-five finish, but Marco passed me at the end fair and square. Overall, I'm content."

The other drivers to win at Indianapolis and Texas in the same season were Arie Luyendyk, in the inaugural open-wheel race at Texas in 1997, and Dixon last year.

Castroneves' racing career was in jeopardy earlier this year because of federal tax evasion charges, and he missed the season opener at St. Petersburg because of the trial. But a jury acquitted him on most charges before the remaining count was thrown out.

"First time when I jumped in a car at Long Beach, I asked if this was a dream and (team president Tim Cindric) said it was reality," Castroneves said. "It certainly feels like it's a dream, but I understand that it's not."

-- Stephen Hawkins