Andretti Green

Puts Four in Top Seven at Richmond

Andretti Green played the strategy card early and then showed a pace good enough to land all four cars in the top seven Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway.

For the second straight week, Formula Dream driver Hideki Mutoh led the way for Andretti Green. Mutoh led the first 74 laps of his IndyCar Series career and drove to a fourth-place finish. He remains 10th in the series standings.

Boost Mobile/Motorola driver Danica Patrick followed the same strategy as Mutoh and ran in tandem with her teammate most of the night. Patrick ended the night in fifth place and remains fifth in the IndyCar Series championship standings.

Team 7-Eleven’s Tony Kanaan was the biggest mover of the night after starting 17th at Richmond. Kanaan benefited from a quick early pit stop and then scratched his way into the top five before an ill-timed caution midway through the race trapped him a lap down for the rest of the night. The 2008 Richmond winner wound up finishing sixth. Kanaan is currently seventh in the standings, 89 points behind the leader.

Team Venom Energy driver Marco Andretti was following a plan similar to that of Kanaan and was also handcuffed by the lap 138 caution flag that caught Kanaan. Having just been to the pit lane under green-flag conditions, Andretti lost a lap and ran with Kanaan the rest of the way, eventually finishing seventh. Andretti continues to hold down the eighth position.

The IndyCar Series resumes this weekend with the ninth round of the 2009 schedule at Watkins Glen International. Coverage of Sunday’s race can be seen live on ABC beginning at 1 p.m.