Jimmie Johnson was able to capitalize on a penalty imposed on Juan Pablo Montoya to win the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. The win was Johnson’s third at Indy Motor Speedway. He became the first driver to win two consecutive races at the historic track.
“That was unbelievable,” said Johnson. “Chad made great changes last night that allowed us to get around traffic.”
Johnson, who was running in the top 5 for most of the race, captured the lead from teammate Mark Martin during a restart on lap 136. Though Martin challenged him for the lead in the final 24 laps, Johnson was able to hold his teammate off to capture the checkered flag.
The win on Sunday was Johnson’s third win of the season.
Johnson’s win came after a mistake on pit road by Juan Pablo Montoya. Montoya dominated the race until he was penalized by NASCAR for speeding on pit road with 35 laps to go.
“I swear on my children and my wife that I was not speeding!” Montoya told crew chief Brian Pattie over the radio.
“It is what it is. It’s pretty frustrating,” said Montoya after the race. Montoya and his crew felt that NASCAR made a bad call.
Before the penalty, Montoya led 116 laps and at one point had a lead as large as 5 seconds over Mark Martin. Montoya was able to salvage an 11th place finish, but that wasn’t enough to to calm Montoya.
Kyle Busch’s season continued to decline Sunday, after a cut tire on lap 58 relegated the Joe Gibbs Racing driver to a 38th place finish. The poor finish dropped Busch to 14th in the standings, 2 spots outside of the Chase.
Prior to the race weekend, one of the biggest concerns was the tire wear at the track. After the first and second practices that concern disappear. “Not one of us in the field had to worry about the tires,” said Tony Stewart.
Stewart was one of the biggest critics of Goodyear last year, after the tire manufacturer failed to bring a tire that could last more than 10-12 laps before blowing.
