Briscoe beats Patrick in Indy race at Texas

Ryan Briscoe again led a lot of laps at Texas. This time, he won the race.

Briscoe pulled away in the closing laps after briefly losing the lead to Danica Patrick and won the IndyCar Series race at the high-banked, 1 1/2-mile track Saturday night.

It was the fourth time in the last five races at Texas that a Roger Penske-owned car drove to Victory Lane. It was the first victory this season for Briscoe, who started the race on the pole.

A year ago, the Australian dominated at Texas, leading 160 laps and having almost a 10-second lead before two late cautions bunched up the field. That allowed his teammate, Helio Castroneves, to get ahead and win the race.

This year, Briscoe led 102 of 228 laps and finished 1.463 seconds ahead of Patrick, who followed up her sixth-place showing at the Indianapolis 500 with her best finish of the season.

Patrick's teammate, Marco Andretti, was third. Scott Dixon was fourth, followed by Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti, who took over the series points lead from Penske driver Will Power. Power finished 14th and dropped out of the top spot for the first time this year.

Briscoe gave up the lead when he made a green-flag pit stop with 38 laps to go, after Patrick had already gotten back on the track from her last stop.

When Briscoe pulled away from his pit box, Patrick was coming onto the frontstretch and was already back to full speed.

After Briscoe got off the apron and pulled back on the track on the backstretch, Patrick rocketed by him. When they finished that lap, Patrick had her first lead all season.

But within a lap after that, Briscoe was able to get the No. 6 car around the outside of Patrick. Once he did, Briscoe stayed there and built as much as a 2-second lead before setting for the win.

Early in the race, Briscoe was running more than 3 seconds ahead of Power soon before the first pit stops. But when he got caught in his pit box by a car in front of him, he came out fifth.

On the radio after that, Penske reassured Briscoe that there was nothing that could have been done to avoid it, and "We've got a good car."

They certainly did.

Franchitti started second and was either leading or near the front of the pack throughout much of the first two-thirds of the race until after a pit stop when he came out second.

Within a few laps after that, handling problems dropped him out of the top 10 before he made a closing surge to get in the top 5 in his Target Chip Ganassi Racing No. 10 — and ahead of Power in season points.

Franchitti led 86 laps.

Power won the first two races of the season and had led until Saturday night.

During one stretch, Power dropped from second to 18th place after he had to pit multiple times to remove the piece of somebody else's car that was dragging under his car.

Tony Kanaan finished sixth and Ryan Hunter-Reay, whose future with Andretti Autosport after this race is uncertain because of a lack of sponsorship, was seventh. Rookie Alex Lloyd finished eighth.