Detroit Grand Prix 2007: The IRL on Belle Isle - And they're off!

Castroneves leads Franchitti into turn 1, click for more

The first IRL race at Belle Isle in Detroit is underway and twenty laps in pole sitter Helio Castroneves Castro Neves still leads Andretti-Green's Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan. The cars are flying under the bright sunshine here in the middle of the Detroit River. Roger Penske ordered up perfect weather for this event.

Update: Results after the jump

Several caution flags resulted in the race hitting the two hour time limit a couple of laps shy of the full distance. Following a caution that bunched up the field a return to green flag racing saw a leading train of Tony Kanaan, Buddy Rice, Scott Dixon, Danica Patrick and Dario Franchitti pull away. Franchitti soon passed Patrick and the leading four covered the next dozen laps with less than a second separating them. Halfway around lap 88 Rice ran out of fuel, Dixon hit him and Franchitti joined the pileup. Patrick made it around the mess and followed her teammate across the finish line.