Motorsport: Power wins rain-affected Sao Paulo IndyCar race

Sao Paulo: Australian driver Will Power won the rain-shortened IndyCar season-opener on the streets of Sao Paulo yesterday.

He made a late overtaking move to pass American Ryan Hunter-Reay and win the inaugural Sao Paulo Indy 300 and clinch his second career victory.

New Zealand driver Scott Dixon finished sixth.

Power beat Hunter-Reay by 1.858sec when the race ended at the two-hour time-limit, with only 61 of the 75 scheduled laps completed.

The race had to be red-flagged near its halfway point, after heavy rain made track conditions unsafe.

Home favourite Vitor Meira was third, followed by compatriot Raphael Matos at the 4.2km, 11-turn Anhembi temporary circuit in South America's biggest city.

Power, whose other victory was last year in Edmonton, got out of his car and celebrated with the thousands of fans packing the grandstands of the stadium-like Sambadrome where the race took place.

"I feel awesome," the Penske driver said.

"We battled it out.

"It was a great day."

Power overtook Hunter-Reay with only about three minutes to go, taking advantage of the long back straight to move to the lead.

Hunter-Reay dominated much of the race with his Andretti Autosport car, but was not able to contend at the end.

"I had a blast all day," Hunter-Reay said.

"I had so much fun with conditions changing all the time.

"That's what racing is about."

Power's Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe got past Hunter-Reay for the lead late in the race, but he crashed with about 13 minutes left after missing a corner.

Both had been battling each other for several laps until Briscoe lost control.

It was the first time in IndyCar Series history that the race was ran on the same day as qualifying, which was postponed from Saturday because the front straight was too slick and drivers complained it made racing unsafe.

Officials added grooves to the track overnight and fixed the problem in time for qualifying.

Defending series champion Dario Franchitti earned his 13th career pole.

He led the race after it was interrupted, but eventually fell to seventh at the end after sticking with rain tires longer than the other drivers.

The race had to be red-flagged when pouring rain created deep puddles of water throughout the newly built street track.

Just before the red flag, Alex Tagliani - who led early in the race - crashed with Brazil's Tony Kanaan after being touched from behind by Dan Wheldon.

The start of the race was marked by a scary incident involving US driver Marco Andretti, who escaped injury after his car was hit from behind.

The car of Brazilian driver Mario Moraes finished on top of Andretti's and they slid tangled for several yards.

The bottom of Moraes' car appeared to be touching Andretti's helmet, and it took more than five minutes for officials to remove Moraes' car so the medical team could attend to Andretti.

The American driver eventually was able to walk away from the scene and made a short visit to the medical center.

Andretti and Moraes were slowing down as other cars made contact in front of them, including former Formula One driver Takuma Sato, Franchitti's team-mate Dixon, three-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves and Briscoe.