Team Penske and driver Ryan Briscoe won the IZOD Indy 500 Pit Stop Challenge on Friday. Team Penske and Briscoe beat Target Chip Ganassi Racing and driver Dario Franchitti in the final with a stop of 7.882sec. Target Chip Ganassi Racing and Franchitti completed their stop in 8.481sec.
This is the 13th Pit Stop Challenge victory for Team Penske, extending its record. It's the first time Briscoe has won the event as a driver. This is the second time Matt Jonsson has won the event as a chief mechanic, as he led Team Penske to victory in 2005 with driver Sam Hornish Jr.
The last time the winner of the Pit Stop Challenge also won the Indianapolis 500 was 2009, when Team Penske and Helio Castroneves achieved the "double."
Team Penske and Briscoe earned $50,000 for the victory. Target Chip Ganassi Racing and Franchitti earned $30,000 for finishing runner-up.
"I think what you saw now is a taste of what these guys are going to be doing for me in the race, and it's so important," said Briscoe. "I put so much pride in their pit stops, and I'm just lucky to have the best guys in pit lane. Helio has definitely been the favorite over the past few years, but I've got this guy (Jonsson) and I was never looking at who was beside me. We were really consistent, and after the first one we just wanted to keep repeating. They did it all. The Penske pride in the competition goes back a ways, so we don't want to show up here and not be in the competition."
Added Jonsson: "This win means a lot. It adds confidence for Sunday, of course, and we're planning on doing the same thing on Sunday and trying to move up through the field. We win as a team and lose as a team, and that's our job on Sunday, to try to move up the field. Ryan came in on a consistent speed, stopped right on his marks. That's key for us. We don't have to adjust; we just do the same thing every time. If everyone stays calm and collected, that's the way it turns out to be: consistent."