An elated Ed Carpenter said scoring his breakthrough IndyCar victory felt better than he could ever have predicted.
Carpenter triumphed in a thrilling last-gasp duel with Dario Franchitti, taking the checkered flag just 0.0098sec ahead of the Scot. That handed him a first victory which had at one point looked unlikely, Carpenter having to drive one-handed as the bolts on his visor came off.
"It felt way better than I ever thought it was going to feel," he said. "Taken a long time to get our first win but we're finally here and it feels unbelievable.
"It was a weird race, I had my visor falling off and all kinds of stuff going on, but I wouldn't let a visor coming off stop me from winning a race – I drove 15 or 20 laps one-handed waiting until our pit stop.
"Dario raced me hard and clean, but I knew we had a better car than him after the second or third stint. The team made awesome changes all day, and we were really good on the restarts. When I was racing Dario I had to check one time that we had enough fuel, but then I think about nine laps from the end I knew I could beat him. I had one more push-to-pass than him and it worked."