Team Penske’s Juan Pablo Montoya turned his pole position for the 500-mile Verizon IndyCar Series race at Pocono into his first victory of the year, using a perfect blend of patience and aggression to pass his teammate Will Power for the win.

Power, who led four times for a total of 69 laps, was overtaken by Montoya heading into Turn 1 on the lap 166 restart, but the pass wasn’t clean as the Colombian broke the left-front wing end plate off of his No. 2 Chevy on Power’s right-rear wheel guard. Rather than suffer from a handling imbalance, Montoya maintained his lead and watched as Power threw away a top finish as the Aussie made not one, but two moves to prevent teammate Helio Castroneves from getting by. The second move, which nearly resulted in contact, earned Power a drive-through penalty. Combined with a late-race pit stop, the championship leader fell to 10th at the finish.

While Power’s race featured the latest in a long string of errors resulting in penalties, Montoya drove with great composure, stretched his fuel mileage, and found himself atop and Indy car podium for the first time in 5406 days.

“I want to thank Roger [Penske] for believing in me,” said an overjoyed JPM. “He believed I could do it. It’s so awesome.”

Dealing with the lack of front downforce was a minor hindrance for the 38-year-old, who scored his 12th Indy car win on Sunday. “It was just a little more understeer,” he explained. “I had to do it. That was the win move and I had to do it. You’ve got to run patient, you’ve got to run smart and it will come.”

Castroneves held onto second, making it a Team Penske 1-2 and a 1-2 for Chevy. Andretti Autosport’s Carlos Munoz, who was in the hunt all day and the clear class of his four-car team, claimed third for Honda. Ganassi drivers Ryan Briscoe and Scott Dixon completed the top-5.

An incensed Power, who held a 39-point championship lead over Castroneves coming into Pocono, saw it completely erased due to the drive-through. After the race, he was less than humble, insinuating he made one continuous move that did not deserve a penalty.

“I was heading over and over [toward Castroneves],” said Power, who was allowed to make one, not two pre-emptive moves to stop Castroneves from passing. “Yeah. And he is my teammate (laughs). I don’t know what to say, another penalty, another drive-through, another opportunity lost.”

Power’s boss and chief strategist Tim Cindric made his feelings known, telling his driver “Get your head on straight” shortly after the race-altering block ruined their chances.

The race got off to a clean start as 21 cars took the start. Power overtook polesitter Montoya and held the position through the first round of stops. Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay was the first driver to encounter problems when his No. 27 Andretti Autosport Honda suffered a left-front suspension failure. “Going through Turn 2, hit the bump, and the car just sat on the floor,” he said.

A trip to the garage for repairs would ultimately cost RHR 19 laps, leaving him 18th at the finish and down two places, from third to fifth, in the standings due to the 500-mile race paying double points.

Other than the electrical issues that struck the Honda-powered cars of A.J. Foyt Racing’s Takuma Sato and Dale Coyne Racing’s Carlos Huertas, the Pocono race was easily the most processional IndyCar round of the year, making it to lap 158 before the first yellow flag waved for Graham Rahal’s stationary car. 

The No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda spun without warning exiting Turn 2, making light contact. “The car just snapped,” said Rahal, who appeared to have the car become unsettled over bumps. “It swapped ends instantly. I think something broke and ended our day early.” Before the caution, the lead changed hands a number of times, but action was sparse with so few cars on track. After the yellow, the race slowly came alive.

Montoya, Power, Munoz, Kanaan, Castroneves and a rotating cast of drivers occupied the top-5 up to the caution period, and with the timing of the yellow, drivers would need to make one more stop to get to the finish. Kanaan’s Target team and Josef Newgarden’s Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing team gambled, pitting their drivers under caution on lap 161 – Kanaan was in on lap 149, and most stints lasted 30 laps or so. The team brought Kanaan’s No. 10 Chevy in once more to top up its tank on lap 165, and with the race returning to green the following lap, the 2013 Indy 500 winner would need to run at a reduced pace to have any chance of last all 200 laps.

Kanaan’s pace dropped to the 199mph range as leader Will Power toured the 2.5-mile oval doing 217s, and with the possibility of being lapped coming into the equation, the Ganassi team abandoned their risky strategy.

Montoya and the other drivers on regular strategies began pitting with 16 laps left to run and waited for Ganassi’s gamble to fall through. Kanaan finally pitted on lap 198, dropping to 11th at the finish. Based on his earlier pace–he led 78 laps, and without the move to try and skip the final stop, Kanaan would have been a contender for the win. Chevy ruled the day on fuel mileage, but TK’s economy needs went far beyond what the Bowtie had to offer.

Newgarden, who pitted on lap 194, had more time to recover lost positions and took an impressive eighth after starting last on the grid.

Of the other notable results, Briscoe earned his best result of the season at exactly the right time, and teammate Scott Dixon, who won the Pocono 400 last year, quietly earned fifth, his third top-5 finish in the last five races.

Simon Pagenaud never had the speed to back up his win in Houston, but persevered in the No. 77 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda to claim sixth after losing a lot of time on a late pit stop after missing his marks led to a refueling delay.

Possibly the biggest star performance of the day went to his SPM Honda teammate Mikhail Aleshin. The Russian rookie, who came into the 2014 season having never turned a lap on an oval, was fearless, carving his way to seventh. It marked back-to-back oval finishes of seventh for the 27-year-old from Moscow.

Ed Carpenter, who earned the Indy 500 pole and the win at Texas, was strangely absent from his normal place on ovals. The No. 20 Chevy started and finished 13th, and never factored. KVSH Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais was fast at times during the race, but a hapless pit stop where he sat idle waiting for his crew to raise the No. 11 and attached the left-front wheel was compounded by a late stop that dropped the Frenchman from the top-10. He’d settle for 16th, one spot behind KV AFS Racing teammate Sebastian Saavedra.

Montoya’s tone-perfect drive to earn his first Indy car win since the Gateway oval in 1999 was the story of the day. His teammate’s most recent mistake was the other, and as the championship speeds toward the season finale with seven races between now and August 30, Power’s margin for error is gone.

After three forgettable races in a row, he’s tied with Castroneves at 446 points, has Pagenaud (-44), Montoya (-55) and Hunter-Reay (-58) in hot pursuit, and won’t win his first IndyCar title if he continues to pile up the mistakes as the clock winds down on the 2014 season.

His next chance at redemption comes on Saturday at Iowa.

Results - 200 laps:
Pos  Driver              Team/Engine           Time/Gap
 1.  Juan Pablo Montoya  Penske/Chevy     2h28m13.1798s
 2.  Helio Castroneves   Penske/Chevy          +2.3403s
 3.  Carlos Munoz        Andretti/Honda        +2.9653s
 4.  Ryan Briscoe        Ganassi/Chevy         +3.8431s
 5.  Scott Dixon         Ganassi/Chevy         +4.6933s
 6.  Simon Pagenaud      Schmidt/Honda         +6.0105s
 7.  Mikhail Aleshin     Schmidt/Honda         +8.3658s
 8.  Josef Newgarden     Fisher/Honda          +8.9506s
 9.  Marco Andretti      Andretti/Honda        +9.4477s
10.  Will Power          Penske/Chevy         +17.2301s
11.  Tony Kanaan         Ganassi/Chevy        +22.0701s
12.  James Hinchcliffe   Andretti/Honda          -1 lap
13.  Ed Carpenter        Carpenter/Chevy         -1 lap
14.  Justin Wilson       Coyne/Honda             -1 lap
15.  Sebastian Saavedra  KV/Chevy                -1 lap
16.  Sebastien Bourdais  KV/Chevy                -1 lap
17.  Charlie Kimball     Ganassi/Chevy          -2 laps
18.  Ryan Hunter-Reay    Andretti/Honda        -19 laps

Retirements:

     Graham Rahal        Rahal/Honda           157 laps
     Carlos Huertas      Coyne/Honda            89 laps
     Takuma Sato         Foyt/Honda             25 laps

All drivers in Dallara DW12 chassis