Tony Kanaan: Extra lap of yellow at the end cost me the race

Kanaan, 3rd at the start, needed that one more lap of green racing

Tony Kanaan believed that an extra lap of the caution period towards the end of the race at Road America denied him a genuine shot at victory on Sunday.

The Chip Ganassi Racing driver was on the faster red-walled Firestone tires compared to the blacks of race leader Will Power, but the delay in retrieving the stranded car of Conor Daly, who had crashed out at turn one due to a suspension failure, cost Kanaan the opportunity for his first victory of 2016.

Kanaan also praised Power for having the tools remaining to be able to withstand the pressure, after the Team Penske driver held back some of his push-to-passes to keep the veteran Brazilian behind him on the final lap around the Elkhart Lake circuit.

“I really believe that the extra lap of yellow at the end cost me the race," said Kanaan. “I don’t know all of the details about what happened with the extended yellow, but I’m obviously not in control of that.

“Will (Power) did a really good job of saving his push to passes until the last lap. We had the red tires (in the last laps) which was a little quicker and we were just chasing Will down.

“Towards the end we had one push to pass which gave us extra power but he had three so he had an advantage on us, but what a great race.

“Down the straightaways I was able to look at the fans on the last two laps and people were standing and spinning hats and shirts and that’s what I love to see. I hope (the fans) enjoyed it as much as I did and they come back because we’ll make even better next year."