MOTORSPORT: Powering towards glory

It was Power's second win of the year, he has had pole position at all four rounds, and he goes into the May 29 Indianapolis 500 leading the championship for Team Penske -- which has won America's greatest open-wheeler race 15 times.

Fellow Aussie and Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe finished third in the Sao Paulo race that ran, over two days, only 55 of its scheduled 75 laps because of torrential rain and delays caused by crashes.

Briscoe is up to fifth in the IndyCar championship -- 67 points in arrears of Power.

Scotsman Dario Franchitti, the defending series and Indy 500 champion, is closest to Power in the points standings -- 14 points behind Power.

Meanwhile, 22-year-old Sydneysider Taylor and her co-driver Rebecca Smart in a Ford Fiesta R2 finished second in the Fiesta Trophy -- and 13th outright -- at the third round of the British Rally Championship, the Pirelli International Rally in northern England and southern Scotland.

"We're extremely happy, especially after bad luck in the previous two rounds," Taylor said.

"We had two flats in the morning stages on the second day but made a lot of progress in the afternoon.

"Our aim was to finish a BRC event and the next goal was to be in the top three in the Fiesta Trophy -- and we finished second."

The pair then had a six-hour drive to London to fly to Italy, where the World Rally Championship round Rally Sardinia will be held this weekend.

They and fellow Australians Brendan Reeves and his co-driver sister Rhianon Smyth will compete in the second round of the WRC Academy Cup as part of that event.

Academy competitors -- selected from around the world and all under 25 -- drive identical Fiesta R2s on Pirelli control tyres.

Taylor bought an identical car for the British series to help prepare for the "main game".

Reeves, 23, and Smyth were fourth in the first round of the WRC Academy Cup in Portugal in March while Taylor and Smart were eighth.

Reeves has blogged from Sardinia that "it's been raining lots so the roads might be a little bit slippery".

"We are hoping to carry on what we learnt in Portugal and adapt it to Sardinia," he said. "The roads are much softer here but will then cut up with ruts and it will be a different challenge altogether."

Reeves' website is here and Taylor's here.

In Sao Paulo, South America's biggest city, Power had to control a damaged Dallara-Honda car and conquer a track that was drenched  for the second day of the resumed street race to win in Brazil for the second year.

Fourteen laps had been raced the previous day before the event was postponed because the limited visibility in the heavy rain was deemed unsafe.

Japan's Takuma Sato, driving for KV Racing, led for 23 laps but had to pit for fuel 10 minutes from the expiry of the two-hour race time limit.

Power finished 4.672 seconds ahead of Chip Ganassi driver Graham Rahal and 7.904 seconds in front of teammate Briscoe.

Rahal's second was his best since his third in Japan in 2009 and came after he spun early in the race and lost several positions.

Franchitti finished fourth, despite sliding off the course and striking a tyre barrier, while Sato wound up eighth.

Power damaged his car when he touched a wall with his left rear tyre.

"I bent the rear suspension enough to make the steering wheel quite off to the left," he said. "At first I was worried and thought, 'Man, this might be tough to drive,' but then I just put my head down and kept going.

"I adjusted to the imbalance in the car and it was fine."

However, Power said he still wasn't sure if the car would make it to the end but it was good enough for him to make his way through the field from ninth, including passing four cars in the closing stages, after pitting early while Sato and other drivers stayed out.

"It was an awesome race," he said. "There were so many different track conditions. It was a matter of keeping calm and getting past most people without making mistakes.

"As it turned out we did a mistake-free race, with the right strategy. My mind was just to slowly pick people off. The team informed me of who I was racing and who was having to stop again."

While Power is the road course king of IndyCar racing, he is yet to win on an oval track -- and the next four races will be on ovals, starting with the 100th running of the Indy 500.

Rookie orientation begins at Indianapolis Motor Speedway -- known as "The Brickyard" -- on May 12, with first practice on May 14.

IndyCar, which no longer comes to Queensland's Gold Coast each year, has agreed to stage a second race in Brazil next year -- a street race in the southern city of Porto Alegre.

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