Bryan Herta has piled up plenty of poles, but yesterday he picked up his first IndyCar Series victory of the season.

Herta held off three drivers in a scramble to the finish, beating Andretti Green Racing teammate Dan Wheldon by less than a car length on the wide, 2-mile oval at Michigan International Speedway at Brooklyn, Mich., to win the Firestone Indy 400 for his first victory since 2003.

"We were the only ones on the team that hadn't won a race this year," said Herta, who spent part of his childhood in Warren, Mich. "We wanted to make that right."

Herta finished with an average speed of 167.197 mph, with Wheldon, the series points leader, second. Tomas Scheckter was third, followed by Tony Kanaan and Sam Hornish Jr.

Herta had won poles at Phoenix and St. Petersburg before notching his third at Michigan. But his best finish of the year was a third at the Indianapolis 500.

He was dominant for most of yesterday's race, leading 159 of its 200 laps.

Rookie Danica Patrick, who had performed well on large ovals all season, struggled yesterday. She finished 20th after blowing an engine on her 164th lap, quickly pulling off the track and avoiding pit row.

"I just didn't want the thing igniting with me sitting in it," Patrick said.

Patrick started from the eighth position, but immediately fell back in the pack because of handling problems. She reported to her pit crew that the track felt slippery, and she had dropped to 20th in the 23-car field about 25 laps in.

A four-car crash involved Townsend Bell, Jaques Lazier, Roger Yasukawa and Kosuke Matsuura with about 20 laps left. Bell spun entering the second turn and started the chain reaction. All four drivers were treated and released from the track's infield medical center.

Wheldon increased his season series lead. He has 417 points, 78 ahead of Hornish with six races left.

ELSEWHERE

Champ Car: Sebastien Bourdais won the inaugural San Jose Grand Prix yesterday. The combination of a very bumpy track and looming concrete walls on the narrow San Jose, Calif., street circuit took out half the 18-car field during the 75-minute, timed race. Bourdais, the reigning Champ Car World Series champion, managed to avoid the pitfalls and came away with his second win in a row and third of the season. Paul Tracy came up 3.724 seconds behind Bourdais in the 93-lap event.

Formula One: Kimi Raikkonen blew away the field yesterday at the Hungarian Grand Prix, winning by 35.5 seconds for his fourth victory of the season at Budapest, Hungary. Pole-sitter Michael Schumacher finished a distant second, with his brother, Ralf Schumacher, taking third. Raikkonen's sixth career victory gave him 61 points this season, second to Formula One points leader Fernando Alonso.