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Ryan Briscoe boosted his quest for the US Indycar title with a second placing in the Grand Prix of Watkins Glen in New York.
It was the Sydney driver's fourth runner-up place this season and leaves him tied for second on the points table.
Briscoe started from pole position but was caught up in a series of pit stops which hampered his run.
Ex Formula One driver Justin Wilson of England won the race to give car owner Dale Coyne his first victory in the series after a quarter century of frustration.
Wilson, whose only other IndyCar win was last year at Detroit, moved past Briscoe on the third lap and maintained his edge to the chequered flag, winning by 4.99 seconds.
Briscoe beat home defending series champion Scott Dixon of New Zealand, who was third, ahead of the Australian's Penske teammate, Brazilian Helio Castroneves.
Dixon kept the season points lead with 313 points, 19 ahead of Briscoe and Scotland's Dario Franchitti, with Indianapolis 500 winner Castroneves fourth on 257.
Coyne, a former IndyCar racer who often struggled to sustain a low-budget operation, finally saw one of his drivers take a flag after 557 races that ended in frustration.
'It took too long,' Coyne said.
Briscoe, who won the PEAK Performance Pole Award with a record-setting lap in the Firestone Fast Six session, said he battled hard to retrieve his lead but ran out of laps.
'We went a lap further than him in the first stint. That was going to get us the lead back, but unfortunately the yellow came and we had to make two pit stops,' Briscoe said.
'That put us back. We had to work hard to come through the field. We had some great pit stops and it was pretty exciting at the end with everybody on the softer compound.
'I had my hands full defending them.'
Meanwhile, Australia's latest young international motor racing star, Daniel Ricciardo, has stretched his commanding lead in the British Formula 3 Championship with two more podium finishes overnight.
Ricciardo, who turned 20 last Wednesday, had qualified fourth and fifth for the two races at the Snetterton circuit in Norfolk but improved to finish second in both.
Along with three wins from the 10 races in the championship so far this season, the Perth racer now has a 25-point lead over Austrian Walter Grubmuller and is 34 points ahead of Dutchman Renger van der Zande.
Spain's Jaimie Alguersuar, who occupied Ricciardo's position with the Carlin Motorsport team last year and won the F3 title, is now the reserve driver for the Red Bull and Toro Rosso Formula One teams.
