TORONTO —Will Powershowed Sunday why he’s the perfect third teammate at Team Penske.

After qualifying second and suffering a cut tire coming to the initial green flag, he raced his way back into the spotlight and then refused to hurtRyan Briscoe’s chance to win the championship.

With Briscoe focused on trying to catchDario Franchittifor the victory in the Honda Indy Toronto, Power settled for third place and keeping another of Briscoe’s title challengers -Scott Dixon- behind him.

“I didn’t want to attack Ryan,” Power said. “I was happy with third.”

Briscoe knew his fellow Australian would treat him right. He never had to look in the mirror.

“I knew Will was not going to make a bonsai move on me,” he said.

Power did less than that. He sheepishly smiled when asked about the poor restart he got with seven laps to go. Briscoe shot away from him, something that shouldn’t happen for a street course master.

Power won this race in 2007, the final race on this downtown circuit under the Champ Car World Series banner.

“I just wanted to sit there, given the race we had,” he said.

Power has done everything team ownerRoger Penskecould ask for this season. He has finished in the top six of all four of his races, including the Indianapolis 500.

Power joked about how easy it was to finish fifth in that race.

“It’s much easier in a Penske car for some reason,” he said.

Alex Taglianiwas on the receiving end ofTomas Scheckter’s thrown gloves following their contact late in the race.

It was difficult to lay blame. Tagliani locked up his tires in a bid to miss Scheckter, who was trying to avoidMario Moraes’ already damaged car. Tagliani said Moraes squeezed Scheckter into him.

Tagliani knew what to do when Scheckter threw the gloves, as he did atMarco Andrettia couple of years ago at Texas Motor Speedway.

“You ignore him,” he said.

Dan Wheldon’s frustrating weekend took its final big hit on the eighth lap when he and series rookieRichard Antinucci, making his second start, had a disagreement about who had the line.

Wheldon might have had position, but he paid the price, getting turned around by Antinucci. Both had to come to pit road for repairs. Antinucci had a cut tire.

Helio Castroneves’ accident withPaul Tracycost Castroneves dearly in the championship chase.

With seven races to go, he’s 78 points out of the lead. He was 48 out last year at this point before making a valiant run to make it close.

Franchitti leads Dixon by two points, with Briscoe 13 points out of the lead. Castroneves is fourth.

Franchitti said he is finally feeling better from a tick bite that occurred last month while running in the woods near his home south of Nashville, Tenn. He said he got “rather large antibiotics” from league doctors. . . . Franchitti will test today at Mid-Ohio. . . .Paul Tracy’s uniform was full of signatures of people who donated this weekend to Wounded Warriors, a non-profit group that assists Canadian war veterans. Honda’s Canadian arm matched the individual donations, and the uniform will be auctioned off to benefit the group. . . . Andretti Green Promotions, which bought the rights to bring this event back to Toronto following a year layoff, did not release attendance figures, but the crowd was regarded as less than in the Champ Car years. That series raced here from 1986 to 2007. “It’s a five-year plan to rebuild this car race,” saidKevin Savoree, a co-owner of AGR.