DETROIT -- Threatening weather held off, but Sebastien Bourdais managed to rain on Roger Penske's Detroit parade.
Bourdais and his KVSH Racing Chevrolet triumphed in Race 1 of the Chevrolet Dual in Detroit in an unpredictable contest in which Team Penske's four entries ran 1-2-3-4 at the halfway point.
The constant possibility of rain kept teams guessing on their fuel and tire strategy on the Belle Isle temporary course, and even though Penske split strategies among its four drivers, a third-place finish for Juan Pablo Montoya was the team's best result on the day.
Helio Castroneves was fifth, and championship leader Simon Pagenaud finished 13th after trying to stretch his final tank of fuel over 27 laps. Pagenaud actually ran out of fuel on the last lap and lost several positions.
It was a bitter pill for Penske, the promoter of the Detroit race weekend who was coming off an Indianapolis 500 that was barely short of disastrous by his high standards.
But it was yet another example of how anything can happen and anyone can win in the Verizon IndyCar Series, especially when changing conditions are involved.
On Saturday, it never rained hard enough to force anyone to switch to wet-weather tires. However, the guessing game about whether heavy precipitation would arrive kept teams scrambling through the 70 laps.
KVSH played it to perfection with Bourdais. They called him in on Lap 3 to switch from alternate to the more durable standard tires as soon as possible. He pitted again under yellow on the 13th lap, then again on Lap 35, when he had moved to fourth place.
He made his final stop on the 57th lap, later than everyone other than rookie Conor Daly. Bourdais exited the pits neck-and-neck with Castroneves, who emerged as the lead Penske driver but had already committed to a fuel-saving strategy.
Bourdais held Castroneves off in the long run to Turn 3, then pulled away to win by 2.04 seconds over another underdog in the form of Daly in the Dale Coyne Racing Honda.
It was the 35th career Indy car win for the Frenchman, which ties him with Bobby Unser for sixth place on the all-time list. Bourdais, a four-time Indy car champion under Champ Car sanction, ranks second behind Scott Dixon (39) among active drivers.
"The car was obviously really quick, and all we needed was clean air to come back from that pretty average qualifying," said Bourdais, who started 13th. "I really couldn't dream of that, and I don't know how we got there.
"For a long time, I thought the strategy was a total mess and wasn't going to work. Then we finally got some clean air, and I could start to click some quick lap times and make it happen."
The win was particularly special for Bourdais and KVSH co-owners Kevin Kalkhoven and Jimmy Vasser because the team had a difficult offseason in which it lost sponsors and several key team members.
Engineers Olivier Boisson and Josh Fults, two junior engineers and two mechanics were all that remained from the 2015 lineup that produced two wins for Bourdais at Detroit and Milwaukee.
"We had such a rough winter, and it's been such an uphill battle since the beginning of the season, so to come out on top today means a lot to our organization," Bourdais said. "... We had massive setbacks over the winter that really shook the whole tree down. It was tough to see all the efforts be kind of ruined, and we're still trying to recover.
"I'm just glad that all the guys that joined us so late in the game are able to get the reward for coming on board and helping us out and making it happen. We don't have the youngest crew of guys around the car, but they have their hearts in it. It takes time to rebuild a team, and it's really showed, unfortunately, at the start of the season. But today, we put on our best game and came back on top. That's pretty special."
Bourdais knows he and the one-car KVSH operation are unlikely to challenge the might of Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing and even Andretti Autosport, in terms of contending for the IndyCar Series championship.
But he also knows that on its best race day, his team is capable of crossing the line first.
"[Penske] have been beatable in some other places, but on the street courses, they just have their stuff figured out," Bourdais said. "It's tough to come out on top with such a small organization on our side. But when you do, it's awfully satisfying because you know you just beat the best in the business.
"I've been on that side of the fence where I've been in cars that were expected to win, and I can tell you for sure that when you do win in a car that is not necessarily judged as the top of the class, it's very gratifying."
Bourdais wasn't the only driver who beat the mighty Penske organization Saturday. Daly scored a career-best second-place finish.
Like Bourdais, Daly held off on his final pit stop until the last possible moment, and the strategy paid off with a trip to the podium.
"That's the cool thing about Indy car racing: You're never out of the fight," Daly said. "As long as you have all four wheels on and the wings, you're still in it.
"I need to have a conversation with the guys to the stand to figure out how we ended up where we did," he continued. "I sort of followed Bourdais all race, but I guess that strategy worked, so it was good. It was the right call, so we are all happy campers."
Meanwhile, the Penske juggernaut was left to pick up the pieces of an unexpected defeat.
"This should have been a Penske-fest, a 1-2-3-4," Bourdais said. "But sometimes, everybody else manages to scramble all the pieces and get it right, and we did that today."